A Just Transition

Conversations with foresters on the drawbacks of intensive forestry and the solutions offered by close-to-nature practices

Read the paper here

“A growing movement of foresters are showing that we can manage forests profitably while addressing the climate and biodiversity emergency. Through close-to-nature forestry, their businesses have flourished and provided more decent rural jobs, despite having a lower impact on the environment.

Based on interviews with foresters, this discussion document explores some reasons why intensive forestry is frequently neither fair or sustainable and puts forward a new vision of a diverse and thriving forest-based sector where all actors receive their fair share.

The main conclusions are that:

1. Close-to-nature forestry often offers more profit to forest owners than intensive practices.
2. Europe's forest health is rapidly deteriorating– largely due to intensive forestry.
3. Close-to-nature forestry offers economic multifunctionality.
4. Unhelpful past management practices, which stand in the way of a transition to close-to-nature management can be changed by removing improper subsidies and increasing education about alternatives to monocultures.
5. In the long run, the forestry industry will need to rethink its practices: in southern Sweden, for example, revenue from timber already fails to keep up with rising costs.
6. Despite increased logging, employment in forestry is diminishing.
7. Intensive forestry is undermining forests' environmental and social functions.

You can also watch our short film showing the foresters across Europe who are adopting close-to-nature forestry. Large-scale clear-cutting and replanting have drastic impacts on the environment, so many foresters are transitioning to practices that work with, and not against, nature.

Categorias: Reports, Close-to-nature forestry, European forests