3:52 a.m.
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(a)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.(a)uhi.ac.uk