Suchergebnisse

The sustainable forest management concept contains the essence of the sustainable development paradigm - meeting the current needs of society without compromising the needs of future generations. The strategic commitment of the Faculty of Forestry University of Sarajevo is aimed at quality education of forestry experts, conducting innovative research and the most intensive cooperation with the economy. The methodological approach in this paper is based on a critical analysis of the scope of the educational-research process at the Faculty of Forestry University of Sarajevo, and the potentials of sustainable forest management in BiH, to determine to what extent higher education and research on environmental, sociological and economic aspects of forest management can affect positive changes in BiH society. Apart from identifying the benefits of forest ecosystems in the context of contributing to sustainable development, the research on the attitudes of teaching staff related to the contribution of the educational-research process to general goals of sustainable development from the 2030 Agenda was conducted. The results of this paper show that the concept of sustainable forest management, as it is realized in educational-research process at the Faculty of Forestry University of Sarajevo, has significant potential to contribute to sustainable development in BiH. This contribution is reflected in biodiversity conservation, mitigation of climate change, carbon storage, prevention of natural disasters, impact on the stability of water and soil, energy supply from renewable sources, continuous economic growth, socially responsible production and consumption, job security, development of rural and urban areas as well as maintaining and improving the psychophysical health of the population. Based on the obtained results, it can be concluded that sustainable forest management, grounded on scientific postulates, understanding of diversity of forest ecosystem services and dynamics in society's requirements towards forests, multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral cooperation, can be an important factor of sustainable development in BiH.

Recent studies show that several tree species are spreading to higher latitudes and elevations due to climate change. European beech, presently dominating from the colline to the subalpine vegetation belt, is already present in upper montane subalpine forests and has a high potential to further advance to higher elevations in European mountain forests, where the temperature is predicted to further increase in the near future. Although essential for adaptive silviculture, it remains unknown whether the upward shift of beech could be assisted when it is mixed with Norway spruce or silver fir compared with mono-specific stands, as the species interactions under such conditions are hardly known. In this study, we posed the general hypotheses that the growth depending on age of European beech in mountain forests was similar in mono-specific and mixed-species stands and remained stable over time and space in the last two centuries. The scrutiny of these hypotheses was based on increment coring of 1240 dominant beech trees in 45 plots in mono-specific stands of beech and in 46 mixed mountain forests. We found that (i) on average, mean tree diameter increased linearly with age. The age trend was linear in both forest types, but the slope of the age–growth relationship was higher in mono-specific than in mixed mountain forests. (ii) Beech growth in mono-specific stands was stronger reduced with increasing elevation than that in mixed-species stands. (iii) Beech growth in mono-specific stands was on average higher than beech growth in mixed stands. However, at elevations > 1200 m, growth of beech in mixed stands was higher than that in mono-specific stands. Differences in the growth patterns among elevation zones are less pronounced now than in the past, in both mono-specific and mixed stands. As the higher and longer persisting growth rates extend the flexibility of suitable ages or size for tree harvest and removal, the longer-lasting growth may be of special relevance for multi-aged silviculture concepts. On top of their function for structure and habitat improvement, the remaining old trees may grow more in mass and value than assumed so far. ; The authors would like to acknowledge networking support by the COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action CLIMO (Climate-Smart Forestry in Mountain Regions—CA15226) financially supported by the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation HORIZON 2020. This publication is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union's HORIZON 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No 778322. Thanks are also due to the European Union for funding the project 'Mixed species forest management. Lowering risk, increasing resilience (REFORM)' (# 2816ERA02S under the framework of Sumforest ERA-Net). Further, we would like to thank the Bayerische Staatsforsten (BaySF) for providing the observational plots and to the Bavarian State Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Forestry for permanent support of the Project W 07 'Long-term experimental plots for forest growth and yield research' (#7831-26625-2017). We also thank the Forest Research Institute, ERTI Sárvár, Hungary, for assistance and for providing observational plots. Furthermore, our work was partially supported by the SRDA via Project No. APVV-16-0325 and APVV-15-0265, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland, the Project "EVA4.0" No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000803 funded by OP RDE and the Project J4-1765 funded by the Slovenian Research Agency and also by the Bulgarian National Science Fund (BNSF) and the Project No. DCOST 01/3/19.10.2018.