Since our research is focusing on payments for ecosystem services considering successful PES schemes around the world, the conference “Governing and managing forests for multiple ecosystem services across the globe” was an ideal platform to present some results.
The conference venue (research Centre CAESAR, Bonn, Germany) was well organized for the international level conference. A large number of researchers, landowners representatives, as well as conservation, forest policy and forest economy experts made the conference very precious.
The poster panel was divided based on three different subjects: The political and social science perspectives, the economic perspective, the silvicultural and conservation perspectives. Our poster was presented in the second part and we got contructive feedback by researchers and experts.
The conference provided also a valuable learning experience. It was possible to get to know several academics and professionals from different countries with similar research interests. Moreover, the excursion to the Kottenforst provided an insight into forest management practices, current challenges in case of climate change but also into the perspective of private forest owners.
There were also interesting dialogues and some key messages given to the audience:
“Much of the development we have experienced had been at the cost of ecological sustainability” by Humberto Delgado
“Silviculture research output can be used as proxies for ecosystem services, Horse should be put before the cart” by Klaus Puettmann
“We need more round table discussions between the different actors and forest stakeholders. Forests owner and different actors need to sit together and find a policy solution that works for all” by Ulrich Schraml – director of FVA Freiburg
“Integrative forest management currently functions better at the site level than at discourse level” by Ulrich Schraml
“Science needs to integrate emotions, foresters emotion as well as the general public emotion to the forest in order to cope with contemporary forest challenges” by Meriem Fournier
“We don’t want payment or subsidies for forest ecosystem services we want these services to be on the market” By Bernhard Budil from Austria as forest owners’ representative
A variety of forest management concepts, such as sustainable forest management, ecosystem-based management, close-to-nature-forestry or multifunctional forestry have been developed to meet the demands of society in different contexts. It will be really important in future to learn more about the scientific approach of forest governance and management beyond forest ecology and economics.
We really thank the organizers (INFORMAR, POLYFORES, ConFoBi, Oforest, Swiss Forest Lab, Sincere, ForBioeconomy and NFZforestnet.) for the three days of great discussions and inspiring inputs from across the globe.