PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Forest and soil ecosystems are under increasing pressure due to direct human activities and the effects of climate change. Through sustainable soil management and protection, the performance and resilience of key ecosystem services (e.g. forest biomass production, carbon storage, cooling, biodiversity, drinking water filtration and retention) can be considerably improved. Soil protection in the Alpine region was initiated by the Soil Conservation Protocol (SCP) of the Alpine Convention (www.alpconv.org), which aims to safeguard the multifunctional role of soil based on the concept of sustainable development. In the light of changing climate conditions, softwood forests will lose several ecosystem services. Decreasing water availability represents a serious threat to European softwood forests (mostly spruce) due to their shallow roots. Forest deterioration has severe consequences for the socioeconomics of affected areas, including reduced wood quality and vulnerability to the bark beetle. The county of Landsberg in Germany is already facing decreasing wood prices in the last five years. Due to the lack of a fine root system, as compared to hardwood forests, the soil is poorly aerated and thus a poor basis for biodiversity potential, especially for earthworms. The decreasing groundwater table in the area aggravates this problem. Degraded soils also lose relevant water retention and filtering functions. In recent years, the city of Landsberg am Lech bought additional drinking water from neighbouring municipalities for the first time in history and faced the threat of decreasing drinking water quality. There is also a general lack of awareness and readiness for implementation measures, a lack of convincing socioeconomic models for valorising the ecosystem services delivered by forests, soil and water, and a lack of capacities to bring different sectors together.
OBJECTIVES
LIFE FutureForest focuses on the interconnection between forest and soil ecosystem services. It aims to demonstrate practices at local and regional level on how to prevent the deterioration of soil and forest quality, and how to develop and maintain sustainable forestry. The overarching objective is to contribute to the EU-wide acceptance, mainstreaming and implementation of sustainable forestry and soil protection policies. This also includes linking environmental upgrades in the wood sector and their valorisation through other sectors and the establishment of a sustainable economic cycle at local level.
The project is embedded in a wider initiative: The Alpine Soils Partnership (part of the European and Global Soil Partnership and founded within the Interreg B project Links4Soils), which provides practical assistance to the implementation of policy at local level. LIFE FutureForest will demonstrate that pilot actions in the project area in Bavaria (Germany) can augment a functioning, sustainable and thereby climate-resilient socioeconomic cycle, while taking advantage ofthe multiple benefits of connected ecosystem services.
Specific objectives are to: 1) Contribute to a EU-wide ecological restructuring of forests through local actions focusing on different stages: afforestation, maintenance, and harvesting; 2) Contribute to the measuring and valorisation of the following ecosystem services: wood quantity and quality by means of a sustainable development of forests and soil, increased soil quality through better aeration, increased biodiversity by actions to encourage earthworms and other organisms that help to create and maintain rich soils, increased forest water retention capacity through the introduction of suitable hardwood species, increased carbon storage capacity and a measurable increase of fine roots, and increased availability and quality of drinking water for the region; 3) A better understanding of the multiple socioeconomic benefits through a cross-sectoral valorisation of ecosystem services; and 4) Anchoring these established sustainable socioeconomic cycles in a wider network for further proliferation and replication.
RESULTS
Expected results:
