Integrate+

The participating Norwegian foresters having a diverse professional background represented state forest administrations, private forest owners’ associations and nature conservation/national park authorities.
The motivation for the expert exchange was the Norwegian interest in converting spruce dominated monocultures towards multi-purpose, diverse and more resilient forest systems. This was addressed in the context of changing climatic conditions and wood markets and the fact that most of Norway’s forests are in private ownership.

The agenda for the week was tailored to the requests of the group and included various forest sites with their respective forest managers in the mountains of Bavaria and the Allgäu region of Baden Württemberg. Private forest owners’ associations in various organizational forms were visited as were state forest enterprises.

The topics that were intensively discussed focused on silvicultural concepts, biodiversity integration in managed forests, climate change and related forest risks, road construction in mountain forests, protection forest issues, shareholding of forest associations, forest history and wildlife management and mechanisms as well as types of state subsidies for private owners.

The exchange of experiences was regarded as an important incentive for developing new approaches and laid the foundation for future exchange and cooperation. The field excursion provided good insight to applied integrative forest management and the need for further knowledge exchange was clearly formulated. The Integrate publication ‘In Focus: Integrative approaches as an opportunity for the conservation of forest biodiversity’ served as reference and an order was placed for English copies to be shipped to Norway. Also a return visit of German forest experts to Norway was proposed.

For more information, consult the Integrate+ field excursion guide