Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - InnoForESt (Smart information, governance and business innovations for sustainable supply and payment mechanisms for forest ecosystem services)

Teaser

In the last decades, there has been a growing societal demand for forest ecosystem services (FES). Since not all FES can be provided equally, opting for a management form always involves trade-offs in their provision. Due to the public goods character of many FES, imperfect...

Summary

In the last decades, there has been a growing societal demand for forest ecosystem services (FES). Since not all FES can be provided equally, opting for a management form always involves trade-offs in their provision. Due to the public goods character of many FES, imperfect property rights and insufficient knowledge and information, forest management approaches and markets often underprovide other FES, such as biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, as well as cultural and recreation benefits. Ensuring and promoting the provision of a wide range of FES requires new approaches in forest management, business, and policies that govern these. This is where the InnoForESt project comes in as an approach for analysing and promoting promising approaches as governance innovations and showcasing their potentials.

Six good practice examples, in which particular FES or FES bundles are successfully provided, form the focus for IA to collaboratively explore their upgrading and upscaling potentials. These examples include markets and payment schemes for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation as well as integrated value chains and regulating and cultural FES. For their exploration, assessment and development, innovation platforms are set up to support interactive information exchange among concerned actors about alternative practices and income streams from FES supply. Rooted in ideas of the multi-actor approach, InnoForESt orchestrates stakeholder interactions by applying a participatory assessment approach that acknowledges differences in forest conditions, institutional setting, actors’ interests, and technological infrastructures. With help of narrative scenarios that depict contrasting policy and business developments, larger innovation impacts are elaborated in different European contexts among a range of public and private actors for mapping and strategic preparation for innovation improvement, transfer or upscaling.

Work performed

Six governance innovations that serve as a nucleus for co-learning, co-assessment, and debate of upscaling and upgrading potentials of governance innovations have been analysed, (partly) assessed and networks initiated. An idealised innovation process has been developed for streamlining innovation activities.

Analysing FES innovation systems and potentials: InnoForESt merged quantitative European level information on forest ecosystem conditions and services with information from policy strategy analysis to map biophysical, socio-economic and institutional landscape across Europe. An institutional assessment has been conducted covering 18 MS and 30 national strategies. An EU wide survey among forest owners/managers is developed in collaboration with SINCERE. This stocktaking resulted in integrated maps of forest ecosystems and ecosystem services and databases for forest governance and management systems, including innovations for forest ES provision as a European forestry innovation landscape. The findings prove the diversity of innovations studied in InnoForESt, and the dedicated action needed for improvement and upscaling.

Innovation platforms for exchange and learning: Six innovation platforms have been created, including meeting spaces as well as web spaces for knowledge exchange. Platforms serve as protected spaces for innovation development with help of multi-criteria visioning, assessments, and experimental approaches. Innovation platforms and activities are established by teams of scientists and practice partners that coordinate innovation networks. What started on the local/regional level is iteratively extended to a national scope. All information gathered, tools and recommendations, fed back to platforms, as central hubs for innovation development.

Innovation prototypes: Six prototypes have been developed or are underway for FES provision. Building on a scenario approach, innovation development directions were depicted per region, incorporating previous analysis findings of fostering and hindering factors that influence FES provision. In addition, different roles of actors, impacts, incentive, and sanction mechanisms have been analysed to develop a joint vision for FES governance. As such, InnoForESt was capable to address stakeholder needs and react to the actual situation, for developing future visions.

Innovation visioning, assessment, and road mapping: A Constructive Innovation Assessment (CINA) method as the core of the Idealized Innovation Process has been designed to allow for innovation visioning, prototype assessment, and road mapping. CINA aims to reduce the costs of learning during the introduction and dissemination of governance innovations by assessing impacts and identifying stakeholders’ needs and interactions right from the beginning of development. Until the end of the reporting period, visioning workshops for prototype development have been organised in each region. A typical outcome was a common understanding of future development potentials to strengthen cooperation and join forces.

Dissemination of innovation potentials: Governance innovations prototypes and the Idealized process serve as showcases in policy, management, and business practice. Dissemination materials in the form of flyers, roll-ups, movies, and blog posts and web info have been disseminated to different forest-related stakeholders.

Final results

By building on a system-based understanding, InnoForESt establishes links between different FES and fostering/constraining socio-ecological and technical context conditions in six innovation regions in Europe that have so far been separately coordinated and analysed. This information forms the basis to match policy and business innovations to ecological context conditions as well as to socio-cultural needs and demands, increasing their acceptance, and making them effective for prospective uses.

The Innovation platforms offer permanent fora for policy integration, coordination, and joint administrative action. Innovation networks will be further extended and enlarged to national and European scope. Triggered by cross-case-study exchanges in dedicated sessions, inter-regional and national exchanges will further flourish. The objective is that innovation networks will sustain after the project lifetime for further innovation activities.

Potentials for the six governance innovations for upscaling and the transfer will be assessed in following CINA activities. The Waldaktie (GER) as well as Biodiversity offsets (FI) seek to extend spatially and in scope. A new project for children education for spiritual and recreational values will soon be launched in Sweden, and value chains in Austria and mountain forestry in Italy need to further improve. Respective policy and business briefs are under development. Additional ways of engaging the private sector through new business models and financing mechanisms will be further initiated.

InnoForESt conceptual-methodological core is a reflexive exploration of the opportunities and challenges for new actor alliances, partnerships as well as financing schemes for FES provision. Participatory assessments and an iterative way of precautionary designing and bringing policy and business innovations into life form the central practical part of the project, for fostering sustainable forest governance in Europe. In particular innovation assessment and road mapping, strategies for dissemination are subject of the remaining 18 months.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.innoforest.eu.