Subscribe to our newsletter

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Safeguarding Carbon and Biodiversity
across European Forest Ecosystems through Multi-actor Innovation

Forests play a critical role in mitigating climate change and supporting biodiversity, but many old-growth and natural ecosystems are under pressure from intensive human activities  and environmental change . Protecting and restoring forests is crucial for sustainable and climate-neutral societies. Without coordinated conservation and restoration efforts, these ecosystems risk losing capacity to provide essential services like carbon storage and habitat for wildlife. To protect and restore forest ecosystems, the EU-funded FORbEST project will operate across five key EU biogeographical regions and one tropical area to understand the effects of governance on forests. The project will engage local communities in developing conservation and sustainable management practices that enhance biodiversity, support climate adaptation and empower citizens for a greener future.
Partners
0
Countries
0
Project start
0
Project end
0
Total budget
€ 0 M
Partners
0
Countries
0
Project start
0
Project end
0
Total budget
€ 0 M

Objectives and Ambitions

Employing a multi-actor approach grounded in the establishment of six case studies within a Living Lab community, our main objective is to contribute knowledge of the climate-biodiversity nexus, through understanding the benchmark value and distribution of primary forests, known to be carbon- and biodiversity-rich, and devising a range of management, conservation through active, and restoration options, as well as policy interventions, that support the conservation and optimize ecosystem services provision of such forests.

From Knowledge to Action

Find knowledge-based solutions identifying carbon and biodiversity beneficial management approaches across 6 case study areas in diverse biogeographical and socio-ecological settings

The gap between scientific knowledge and implementation is addressed, and knowledge-based carbon and biodiversity friendly solutions to forest-related challenges become available to decision makers in case study areas

Smart Monitoring for Smart Decisions

Test the effectiveness and scalability of novel field-based carbon and biodiversity monitoring techniques based on eDNA metabarcoding and AI-powered ecoacoustics and smartphone apps.

The cost-effectiveness and scalable nature of novel biodiversity and carbon monitoring techniques is validated against traditional methods. Novel techniques that improve efficiency and lower participation barriers will be shared for wide-scale adoption.

Safeguarding carbon and biodiversity

Identify forests with both high carbon stocks and biodiversity value to prioritise conservation efforts, and deploy an early warning system that provides alerts of human and natural disturbances based on remote sensing, AI and in-situ data.

The EU ‘Biodiversity Strategy for 2030’ mandates protection of all of EU’s remaining primary forests, yet many data gaps remain regarding location and conservation status of these forests.

Foreseeing Biodiversity Futures

Model species’ response to different drivers of change, predict biodiversity shifts and extinction risk in protected areas, and identify active and passive restoration tools that will be most beneficial to biodiversity, resilience, and carbon uptake/storage

Emergent biodiversity trajectories are understood and hotspots of habitat loss identified, together with priority areas for adaptive forest management and the expansion of protected forest networks

Connecting Forest Landscapes

Identify barriers to the natural co-migration of forest communities and develop regional-scale restoration strategies and spatial planning techniques to facilitate species co-migration

Barriers for the natural co-migration of forest species are identified, and key areas whose restoration could improve landscape connectivity located

Nature as an Economic Opportunity

Revise financial incentives to promote Ecosystem Services in case study regions. Develop policy recommendations to enhance economic opportunities and secure support from public and private landowners for forest protection.

Landowners and decision-makers are aware of existing business opportunities and incentive schemes to foster ecosystem services in case study areas

Methodology and Work Packages

FORbEST’s analyses are organized into three pillars. Each pillar is designed to address specific objectives across nine Work Packages (WPs).

WP1

Lead: UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DELLA TUSCIA ( University of Tuscia), Italy

Seeing forests for trees: background, context and scoping

Objectives

  1. Build a critical glossary of core terms, concepts and definitions to be used throughout the project;
  2. Carry out a comprehensive literature review of work done on forest ecosystems, in particular dealing with biodiversity and carbon;
  3. Review the role of forest for climate mitigation;
  4. Assess win-win forest management practices across the European context;
  5. Develop a concrete environmental policy for biodiversity conservation.

WP2

Lead: OULUN YLIOPISTO (University of Oulu), Finland

Living Labs: Co-creation of best practices with stakeholders.

Objectives

  1. Establish Living Labs in case study sites;
  2. Drive knowledge co-creation on best practices via iterative workshops;
  3. Generate future roadmaps for socially, ecologically and economically sustainable forestry.

WP3

Lead: ALMA MATER STUDIORUM – UNIVERSITA’ DI BOLOGNA (University of Bologna) Italy

Integrated approaches for advanced carbon and biodiversity monitoring

Objectives

  1. Benchmark novel carbon and biodiversity monitoring techniques against traditional monitoring in case studies, and test whether novel techniques can be upscaled at regional scale;
  2. Identify forest areas having both high carbon stocks and high biodiversity value;
  3. Deploy an early warning system for monitoring forest disturbance discerning between human and natural disturbance events;
  4. Quantify the connectivity of carbon and biodiversity rich forests at the EU level and assess components of climate-change related risk.

WP4

Lead: INTERNATIONALES INSTITUT FUER ANGEWANDTE SYSTEMANALYSE (International Institute for Applied System Analysis), Austria

Fostering co-migration of forest communities

Objectives

  1. Develop models to assess multi-taxonomic response to climate and forest management, based on available data on the spatial distribution of selected species;
  2. Assess the direction of future distribution of tree species to maximize dynamic gene conservation flow;
  3. Evaluate changes in forest functioning in the future due to climate change and natural disturbance impacts;
  4. Map species extinction risk and strategies to reverse biodiversity loss under climate change and natural disturbances.

WP5

Lead: HUN-REN OKOLOGIAI KUTATOKOZPONT (Centre for Ecological Research), Hungary

Regional and landscape-level restoration techniques.

Objectives

  1. Assess the risk for biodiversity loss in protected areas;
  2. Define active and passive forest restoration tools/techniques and their potential along the restorative continuum, in the context of regional and landscape planning;
  3. Develop regional-level restoration strategies and spatial planning techniques to allow species and community migration and generate regional-scale restoration maps of the case study areas;
  4. Develop innovative management and ecological restoration tools based on Natural Dynamics Silviculture (NDS).

WP6

Lead: The Lifescape Project, UK

Policy and economic recommendations

Objectives

  1. Delineate legal and economic considerations that will contribute towards improving the naturalness of forests across various biogeographical regions through:
    • analysing economics of forest management scenarios as determined by WP7 modelling;
    • identifying possible economic incentives to support suggested forest management changes;
    • making forest management policy recommendations to overcome challenges, and user-friendly practitioner toolkits.

WP7

Lead: CESKA ZEMEDELSKA UNIVERZITA V PRAZE (Czech University of Life Science Prague), Czech Republic

Forest conservation and management options to maximize climate and biodiversity benefits

Objectives

  1. Determine reference values for climate regulation and biodiversity in the dominant forest types across Europe, including potential shifts in these benchmarks due to climate change, altered disturbance regimes, and other factors;
  2. Assess the gap between actual and maximum potential carbon and biodiversity levels in representative forest landscapes across Europe;
  3. Provide operational management guidelines for maximizing forest climate regulation and biodiversity, including accounting for carbon-biodiversity synergies and trade-offs.

WP8

Lead: Lumina Srl, Belgium

Communication, dissemination and exploitation

Objectives

  1. Provide the overall framework to connect with relevant institutions at the regional, national and EU-level as well as relevant stakeholders to disseminate research results;
  2. Maximise the impact of the project on its target groups, beneficiaries and a wide range of stakeholders more broadly;
  3. Facilitate dialogue and co-creation of knowledge between stakeholders and project partners;
  4. Ensure the sustainable exploitation of the project results;
  5. Facilitate comprehensive understanding among forest-forestry stakeholders to better prepare their lands and manage climate risks and opportunities through management optimalisation.

WP9

Lead: OULUN YLIOPISTO (University of Oulu), Finland

Project Management

Objectives

  1. Coordinate and supervise all project research and innovation activities to be carried out according to the work plan, in addition to monitoring and ensuring quality and timing of project deliverables;
  2. carry out overall administrative and financial management and reporting of the project;
  3. manage contacts with EC and establish effective internal and external communication;
  4. resolve any potential conflicts;
  5. manage IPR related to achieved results;
  6. manage data generated by project (DMP);
  7. evaluate achievement of project objectives and assure the quality of the outputs;
  8. Oversee all project activities in accordance with Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) principles, including ethics, gender equality, governance, open access, public engagement, and science education;
  9. ensure project is completed within planned scope, results, time, and cost.
FORbEST is a Horizon Europe project funded by the European Union (Grant Agreement No. 101181878). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Pictures of forests: courtesy of Marek Mejstrik
Subscribe to our newsletter