Abstract

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.

Keywords

sustainable forest management; climate change; mitigation; adaptation; nature's contributions to people; stakeholder participation; interdisciplinary research; transdisciplinary collaboration; forest policy

Published in

Forests
2022, Volume: 13, number: 1, article number: 98
Publisher: MDPI

SLU Authors

• Hallberg-Sramek, Isabella

  • Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Nordström, Eva-Maria

  • Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Nordin, Annika

  • Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Associated SLU-program

SLU Forest Damage Center


Sustainable Development Goals

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts


UKÄ Subject classification

Forest Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/f13010098

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/116332