Integrate+

Earlier this year, EFICENT had the opportunity to present the Integrate+ work at the Symposium‘Nature and Species Conservation in the Context of Integrative Forest Management’organised by the Bavarian State Forest Enterprise (Bayerische Staatsforsten, BaySF) and the Bavarian Forest Administration (Bayerische Forstverwaltung).

Integrate+ is a demonstration project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) to establish a European network of demonstration sites for the integration of biodiversity conservation into forest management. For that purpose it has established a training site (Marteloscope) in the Steigerwald, Bavaria which is located in close vicinity of the ‘Steigerwald Sustainability Centre’ where the symposium took place. The two day event consisted of both presentations dealing with latest research results from regional and national projects dealing with forest biodiversity and forest management, preceded by a day of field excursions.

Photo: Stefan Thierfelder

During the excursion the Integrate project team had the opportunity to present its Marteloscope site (M-scope). On a 1 ha site all trees are surveyed including tree coordinates, species, DBH, tree height, available habitat structures as well as an economic assessment of each individual tree.
Based on the available data virtual tree selection exercises can be performed on site and visualized directly using tailored software on mobile devices (tablet computer). As outcome direct feedback is received on applied silvicultural decisions and their related ecological and economic effects. Training different target groups with the help of M-scopes can eventually lead to a better understanding of silvicultural decisions and consequently improved decision making capacities related to the integration of biodiversity aspects into forest management.

Figure 1. The screenshot taken from the I+ tablet software includes in the upper left basic stand information of the M-scope Steinkreuz. The bar chart displays the diameter distribution for all trees by tree species (colour codes). The thematic maps present the volumes of each tree and their economic and ecological values which a visualised by the circle size. Also an individual tree can be selected and all relevant data displayed.