EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - UNESCO World Heritage

MIMICKING PRIMEVAL FORESTS PATTERNS IN NATURE-BASED FOREST
RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
1. Network motivation and aims:
According to the Strategic Research Agenda of the Forests Based Sector’s Technological
Platform, the competitiveness of the sector depends entirely on ensuring the sustainable
character of forestry, on using research to make wood a more predictable engineering
material, and on reducing the input of material, energy and work per unit wood and wood
based-products. All these assumptions seem to be seriously compromised: The burning of
fossil fuels may lead to problems in applying the traditional concept of sustainable forestry, in
which site factors are assumed steady-state (Wagonner 1994, Kauppi 1995). The
predictability of wood as material is limited due to wood market volatility, amplified by wood
availability being a delayed function of the demand. And finally, the profit margins from
wood utilization are often not high enough to cover the necessary silvicultural measures in
many countries (Commarmot et al. 2000). In this situation, nature-based management of
forest resources becomes a principal doctrine aimed to narrow the gap between managed and
nature forests patterns, to ensure higher forests stability, to provide for a diversified supply of
wood and to achieve desired forests functions at lower costs. Therefore, the major scientific
aim of this network is to find new ways of how substantially more natural patterns and
processes normally taking place in the primeval forests can be harnessed for the benefit of
forest resources management under global changes. Owing to the network structure, the early
stage researcher (ESR) will for the first time get an integral view of nature forests ecosystems
on distinct sites in the Temperate Zone of Europe. That experience accompanied by a highly
interdisciplinary approach will create a new breed of scientists able to pose clear scientific
questions even in the face of considerably complex ecosystem patterns and demands on forest
functions. Trained under the supervision of acclaimed scientists, they will be able to resolve
the challenge of a science-based and economically viable management of forest ecosystems in
a possibly transient, non-steady-state environment.
2. Scientific objectives
The research training activities will unfold around the principal axis, constituted by the
network’s scientific objectives. These objectives will be achieved within the framework of
tasks which are described in detail in the Work Plan section (4):
a) To develop a comprehensive understanding of the causes for the variation in
ecological patterns and processes within temperate primeval forests: Some of the results
from primeval forest research could have been generalized, such as the developmental
independence of small forest segments in beech primeval forests on mesotrophic sites. Further
and more complex research covering the entire spectrum of site conditions will yield
exceptional data and provide ESR with a unique training opportunity in field methods.
b) To form a self-contained picture of the temperate primeval forests functional
capacity: Most temperate primeval show an outstanding performance in terms of biomass
production, the ecological resistance and resilience, biodiversity, preventing erosion, retention
and carbon accumulation. Not always, however, these functions are provided simultaneously.
In the light of increasing efforts to employ natural processes in forest management, there is an
urgent need to determine the effects of natural patterns and processes on forest functions.
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