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On 1 October 2026, as part of the 2nd TRANSFORMIT Media Study Trip, journalists travelled to Czechia to explore practices of post-disturbance forest management at our Velká Bíteš Satellite Demonstration Areas (SDA). We are happy to share that the trip has already resulted in four reports in Czech media:
This workshop was organised by the European Forest Institute and the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague with the local partner at Velká Bíteš SDA. Three international and five local journalists, including a team from Czech National Television, has joined this trip. Together they walked through forests affected by bark beetle outbreaks and spoke directly with researchers and forest managers. Jiří Nohel, manager of the community forests in Velká Bíteš, guided the group through the day, whereas Miroslav Svoboda and Jan Hofmeister from CZU provided scientific input. The mayor of Velká Bíteš, Ing. Markéta Lavická, also joined the excursion.
More insights from the study trip will follow soon, and we will share further stories as they appear!
Key Indicators for Integrative Forest Management (IFM) developed within TRANSFORMIT project
A new article featuring TRANSFORMIT has been published in Forestry & Energy, Ireland’s practitioner magazine for the forestry and energy sectors. Authored by Stefanie Linser (Senior Researcher, BOKU University, Vienna) and Gesche Schifferdecker (Communications Manager, European Forest Institute), the article explores how Integrative Forest Management can help forests meet multiple, often competing demands.
The article also highlights one of TRANSFORMIT’s key outputs: a set of 17 scalable indicators, developed through a bottom-up, participatory process, to help translate the principles of integrative, multifunctional forest management into practice. These indicators give forest managers a practical way to monitor forest conditions, assess management effectiveness, and apply IFM principles across different scales. You can check here for the factsheets of the 17 indicators.
📖 Read the full article in Forestry & Energy here!
Forests in Europe are at a crossroads. Climate change is reshaping disturbance regimes, biodiversity is declining, and societies are demanding more from forests than ever before: timber, carbon storage, clean water, recreation and habitat for wildlife, all at once. Against this backdrop, forest managers are navigating a crowded landscape of concepts, frameworks and acronyms, each offering a different answer to the same fundamental question: What does it actually mean in practice to manage a forest well – that is, to provide the services societies need while at the same time strengthening the forests’ resilience and preparing them for the future?
Spruce forest affected by bark beetles. Bohemian Paradise, Czech Republic.
What has been missing?
Forest management concepts have multiplied over the past decades. Some of these names you might have heard before: Close-to-Nature Forest Management, Continuous Cover Forestry, Climate-Smart Forestry, Retention Forestry… But as noted in the paper, many of these approaches have remained “largely at the stand scale, even for ecosystem services that inherently depend on landscape-level processes”. Biodiversity elements, such as deadwood, habitat trees and rare species were frequently overlooked. Landscape connectivity was rarely part of the conversation.
Today, the pressures are sharper, and the expectations are higher. EU policies on climate, biodiversity and the bioeconomy pull forests in multiple directions at once. Intensive management can reduce adaptive capacity by simplifying stand structures and shortening rotation lengths. Meanwhile, research consistently shows that structurally diverse, species-rich forests are far better buffered against the more frequent and more severe natural disturbances caused by climate change.
What has been missing is not more concepts but more operational clarity. Many existing frameworks “articulate clear aspirations and guiding principles but lack fully developed, standardized operational guidelines”. Without that clarity, forest management approaches face the risk of remaining theoretical but having limited real-world impact on forests.
What is Integrative Forest Management (IFM)?
IFM is not a new idea. First conceptualized by Daniel Kraus and Frank Krumm in 2013 and further developed since, it has long been understood as a holistic approach that aims to integrate nature conservation and adaptation to global change into sustainable forest management. Within TRANSFORMIT, we refined and operationalized it into a working definition:
“Integrative Forest Management aims at integrating biodiversity conservation and global change adaptation into forest management for the sustainable provision of multiple ecosystem services. It is guided by natural and diverse forest structures, compositions, and dynamics to support ecosystem functioning and resilience. Its management practices consistently consider the tree, stand, and landscape scale and employ different silvicultural intensities, including intentionally unmanaged forest patches.”
In short, IFM is not a prescription for what a forest must look like. It is a framework that can be adapted to local ecological realities, management traditions and governance contexts, while keeping biodiversity and resilience at the center.
In practical terms, this definition is structured around 8 guiding principles:
Principle
What it means in practice
1
Retention of habitat trees, special habitats, and deadwood
Actively identifying, mapping, and retaining old trees, deadwood, and valuable habitats, not just what regulation requires, but beyond it
2
Promoting site-adapted native tree species
Prioritising native species suited to local conditions, while allowing climate-adapted non-native species in minority shares
3
Promoting natural tree regeneration
Favouring natural regeneration where possible, monitoring herbivore pressure, and protecting pioneer species in the landscape
4
Partial harvest and structural heterogeneity
Favouring selection harvesting over clear felling to maintain complex, uneven-aged stand structures
5
Promoting tree species variation and genetic diversity
Actively managing for diverse species mixtures aiming for a minimum of three tree species per stand and diverse provenances
6
Avoidance of intensive management operations
Limiting agrochemical use, constraining machine traffic to fixed extraction networks, retaining deadwood after salvage logging, and protecting watercourses
7
Supporting landscape heterogeneity and functioning
Planning explicitly for habitat connectivity, protection of rare habitats, and linkages between forested and non-forested areas at the landscape scale
8
Managing factors that hinder ecosystem functioning
Actively controlling invasive species and integrating natural disturbance processes, such as fire, storms, pest outbreaks, into management planning to build resilience
How do existing concepts measure up?
With this framework established, the paper undertakes a structured comparison of eight widely used European forest management concepts: Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF), Close-to-Nature Forest Management (CNFM), ProSilva, the Stepping Stone Concept (SSC), Retention Forestry (RF), TRIAD, Climate-Smart Forestry (CSF), and Closer-to-Nature Forest Management (CerNFM).
Figure 1: Overview of IFM-related concepts investigated. Each cell presents the concept’s abbreviation and a brief description. (Vitali et al., 2026)
As shown in the graph below, all eight concepts show some degree of alignment with IFM principles, at the level of broad principles, most cover at least half. But when assessed against the more specific operational attributes – the how, not just the what – the picture shifts considerably: existing concepts cover less than 40% of IFM’s desired attributes overall.
Figure 2: Spider-grams showing how each management concept aligns with the principles of IFM. (Vitali et al., 2026)
It is worth noting that this is not a ranking. Each concept has strengths that reflect its own origins and context. The more productive insight is that these concepts are complementary. IFM, as a common framework, makes that complementarity visible and actionable. As the paper puts it, by using IFM as a benchmark, the study helps “close gaps between high-level management goals and their practical implementation” through “a transparent dialogue between science, practice, and policy”.
To show what IFM implementation can look like over time, the paper includes an illustrative transition pathway for disturbance-prone Norway spruce monocultures affected by drought and bark beetles. It emphasizes that some benefits (e.g., using existing deadwood as habitat) can start immediately, while others (e.g., developing habitat trees or achieving structurally diverse mixed stands) take decades, requiring staged planning across short-, medium-, and long-term horizons (Figure 3).
Figure 3: From spruce monoculture to resilient forest: the timeline shows how Integrative Forest Management (IFM) actions unfold over decades through short-, mid-, and long-term actions that strengthen biodiversity, climate resilience, and ecosystem services.
A common framework for a shared challenge
Integrative Forest Management will not manage the beech forests in central Europe and the boreal pinewoods in Scandinavia with the same approaches. Regional conditions, traditions, ownership structures and governance frameworks all shape what is possible. This context-sensitivity is exactly the key feature of the framework. IFM is, as the paper describes it, “a unifying but non-prescriptive concept that is capable of integrating diverse forest management objectives”.
What it offers, above all, is a shared language: a structured way to have better conversations about forest management across scientific, policy and practitioner communities, and to identify honestly where existing approaches are strong and where the gaps remain.
The forests of Europe are facing pressures that will not wait. But with clearer thinking about what we are managing them for, and better tools for translating that thinking into action, we can manage them considerably better.
Read more: Valentina Vitali (lead-author), Frank Krumm, Andreea Spinu, Florian Schnabel, Jürgen Bauhus, Agata Konczal, Lorenz Schimetka, Sebastian Schwegmann, Georg Winkel, & Andreas Rigling. (2026). Managing European forests for biodiversity conservation and global change adaptation: An assessment of current management concepts. Forest Ecology and Management, 611, 123698. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2026.123698
Case study from How to Balance Forestry and Biodiversity Conservation
What makes ecoparks special?
Swedish ecoparks are unique for their large, contiguous landscapes where ecological values are prioritized, often exceeding 50% of the area dedicated to nature conservation. They also include older forests than most of Sveaskog’s forest landscapes: 52% of forests in ecoparks are over a century old, while only 15% of forests outside ecoparks reach such an age.
Ecoparks aim to reconnect people and forests and increase opportunities to experience nature in immersive ways.
Authors for this case study are Peter Bergman and Lena Gustafsson.
Case study from How to Balance Forestry and Biodiversity Conservation
Ecological & Societal Aspects
Auberive’s forest also plays an important ecological role:
1235 ha are protected for their ecological value
410 ha are part of the Natura 2000 network
130 ha are special reserves
Conservation-oriented management towards these habitats consists of maintenance of these open areas (grasslands and marshes) as well as biodiversity-friendly forest measures. These measures are integrated in the uneven-aged forest management and include the preservation of a multi-layered forest cover, the mixture of tree species and the conservation of habitat trees, in accordance with production objectives.
The forest is accessible to the public with several walking, mountain bike and horse trails. However, the frequency of visitors remains relatively low, since the population density of the area is very low. Societal aspects is still important and always taken into consideration, as it was originally the reason for the change in forest management.
Authors for this case study are Boutteaux Jean-Jacques, Benoit Meheux and Yoan Paillet.
“We have the need to improve biodiversity on every scale”, says Dr. Frank Krumm, researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research and co-editor of the book How to balance forestry and biodiversity conservation: A view across Europe (2020). “This is what we know from research. It’s one of our tasks. But we also need to see where our forests come from.”
This means considering different forest traditions, different socio-cultural backgrounds, and diverse ownership structures – placing efforts for biodiversity conservation within these contexts.
“So, if I have the need to really manage protection forests, maybe biodiversity conservation is stepping back to a certain extent to provide this ecosystem service of protecting people and infrastructure against natural hazards. And it’s the same for other requests or demands on forests.”
Dr. Frank Krumm Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research
Not a black-and-white issue
Striking a balance between forest management and biodiversity conservation is not a simple task, nor a black-and-white issue, says Dr. Frank Krumm. Rather, it’s a negotiation that needs to happen between local forest managers, forest owners and communities living in close relationship to a specific environment. Balancing different needs is therefore always a contextual endeavor.
By showcasing 32 case studies of forest enterprises, forest owners and regional initiatives, all implementing forest management approaches that integrate biodiversity conservation, the book How to balance forestry and biodiversity conservation: A view across Europe (2020) aims to merge theoretical knowledge with practical examples ranging across different forest types and traditions across Europe.
“It’s not black-and-white. There are maybe different solutions in different regions, in different parts of the world, in different forest traditions. This is why we went quite broad and across Europe, across very different ecosystems, across very different socio-cultural systems. And I think that’s a very good reason, to motivate others that they really see, it can work. We have the proof in these cases.”
Dr. Frank Krumm Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research
“It’s important to showcase how things can work”
Every forest is different and not every forest enterprise can provide the same ecosystem services. “Having a 3-hectare forest or a 3000-hectare forest, certainly makes a big difference”, says Dr. Frank Krumm. The book therefore aims to provide forest managers with diverse tools and options that can support their decision-making processes.
“So, the idea was not only to create a book publication that is freely available, it was also to create a network that people can really learn from each other and see what they are doing, how they cope with challenges and with very specific demands in their areas.”
Dr. Frank Krumm Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research
Through a spider graph that considers diverse ecosystem goods and services,the editors aim to make it easier to understand and compare different case study examples.
“The idea was really to find a graph or a way to express that different enterprises follow different approaches and have to fulfil different ecosystem services,” explains Dr. Frank Krumm, co-editor of the book, alongside Andreas Schuck (European Forest Institute) and Andreas Rigling (ETH Zurich).
Ecosystem goods and services (adapted from MEA 2005) delivered by forests as the basis of a holistic view on forest management. The spider-graph indicates the weighting of the individual goods and services in respect to their importance, financial resources invested, or work power applied in a forest enterprise (Illustrations by Vivanne Dubach).
As a publication that highlights the local and contextual nuances of integrative forest management, the book also aims to contribute to an understanding that timber production and nature conservation do not need be treated as mutually exclusive but rather can be compatible, when forests are managed appropriately.
How can forestry become more integrative?
Through their chapter ‘Driving factors for integrated forest management in Europe’, authors Agata Konczal, Jakob Derks (Wageningen University) and Johannes H.C. de Koning (University of Copenhagen) wanted to better understand how and why nature conservation is being integrated into forest management practices across different European forest units and enterprises.
“So, when a forest owner or forest manager is telling me, ‘I’m implementing biodiversity conservation measures into my forest management practices’, I wanted to check what does it actually mean? What do you do and why are you doing this?” says Dr. Agata Konczal, Assistant Professor at the Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group at Wageningen University. “Only through such analysis can we understand why biodiversity conservation is important for practitioners and what helps or hinders their integration into forest management”.
Social expectations and intrinsic motivation are key drivers
By mapping current and future social, economic, political, technological and ecological drivers across 9 European case studies, the authors came across various regional differences around what facilitates or hinders the application of Integrative Forest Management.
However, social expectations generally stood out as important drivers, says Agata Konczal.
“So, foresters and forest owners, they feel that this is what society expect from them, meaning to focus more on biodiversity conservation. So that was interesting for us to realize is that social pressure can support and help foresters to think and implement these biodiversity conservation measures. But it also hinders, it stops them from implementing biodiversity conservation because they feel, or at least some forest owners and some forest managers reported, that for society it’s never enough, that what they seem to want is no forest management. Rather they only want strict protection. So, here we come to this paradox of social expectation. So that was really important for us to kind of map this to realize how important the social drivers are in the story of biodiversity conservation.”
Dr. Agata Konczal Wageningen University
Aside from social drivers, a key finding was that forest owners’ and forest managers’ own intrinsic motivation and interest in having thriving and healthy forests strongly supports the implementation of biodiversity conservation.
“They reported that they are doing this because they believe it’s important”, says Dr. Agata Konzcal.
Political and economic incentives matter
The study also shows that political and economic factors are crucial. According to the author, there’s a need to think about the application of policies: “We really need good tools, a good setup for these policies, that will give room to forest owners and forest managers to apply these different policy frameworks in their local context. Because as we know, the situation in European forests vary between regions and we cannot have one stiff framework for all these circumstances.”
“We report that forest managers, forest owners, they expect more incentives, both financial ones but also non-financial incentives, for the activities. On the other hand, the question of the wood market and uncertainties related with the economic situation, that’s what very often stops forest managers, forest owners from experimenting with more biodiversity conservation measures because they may be costly and, in the end, they may impact the economic income.”
Dr. Agata Konczal Wageningen University
Through TRANSFORMIT project and its Living Labs, the researchers hope a more in-depth analysis of economic incentives will be possible, studying local impacts of policy frameworks, economic markets and different value chains across Europe.
This requires an even stronger collaboration between practitioners, researchers and decision-makers, as well as a long-term observation that grasps what the diverse local needs are and what the specificity of each region or forest enterprise requires for effective and sustainable forest management, mentions Agata Konczal.
The book How to balance forestry and biodiversity conservation (2020) was produced within the framework of the European Integrate Network and has been written by more than 150 researchers and practitioners from 50 institutions and 19 countries. Through its various practice examples, it explores innovative regional- to local-scale approaches of how to balance biodiversity conservation with other ecosystem services in sustainable forest management.
SAVE THE DATE – Upcoming Integrate Network Workshop from 2.–4. June in Zurich, Switzerland!
Are you curious to learn more about the application of close-to-nature forest management in Switzerland and beyond? Do you want to discuss silvicultural concepts that can support forests in becoming more diverse and resilient to future disturbances and extreme climatic events?
This upcoming workshop aims to bring together diverse networks, including the Integrate Network, NFZ.forestnet, SwissForestLab, the TriNationalFORESTLab, and various EU-funded projects such as TRANSFORMIT, FORWARDS, Wildcard, Richforests, INFORMA, and SUPERB to discuss and assess integrative, climate-smart forest management in promoting more resilient and species-rich forests. The workshop also includes an excursion and an exercise in a Swiss marteloscope.
More information you will find in the agenda, and in the flyer!
Finland’s forests are more than just a source of timber—they are a vast natural pantry brimming with wild berries, mushrooms, and other non-wood forest products (NWFPs). Covering 75% of the country’s land area, these forests offer an abundance of resources that remain largely underutilized. In Lapland, where pine, spruce, and birch dominate the forested landscapes, nature’s hidden riches hold both economic and cultural significance. In Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland, TRANSFORMIT’s Finnish Living Lab is located, and for the International Day of Forests 2025 we looked deeper into the role that non-wood forest products play for local communities, cultural heritage, tourism, and economic development.
Each year, between 500 and 1,000 million kilos of wild berries—mainly bilberries and cowberries—ripen across Finland’s forests. Yet, only about 10% are harvested. The numbers are even lower for mushrooms: out of an estimated 1,000 million kilos, less than 1% makes it into kitchens or markets. Despite this, foraging is deeply embedded in Finnish culture. More than half of Finns collect berries, with the rate soaring to 78% in Lapland. The traditional practice is supported by Finland’s “Everyone’s Right,” allowing people to forage for personal or commercial use, except for certain products like mosses and woody plant parts, which require landowner permission.
Beyond food, these natural products have growing value in the cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and craft industries. Active compounds extracted from berries and plants are increasingly used in supplements and health products, adding to their economic potential.
Figure 1-2: Typical NWFPs from pine forests of Lapland: Boletus and cowberries. Photos: Erkki Oksanen, LUKE
Reindeer: Lapland’s Cultural and Economic Icon
Another pillar of Lapland’s natural wealth is reindeer husbandry, a practice that spans centuries and remains vital to local communities. Covering 36% of Finland’s land area, reindeer herding generates an estimated one billion euros annually in direct and indirect economic benefits. Reindeer are not just an economic asset but also a cultural symbol, especially for the indigenous Sámi people.For visitors, reindeer tourism is a major draw. From sleigh rides through snowy landscapes to hands-on experiences with herders, the demand for authentic encounters is growing. Tourists are also showing interest in traditional reindeer crafts, fueling a resurgence in indigenous artistry and working methods.
Figure 3: Reindeers are abundant in Lapland. They have many roles: they are source of forest food and they have an impact on the other forest foods as they use them as forage. Photo: Erkki Oksanen, Luke.
Forest Management and the Future of Lapland’s Natural Resources
Most of Finland’s forests are actively managed for timber production. However, forestry practices impact the diversity and availability of forest foods. Traditional even-aged forestry, which involves clear-cutting and replanting, favors lingonberries, raspberries, and some mushroom species. Meanwhile, continuous cover forestry (CCF), which avoids clear-cutting and allows forests to regenerate naturally, creates better conditions for bilberries.
As demand for natural products rises, balancing forestry with the provision of NWFPs is becoming increasingly important. With sustainable management and greater awareness, Finland’s forests could provide even more economic opportunities while maintaining their ecological and cultural heritage. This is the approach TRANSFORMIT’s Living Lab in Lapland is further exploring, and in the next years we will share more insights about the impacts of adapted management strategies on both the provision of NWFPs and local traditions.
Figure 4: Various different NWFPs occur in different stages of forest rotation in even-aged forest management. For CCF, the occurrence is different and needs more research.
The Nezer Forest, selected as the site for the French TRANSFORMIT Living Lab, is also part of several other local consultation projects and living lab initiatives. These parallel efforts align synergistically with the objectives of TRANSFORMIT, fostering a community of diverse, engaged stakeholders eager to exchange ideas on topics such as forest management, biodiversity, social expectations regarding ecosystem services, carbon sequestration, and more. Nezer Forest benefits from its large size, which is well above the regional average for landholdings, offering a broad range of management practices. Additionally, both the forest’s owner and its manager are committed to open dialogue with society.
One of the parallel projects led by the French national center of forest property (CNPF), called Sylva-Cités, aimed to foster territorial consultation to enhance the multifunctionality of the forest. The approach consisted of a series of 3 workshops held between May and December 2024, bringing together approximately twenty stakeholders representing a diverse range of profiles including municipalities, environmental NGOs, firefighting services, industrials, forestry practitioners and recreational users.
The first workshop on 21 May 2024 provided an opportunity to visualize and understand the different services and uses of the Nezer forest. Participants identified and discussed the most important ecosystem services (ES) in the area according to their aspirations. The consultation tools used led to a consensus on prioritizing the following ES: wood production, carbon storage, biodiversity conservation, education/awareness-raising, mitigation of natural hazards and hunting.
During the second workshop on 25 June, participants were invited to map the identified services and uses onto the property’s spatial layout. This spatialization first sought to depict the forest’s current state, followed by adjustments to reflect the expectations and priorities of each stakeholder group. The outcomes of the participants’ discussions are summarized in the table below:
Ecosystem services
Ranking of the most important ES
Target distribution in the Nezer Forest (percentage of surface area)
Evolution compared to initial state
Wood production
#1
[80 – 100] %
↘
Carbon storage
#2
[95 – 100] %
=
Biodiversity hotspots
#3
[10 – 20] %
↗
Education / Awareness-raising
#3
[5 – 30] %
↗
Mitigation of natural disasters
#5
[20 – 30] %
=
Hunting
#5
[90 – 100] %
↘
These discussions highlighted several fascinating topics. For instance, a trade-off emerged between the importance of raising public awareness about forestry issues and providing educational facilities, on the one hand, and the need to respect the private nature of the property and minimize the impact of visitor traffic, on the other.
The third workshop on 3 December focused on exploring the level of risk awareness among recreational users, especially new residents. Forestry professionals have noticed a growing number of inappropriate behaviors from recreational users, such as endangering themselves during sylvicultural work or periods of fire vigilance, dumping waste in the forest or failing to notify the owner before organizing collective activities. But rather than opting for restrictive measures that might strain relations with recreational users, the workshop provided an opportunity to discuss and propose a large number of innovative initiatives to raise awareness among this public, share the rules of good conduct, and foster a sense of collaboration. This way, recreational users can become allies for nature protection and vigilance against incivilities.
As a peri-urban private forest, the Nezer forest faces a growing number of challenges, including addressing the needs of local residents, preserving biodiversity, and adapting forest management to future conditions. This territorial consultation process, involving a wide variety of stakeholders, provides a valuable opportunity to better understand the expectations of all parties and develop tailored solutions. The TRANSFORMIT project will provide tools to more effectively measure efforts in each of the social, ecological and economic dimensions of forest management. Additionally, it will foster reflection and facilitate the sharing of best practices for forest integrative management on a European scale.
Discussions focused on the role of Living Labs as a core element of the project, addressing the unique challenges and opportunities of managing Zagreb’s forests to balance recreation, conservation, and sustainable wood production.
Zagreb City Forests LL: A collaborative approach
The Zagreb City Forests LL is built on a strong foundation of cooperation between five key stakeholders. These forests, valued primarily for recreation and well-being, also contribute to the city’s environmental quality. While many are protected areas, they remain actively managed under an integrative approach that combines conservation with sustainable wood production.
The next major discussion on this approach will take place at the all-LL in-person meeting in April 2025, where Zagreb City Forests LL will host fellow TRANSFORMIT partners.
Field visit to the Grmoščica Park Forest (one of many Park Forests in Zagreb City Forests LL)
As part of the event, participants visited Grmoščica Park Forest, one of many urban forests within the Zagreb City Forests LL. This hads-on experience provided valuable insights into real-world management practices and the challenges of balancing nature conservation, public use, and resource sustainability.
