Finding ways to harness healthy forested ecosystems in Europe and beyond
We are at a crossroads on the planet—as scientists, as citizens and as human beings. We now know that multiple and compounding pressures of climate change, biodiversity loss, and natural resource overexploitation have put the earth's natural systems and the future of all its inhabitants at risk. These pressures have pushed us toward the tipping point of life-sustaining systems, meaning that we need urgent responses to tackling biodiversity loss and climate change. The FORbEST project aims to harness the ecological, socio-cultural and economic importance of forests as a critical component in the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss. It uses forests to understand and improve synergies between climate resilience, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable resource use in Europe and across the planet.
More with a mere source of raw materials, forests are the silent champions of biodiversity, harbouring one half of the world's diverse life forms and offering society a range of benefits. Forests are key for climate and water regulation, microclimate control, and as habitats for umpteen species, among other important roles. Championing the value of our forests, the FORbEST project will to restore and protect natural and semi-natural forest ecosystems, as a means of achieving a climate-neutral and sustainable society. It brings together cutting-edge social scientific approaches with advanced technologies and methodologies from the natural sciences to devise solutions that improve forest function and harness potential for healthy forested ecosystems. The project works with management and conservation practices across five key EU biogeographical regions and one non-EU tropical region (Northern Thailand) and uses an array of methodologies including AI, advanced remote sensing, and participatory action research to unlock powerful, comprehensive monitoring regimes of forest habitats, and to enable a better understanding of their resilience and functionality. Project research is grounded in a transdisciplinary approach, using participatory Living Labs to steer engaged, knowledge-intensive workshops across stakeholders. These platforms will empower diverse actors to collectively imagine, iterate, and co-design new paths and best practices for carbon-rich and biodiverse forest management. FORbEST emphasizes multi-actor approaches to robust stakeholder engagement, as a means of achieving climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity conservation, economic diversification, and citizen empowerment across multiple scales.
This highly ambitious project includes 18 partners, from research institutions, national conservation agencies, national parks, and other stakeholders, across 10 countries (Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Thailand, and the UK), with diverse expertise in anthropology, geography, forest ecology, genetics, biology, law and economics, and communication and knowledge management.
Scientific Coordinator Dr Roger Norum says of the award, "I am thrilled that our project has been awarded funding from Horizon Europe. This was a result of many months of close, collaborative thinking and writing work among the partners, and I am grateful to be able to working with such an expert team of forest scientists. This funding award will enable us to understand how forests function and how they should best be managed in Europe for a better tomorrow. The project will improve our understanding of the role of different drivers of biodiversity loss, in view of the targets sets out in the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. As social scientists we know that technological fixes and advanced digital techniques will not suffice to find solutions to the problems we face. For this we need transdisciplinary scientific interventions, ones that integrate many disciplines and multiple factors for decision-making, including knowledge not just about biodiversity but about socio-economic and cultural context. We also need to listen to the diverse perspectives from a diversity of stakeholder groups, while working across Europe’s diverse geographical and cultural contexts. For this reason, the foundation of FORbEST is its Living Labs, an innovative social science tool that will foster transdisciplinary research and implementation across our varied forest case studies. The Living Labs will also increase stakeholder collaboration between researchers, businesses, decision-makers, forest managers, and communities, and will support the co-creation and testing of ideas in dynamic and responsive settings. They will also inform the development of forest-related policies, and offer opportunities for education, awareness-raising activities, and improved monitoring and management. We hope that this approach will enable us to unlock the potential of forests, contributing to greenhouse gas emission reduction—as set out in the EU Climate Law and Forest Strategy for 2030—and help move our economy towards sustainability and climate-neutrality.”
The FORbEST project, which will kick off on 1st January 2025, is a four-year project with a total grant of €6m from Horizon Europe. A comprehensive website will be launched later this year.
Project Partners include:
University of Oulu
University of Bologna
University of Milan
University of Tuscia
Carabinieri Command of the Forest, Environmental and Agrifood units
Center for Ecological Research
Chiang Mai University
Czech University of Life Sciences Prague
Ingleby Farms and Forests
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Joanneum Research
The Lifescape Project
Lumina
Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE)
Propark Foundation
Pilis Park Forestry Company
Sumava National Park
Wild Europe