Suchergebnisse

Socio-economic and political contexts play a major role in a community's perception of the environment, determining natural resource use. We examined perceptions of forest and forest resource use among two Hutsul communities in Bukovina sharing a similar cultural background but living in a region divided by the national border created between Romania and Ukraine in the 1940s. Twenty-nine open-ended and 61 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Hutsuls from Romania and Ukraine. Hutsuls across the border mostly share perceptions of forest benefits, while they differ in perceptions of environmental changes and the drivers of these changes. Hutsuls of Ukraine showed a greater connectedness and a stronger tie to the forest as an essential element of their livelihoods. Moreover, Hutsuls in Ukraine rely more on forest medicinal plants than do Hutsuls in Romania. Hutsuls' perspectives on the negative impact of current forest management policies should be a cornerstone for redesigning sustainable forest management plans.

To achieve the European Union's target for climate neutrality by 2050 reduced energy demand will make the transition process faster and cheaper. The role of policies that support energy efficiency measures and demand-side management practices will be critical and to ensure that energy demand models are relevant to policymakers and other end-users, understanding how to further improve the models and whether they are tailored to user needs to support efficient decision-making processes is crucial. So far though, no scientific studies have examined the key user needs for energy demand modelling in the context of the climate neutrality targets. In this article we address this gap using a multi-method approach based on empirical and desk research. Through survey and stakeholder meetings and workshops we identify user needs of different stakeholder groups, and we highlight the direction in which energy demand models need to be improved to be relevant to their users. Through a detailed review of existing energy demand models, we provide a full understanding of the key characteristics and capabilities of existing tools, and we identify their limitations and gaps. Our findings show that classical demand-related questions remain important to model users, while most of the existing models can answer these questions. Furthermore, we show that some of the user needs related to sectoral demand modelling, dictated by the latest policy developments, are under-researched and are not addressed by existing tools.