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Natural forest expansion (NFE), that is, the establishment of secondary forest on non-forested land through natural succession, has substantially contributed to the widespread expansion of forests in Europe over the last few decades. So far, EU policies have largely neglected the potential of NFE for meeting policy objectives on restoration. Synthesising recent interdisciplinary research, this paper assesses the challenges and opportunities of NFE in view of contributing to European forest and ecosystem restoration. Specifically, we discuss the potential for supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and forestry and economic use, summarize the current knowledge about societal perceptions and the policymaking on NFE, and make policy recommendations to better use the potential of NFE. We conclude that NFE has the potential to contribute to the European restoration policy agenda if local contexts and possible trade-offs are properly considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forests are subject to a huge variety of often competing socio-economic demands and environmental change. This paper assesses the related conflicts that occur along what we label to be a "Global Forest Environmental Frontier". Assessing 11 contributions to a special issue on the same topic, it summarizes the main contents of these papers and concludes with an assessment of major trends. The contributions to the special issue take both a regional and topic-related approach, assessing forest environmental conflicts on all five forested continents and investigating issues such as forest biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation and mitigation, environmental justice and equity, development, and forest management and conservation discourses. Taken together, they provide an overview on the multiple facets of the Global Forest Environmental Frontier, but also identify some shared patterns and trajectories, which are outlined at the end of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European forest policymaking is shaped by progressing European integration, yet with notable ideological divisions and diverging interests among countries. This paper focuses on the coalitional politics of key environmental forest issues: biodiversity conservation, timber legality, and climate protection policy. Combining the Advocacy Coalition Framework and the Shifting Coalition Theory, and informed by more than 186 key informant interviews and 73 policy documents spanning a 20-year timeframe, we examine the evolution of coalitional forest politics in Europe. We find that the basic line-up has remained stable: an environmental coalition supporting EU environmental forest policy integration and a forest sector coalition mostly opposing it. Still, strategic alliances across these coalitions have occurred for specific policy issues which have resulted in a gradual establishment of an EU environmental forest policy. We conclude with discussion of our findings and provide suggestions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating nature conservation effectively in forests managed for timber production implies reconciling a trade-off between ecological and economic objectives. In continuous cover forest management, this culminates in decisions about tree harvesting (or retention) determining both the prevalence of tree-related microhabitats in the forest and the economic viability of timber management. Applying an innovative mixed methods approach, we compare conservationists and foresters performing a tree selection exercise. We assess the outcomes of their forest management decisions quantitatively and explore their strategies and the underlying reasoning based on qualitative data. Our findings show that particularly the habitat trees differ greatly between the two groups: while conservationists retained almost exclusively large oaks at often high opportunity costs, foresters retained a notable number of smaller-diameter hornbeams. These differences are related to a different perception of opportunity costs of retention by both groups, as well as because they do not agree about how to value current tree-related microhabitats and their projection into the future. Such diverging patterns of reasoning imply incompatible interpretations of what constitutes a habitat tree. Our results indicate that it is important to apply benchmarks for evaluating ecological goals as well as to increase foresters' and conservationists' understanding about the motivations and restrictions of the respective counterpart. Our study points out a significant potential for (mutual) learning, and illustrates the complementarity of quantitative and qualitative research methods to examine tree selection behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retention forestry implies that biological legacies like dead and living trees are deliberately selected and retained beyond harvesting cycles to benefit biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. This model has been applied for several decades in even-aged, clearcutting (CC) systems but less so in uneven-aged, continuous-cover forestry (CCF). We provide an overview of retention in CCF in temperate regions of Europe, currently largely focused on habitat trees and dead wood. The relevance of current meta-analyses and many other studies on retention in CC is limited since they emphasize larger patches in open surroundings. Therefore, we reflect here on the ecological foundations and socio-economic frameworks of retention approaches in CCF, and highlight several areas with development potential for the future. Conclusions from this perspective paper, based on both research and current practice on several continents, although highlighting Europe, are also relevant to other temperate regions of the world using continuous-cover forest management approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • LEK holds significant promise for forest biodiversity conservation. • LEK is constantly evolving and adapting to changing environmental conditions. • Outcomes of LEK integration into science-based conservation remain unclear. • There is a lack of research on LEK in European countries. Abstract Local ecological knowledge and the land use practices of forest resource users who rely on this form of knowledge play a crucial role for biodiversity conservation in managed forests. The understandings of, and approaches taken to analyze, such knowledge are diverse. To systematize the available knowledge, we conduct a review of 51 studies addressing local ecological knowledge (LEK) and forest biodiversity conservation practice. We analyze what specific kind of knowledge is considered, who holds the knowledge, how this knowledge is actively applied in practice and how it relates to biodiversity conservation. The review shows that local ecological knowledge and forest biodiversity conservation are linked through various socially shared aspects, such as values and norms, spiritual beliefs and perceptions of ecosystem functions and benefits as well as operational conditions, including livelihood strategies and economic constraints. While many of the reviewed studies evaluate local knowledge as holding great promise for biodiversity conservation, the conclusions regarding practical implications of including this knowledge into forest and conservation management are mixed. In particular, the interaction of "traditional" conservation paradigms rooted in local ecological knowledge and science-based "modern" paradigms is not thoroughly addressed. This applies especially to European countries, where research on local ecological knowledge is scattered. Drawing on these observations, we conclude that a greater focus on the ways in which societies in these countries can (re)generate, transform and apply local ecological knowledge can play a crucial role in integrating conservation objectives into forest management under changing environmental conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natura 2000 is the core of the EU's biodiversity conservation policy. 50% of the overall protected area under Natura 2000 is forest. Yet, comparatively little is known about the implementation of the policy in forests. Building on a rich set of social and natural science data, and an inter- and transdisciplinary discussion process involving scientists from different disciplines as well as EU, national and local stakeholders, this paper identifies five important challenges related to the implementation of Natura 2000 in forests: (1) the balancing of biodiversity conservation and timber production, (2) the integration of conservation (science) and local stakeholders’ demands, (3) climate change, (4) lacking and less effective funding, and (5) conflicts related to other sectoral policies. Subsequently, five possible pathways to tackle these challenges are proposed: (1) a learning approach through better communication and transparency, (2) a pathway emphasizing the role of conservation science in developing management strategies and responding to climate change, (3) an approach of better integrating Europe's citizens in the design and implementation of the policy, (4) an approach highlighting the necessity of an effective funding strategy, and (5) the vision to work towards an integrated European land use and conservation policy. In conclusion, we emphasize, on one hand, the distinct character of the five pathways but, on the other hand, underline that probably all of them need to be followed in order to make the implementation of Natura 2000 in Europe's forests a success story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, the US Pacific Northwest has been shattered by a major environmental policy conflict related to the management of Federal forests. These “timber wars” were similar to forest environmental policy conflicts in several other countries, but were particularly polarized. They resulted in a significant change in Federal forest policy from timber production orientation to biodiversity conservation. The change occurred suddenly and had significant economic and social consequences within the region and beyond, but was embedded in long-term societal and institutional trends. In this paper, I adopt an interpretive approach in order to, first, understand contemporary interpretations of the 1993 policy change and, second, to reconstruct the contemporary discursive ‘landscape’ of the Pacific Northwest including the major resource management paradigms and narratives that guide policy making in this region today. Empirically, my interpretation is mostly built on 37 qualitative interviews with policy stakeholders that were conducted in the summer of 2011. Based on this evidence, the paper argues that there are four narratives circulating amongst policy stakeholders that represent different conceptualizations of the 1993 policy change. Yet, all narratives highlight the importance of environmental strategy making that mobilized the socio-institutional setting in order to prepare and finally achieve the change. Current forest policy in the region is characterized by a policy stalemate resulting from the confluence of diverse institutional, context-related factors and the inability of stakeholders to create enough contradictions or crisis by combining these factors in order to promote change-enabling narratives. Four resource management paradigms compete in the region and, within these, narratives and counter narratives on physical and social events are developed. Current forest policy is dominated by an ecosystem management paradigm, but forest management practices aim to reconcile demands arising from the different paradigms to a certain degree, for instance via the concept of “ecological restoration”. Yet, given that the material base that feeds such compromises is finite, a new crisis in Pacific Northwest forest policy in the future is likely. In conclusion, this paper offers an interpretation of Pacific Northwest forest policy (change) as a process in which social and physical events are ‘discursively mobilized’ by means of narratives that are produced against the background of major natural resources paradigms. This includes the art of ‘discourse agents’ in constructing problematizations and intervention logics to either defend the current policy state or to increase the likelihood of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]