In Season 3 of Branching out: the forest podcast, we explore how scientists in IUFRO collaborate across disciplines to tackle emerging topics through Task Forces. We continue the Season with the Task Force on Forest Living Labs for Sustainable Climate Adaptation (FORLIVS) and will hear how effective solutions start with listening, collaboration, and knowledge sharing. 

Host Gerda Wolfrum from IUFRO Headquarters and co-host Ritikaa Gupta, a forest communication consultant based in Italy and IUFRO Communications Working Party Deputy Coordinator, spoke with Task Force co-leads Claire Depardieu, Tree Physiologist Research Scientist at the Atlantic Forestry Centre, Natural Resources Canada, and Maria Nijnik, Principal Scientist at the Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences Department of the James Hutton Institute, United Kingdom.

Addressing climate change requires bringing together multiple forms of knowledge and expertise. Forest living labs are collaborative, long-term research platforms where scientists, forest managers, landowners, indigenous communities, policymakers, industry partners, and other stakeholders, work together to better understand and address the challenges facing forests such as climate change. 

Claire Depardieu underlined, "Forest living labs are not only platforms for knowledge exchange. They are spaces where solutions are co-designed, tested, and improved through continuous collaboration."

Maria Nijnik, who also coordinates the IUFRO Working Party on Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship explained, "The benefits of living labs are gained largely from realizing social innovations defined as the reconfiguration of social practices in response to societal challenges including climate change." Primary benefits are associated with strengthening the resilience of forest social ecological systems. 

The FORLIVS webinar series has shown that although many regions in the world are facing common challenges related to climate change, priorities and approaches can be very different depending on local realities. While most living lab approaches in Canada, for example, are currently focused on forest ecosystems, sustainable forest management and climate adaptation in both natural and managed forests, in many regions of Africa the connection between forest agriculture and local livelihoods is much stronger, and agroforestry is often the central component of climate adaptation strategies.

"One of the most important lessons from this conversation is that there is no-one-size-fits all approach. Forest living labs help ensure that solutions are both practical and relevant for the future and for now," Ritikaa Gupta concluded.


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