Dear all

The call for abstracts for IUFRO 2017 session 99 “Adaptive spaces: can forest planning support innovative forest practice and knowledge co-creation?”  is now open. The theme links governance, forest management innovation and practice, and climate change. We are looking forward to a diverse and lively session – please consider submitting an abstract! If you want to discuss your ideas, please contact one of the organisers (see below). To submit, go to http://iufro2017.com/call-for-abstracts/.

Session outline

Multiple sources of uncertainty affect future forestry, and hence current planning and practice. Rational hierarchical planning approaches are challenged by multiple crises including climate change and tree health. Conventionally practitioners are seen as the recipients of knowledge from science, and implementers of decisions from planners. However when they have to cope with uncertainty, practitioners are sometimes adapting and generating new knowledge through practice, trying out different species, silvicultural techniques and harvesting methods. Such developments contrast with the command-and-control approach based on scientific prediction, and can sit uncomfortably with the traditional characteristics of natural resource management organisations, which have been typecast as bureaucratic, hierarchical and slow to learn.

Recent analysis has highlighted the need to understand practice and knowledge co-creation, and to examine this through empirical research. This session explores two questions:

(1) how do forest practitioners (including forest managers, loggers, owners) cope with uncertainty? E.g. through developing new knowledge, based on flexibility, innovation and practitioners’ skills; and

(2) in what ways can forestry planning structures support practitioner innovation, knowledge co-production and integration of experiential learning with more conventional scientific knowledge.

The session is organised under IUFRO Working Party 4.04.08 on ‘Forest management for adaptation to climate change’. It is not restricted to climate change and will feature interdisciplinary qualitative and quantitative research, combining ideas and framings from silviculture, organisational change, forest governance, and knowledge cultures. We will examine how knowledge is generated, tested, shared, adapted and adopted in management decisions; and how organisations, advisory services and decision processes may need to shift in order to accommodate this role for practitioners’ knowledge. The session is organised by researchers from different disciplines and three continents, who will also seek to include additional papers to widen the disciplinary and geographical coverage. 

Best wishes

Anna Lawrence (University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland, UK) – anna.lawrence.ic@uhi.ac.uk

Harry Nelson (University of British Columbia, Canada)

Marjanke Hoogstra (Wageningen University, Netherlands)

Rod Keenan (University of Melbourne, Australia)

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Professor Anna Lawrence

Hon. Prof. of Human Dimensions of Forestry

University of the Highlands and Islands

Scotland, UK

e: anna.lawrence.ic.@uhi.ac.uk