Bringing “Climate-Smart Forestry” Down to the Local Level—Identifying Barriers, Pathways and Indicators for Its Implementation in Practice

• DOI: 10.3390/f13010098
• Publication Date: 2022-01-11T19:05:07Z
• Authors: Isabella Hallberg...; Elsa Reimerson; Janina Priebe; Eva-Maria Nordström; Erland Mårald; Camilla Sandström; Annika Nordin
• Keywords: Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified; Skogsvetenskap; Peace and Conflict Studies; Forest Science; Freds- och konfliktforskning; adaptation; stakeholder participation; forest policy; 15. Life on land; 01 natural sciences; sustainable forest management; transdisciplinary collaboration; Climate Science; 12. Responsible consumption; mitigation; climate change; 13. Climate action; interdisciplinary research; 11. Sustainability; nature’s contributions to people; Övrig annan samhällsvetenskap; Klimatvetenskap; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

The theoretical concept of “climate-smart forestry” aims to integrate climate change mitigation and adaptation to maintain and enhance forests’ contributions to people and global agendas. We carried out two local transdisciplinary collaboration processes with the aim of developing local articulations of climate-smart forestry and to identify barriers, pathways and indicators to applying it in practice. During workshops in northern and southern Sweden, local stakeholders described how they would like forests to be managed, considering their past experiences, future visions and climate change. As a result, the stakeholders framed climate-smart forestry as active and diverse management towards multiple goals. They identified several conditions that could act both as barriers and pathways for its implementation in practice, such as value chains for forest products and services, local knowledge and experiences of different management alternatives, and the management of ungulates. Based on the workshop material, a total of 39 indicators for climate-smart forestry were identified, of which six were novel indicators adding to the existing literature. Our results emphasize the importance of understanding the local perspectives to promote climate-smart forestry practices across Europe. We also suggest how the concept of climate-smart forestry can be further developed, through the interplay between theory and practice.