Resilient green chains
Climate change has had severe environmental, social, and economic consequences on forest systems and the forest value chain (FVC). Adaptation relies on the resilience of the system and therefore it is necessary to take action to maintain or increase this resilience. Little is known about how to increase the adaptation capacities of the forest systems and FVC to cope with climate change-related disturbances. Since forests act as carbon reservoirs, which play a vital role in climate change mitigation, we can better integrate and understand the resilience of value chains to meet climate change challenges. In this study, there are some important terminologies to consider. The approach of resilience refers to the ability of the forest enterprise (exemplar) to provide timber to their network partners and achieve an economic output delimited by sustainable forest resource management (upper resilience threshold) and the ability to make a profit (lower resilience threshold) (output of the RESONATE project-D3.3) (Jankovský et al., 2022). According to the Operational Resilience Framework (output of the RESONATE project — D1.1) (Hurtado et al., 2022), the system variables set in this study were timber supply and economic output. The reference state refers to conditions, when the exemplars are able to maintain the system variables (resilience descriptors; in this case the timber supply and economic output) within the upper and lower resilience thresholds. Then, a co-driver is a factor that mediate the response of socio-ecological system in front of disturbances, and a predictor is going to predict the response relative to a reference state, in front of disturbances that are often associated to environmental or socioeconomic transformation (Hurtado et al., 2022).
Therefore, we aim to identify and analyse the associations between co-drivers and predictors that affect forest value chain resilience from a local perspective in several European countries. This was through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data gathered from exemplars, showing similarities and differences across the case study regions compared to the reference state.
In the second phase of the project, detailed data on the selected resilience predictors and co-drivers will be required based on the results of the preliminary analyses carried out in the first phase. Then, data will be evaluated on an enterprise scale and processing capacities, forest harvesting technologies and logistics, and regulatory framework in relation to the timber supply and economic output of the case studies. However, it is of high importance to act against the increasing frequency and pressure of said stressors on forest ecosystems and their related value chains, that result in the deterioration of the overall vitality and ecosystem services provided by forests (Numazawa et al.,2017; Seidl et al., 2017), the knowledge and experience in handling the pressures (especially on the value chain side) are still sparse and far from satisfactory. Therefore, there is a strong incentive and need to improve knowledge of predictors and drivers of forest value chain resilience on a local scale.
Hurtado, P., Espelta, J.M., Lloret, F., (2022). Deliverable 1.1. Inventory of forest resilience indicators and metrics reported in the literature with an assessment on their applicability to RESONATE case studies. Horizon 2020 project RESONATE, project no. 101000574, European Forest Institute
Jankovský M., García-Jácome S.P., Nuhlíček O., Löwe R., Dvořák J., Stern T., Hoeben A. (2022). Predictors and co-drivers associated with the resilience of forest value chains: a local perspective. Horizon 2020 project RESONATE, project no. 101000574, [CZU].
RESONATE, Resilient Forest value chain-enhancing resilience through natural and socioeconomic responses. (2020). Proposal submitted under Horizon 2022. Call H2020- RUR-2018–2020 (Rural Renaissance) Topic: LC-RUR-11–2019–2020
Seidl, R., Thom, D., Kautz, M. et al. (2017). Forest disturbances under climate change. Nature Clim Change 7, 395–402 https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3303
Numazawa, C. T. D., Numazawa, S., Pacca, S., & John, V. M. (2017). Logging residues and CO2 of Brazilian Amazon timber: Two case studies of forest harvesting. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 122, 280–285. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.02.016
