Search

Climate-smart forestry (CSF) is considered a promising approach for climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, as highlighted in several European policy documents. This paper describes a prospective approach to introducing an incentive-based scheme to facilitate the implementation of CSF through a case study in Iceland. It is argued that the payments for ecosystem services (PES) scheme allows for effective CSF management and long-term sustainability if introduced in compliance with local, cultural, and social values. In a case study of an Icelandic afforestation programme, we conducted an institutional analysis of the PES scheme and assessed its effect on the sustainable provision of forest ecosystem services for the long term. We provide preliminary findings on the application of CSF in the 30-year-old Icelandic afforestation programme scheme. The perspectives of forest and policy experts, as well as local farmers participating in the scheme, were crucial for assessing the effectiveness of PES scheme performance in Iceland. Key words: payments for forest ecosystem services, local norms, sustainable forest management, climate regulation, Iceland. La foresterie intelligente face au climat (FIC) est consideree comme une approche prometteuse pour mettre en reuvre les strategies d'adaptation et d'attenuation du changement climatique, comme le soulignent plusieurs documents de politiques en Europe. Cet article decrit une approche prospective pour introduire un plan visant a favoriser la mise en reuvre de la FIC a travers une etude de cas en Islande. On soutient que le systeme de paiements pour les services ecosystemiques (PSE) permet une gestion efficace de la FIC et assure une durabilite a long terme s'il est introduit dans le respect des valeurs culturelles et sociales locales. Grace a l'etude de cas du programme de boisement islandais, nous avons mene une analyse institutionnelle du systeme de PSE et evalue son effet sur la durabilite de l'offre de services ecosystemiques forestiers a long terme. Nous presentons des resultats preliminaires sur l'application de la FIC dans le cadre du programme de boisement islandais qui dure depuis 30 ans. Les perspectives des experts forestiers et politiques ainsi que des agriculteurs locaux qui participent au programme ont ete cruciales pour evaluer l'efficacite de la performance du programme de PSE en Islande. [Traduit par la Redaction] Mots-cles : paiements pour les services ecosystemiques forestiers, normes locales, amenagement durable des forets, reglementation climatique, Islande., Introduction Forest provides a range of ecosystem services on which the survival of humans depends (Spehn et al. 2010), including wood used for human livelihoods, air to breathe, watershed protection, [...]

As European mountain forests are a significant world carbon stock and sequester, they have a prominent position in climate policies and climate smart forestry (CSF) implementation. However, forest ecosystem services (ES) that are public or common goods (i.e., of carbon sequestration) face a traditional social dilemma of individual versus collective interests, which often generate conflicts, and result in the overuse of ES and resource depletion. In this article, we elaborate a conceptual analytical framework and use it in case studies selected in European mountain areas to analyse the potential of socio‐ecological systems to develop CSF. Collective self‐organized forestry regimes, as a form of social innovation, are the main focus, compared with centrally governed state regimes and forest management practices in municipal forests. A conceptual framework to analyse collective self‐organized regimes and compare these with other CSF‐applicable forestry regimes is elaborated using a mixed‐method approach, centered around the estimation of carbon sequestration potential. The results indicate that collective self‐organized forestry regimes can play a role in fostering the transition of European forestry towards CSF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social innovation is perceived as a collaborative response from civic society actors to societal challenges and as such is increasingly being recognised as a driver for sustainable development. Social innovation promotes civic values, particularly in marginalised rural areas that are often struggling with biophysical and market limits, as well as shortages of public funding. In order to identify diverging development paths (DDPs) for social innovation, in this article, we use two large sets of empirical material from the SIMRA research project. First, for meta‐analyses of social innovation in diverse situations and contexts, we use 211 validated social innovation examples. Second, we rely on 11 in‐depth cases to reflect on the contexts and dimensions of social innovation. The elaboration of conceptualisation and deductive analyses result in the creation of a typology of social innovation DDPs, with four DDPs identified and explained. The article provides an improved understanding of how social innovation emerges and develops and how to capture processes and resulting changes in marginalised rural areas in order to turn such areas' diversity into strengths. An important conclusion is that social innovation involves both local and external actors, yet cannot develop without specific internal local activity and local knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]