In Europe, like in many temperate lowlands worldwide, forest has a long history of fragmentation and land use change. In many places, forest landscapes consist of patches of different quality, age, size and isolation, embedded in a more or less intensively managed agricultural matrix. As potential biodiversity islets, small forest patches (SFP) may deliver several crucial ecosystem services to human society, but they receive little attention compared to large, relatively intact forest patches. Beyond their role as a biodiversity reservoir, SFP provide important in situ services such as timber and wild food (game, edible plants and mushrooms) production. At the landscape scale, SFP may enhance the crop production via physical (obstacle against wind and floods) and biological (sources of pollinators and natural enemies) regulation, but may, on the other hand, also be involved in the spread of infectious diseases. Depending on their geographic location, SFP can also greatly influence the water cycle and contribute to supply high-quality water to agriculture and people. Globally, SFP are important carbon sinks and are involved in nutrient cycles, thus play a role in climate change mitigation. Cultural services are more related to landscape values than to SFP per se, but the latter may contribute to the construction of community identity. We conclude that SFP, as local biodiversity hotspots in degraded landscapes, have the potential to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services and may even be crucial for the ecological intensification of agroecosystems. There is thus an urgent need to increase our knowledge about the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem services delivered by these SFP in agricultural landscapes.
Social innovation (SI) impacts are long-term changes that affect different dimensions of territorial capital (i.e., economy, society, environment, governance) for the territory in which SI occurs. Yet, systematic empirical evidence and theoretically sound assessments of the impacts of SI are scarce. This paper aims to fill the gap and assess the different aspects of SI’s impacts in European and Mediterranean areas that are characterized by marginalization processes. To assess the impacts of SI in marginalized areas, we use the evaluation framework developed within the Social Innovation in Marginalized Rural Areas (SIMRA) Horizon 2020 project and apply it to nine SI initiatives related to the fields of agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and rural development. Our findings show that SI produces cross-sectoral (societal, economic, environmental, and governmental) and multi-level impacts (on individuals, community, and society), which have improved the societal well-being, and contributed to the reduction of certain forms of marginality, mainly inside the territory in which SI occurred.
Wildfires are one of the most prominent risks for Mediterranean forests, reducing the flow of ecosystem services and representing a hazard for infrastructure and human lives. Several wildfire prevention programs in southern Europe are currently incorporating extensive livestock grazers in fire prevention activities to reduce the high costs of mechanical clearance. Among these the Andalusian network of grazed fuel breaks, the so-called RAPCA program, stands out for its dimension and stability over time. RAPCA currently works with 220 local shepherds who, with their guided flocks maintain low biomass levels in almost 6000 ha of fuel breaks in public forests to meet fire prevention standards. This work analyses the institutional design and performance of the RAPCA payment scheme under a payment for environmental services (PES) framework. Results show effectiveness of the payment scheme while efficiency is achieved through savings relative to the mainstream mechanized biomass removal, as well as through reduced information asymmetry. High-level and stable political commitment has been crucial for the emergence and consolidation of RAPCA. Moreover, key intermediaries and sound monitoring practices increased levels of trust amongst involved actors. Beneficial side-effects include social recognition of shepherds’ activities and reduction of their friction with forest managers.
In fire-prone areas such the Mediterranean basin, wildfire risk means a societal challenge. Governments in modern welfare states have generally addressed it through a "zero fire policy", focusing on suppression and professionalization. Such approach provides security to local populations, who in turn may detach from the socio-ecologic phenomenon of wildfire and become passive actors. In the face of increasingly virulent wildfires, local communities are often not prepared with consequent damages and casualties.Yet, some regions show pro-active locals organizing their efforts to tackle wildfires. These fire volunteer groups suppose a social innovation in rural communities that help in their adaptation to climate change. Going beyond homeowners' preparedness, the actions of volunteers range from supporting firefighters' efforts, first attack and/or year-round prevention. The investigation of these communities is in its infancy despite its practitioner and policy interest.In this study, we shed light on this civil society engagement across different Mediterranean forest settings, namely from predominantly public forest ownership in Greece, to predominantly private in Catalonia (Spain) and virtually entirely private in Portugal. Collecting data through a survey, the type of activities of these volunteer groups, their relations with fire and local actors (i.e. social capital) and trajectory have been analysed to find possible trends.Statistical results show that their portfolio of activities relates to their group size (i.e. available human resources) and their structural and relational social capital. Preliminary insights show an improvement in trust with fire and forest actors owing to the fire volunteer group establishment. No evidence has been found of forest area covered by fire volunteers, recent fire experience or variety in members' profile to affect the type of activities. The results are discussed in the frame of social capital theory and suggestions for further research are put forward.
Innovation actions within European Horizon 2020 (H2020) projects aim at testing research results in practice. When supporting social innovations in rural areas, such testing requires the alignment of several rural actors in order to entail behavioral changes beyond the individual level. Recently, social innovation has been recognized as an important tool for rural areas, developing new solutions to respond to wicked problems for improving local living conditions at the grassroots level. In this study, we analyzed the use of an operational framework to support the early governance of social innovation actions. This framework was applied to co-construct seven innovation actions across Europe and the Mediterranean basin applied to forestry, agriculture, and rural development. Our results showed that supporting social innovators and local actors at the early stage of social innovation processes is key for efficiently addressing and tackling challenges and opportunities. Additionally, we showed that the process of defining a social innovation is complex and requires recursive engagement, which might lead to evolution through time, especially in the first phases of the process. Lastly, conducting the feasibility assessment enabled strategic thinking on crucial dimensions for designing a promising social innovation action, such as social networks management, financial sustainability, and know-how. Such findings helped us to draw general lessons for the development and governance of social innovation actions in rural areas, potentially applicable to any rural sector.
Background: In the last decade, the demand for and supply of energy wood from forests has increased, and experts expect a further increase in the future due to political and societal changes. The objective of this paper was to provide a qualitative analysis of stakeholders' perceptions of current and future trade-offs as well as of synergies between energy wood production and use and other forest ecosystem services (ES). Methods: We developed an explorative research approach and conducted semi-structured interviews with a total of 103 interviewees of six selected stakeholder groups in five European countries: Finland, Germany, Norway, Slovenia and Spain. For the analysis, we adopted a qualitative content analysis approach.
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