News

SPP’s participation in workshops organized by PAN and URK

On March 2, 2023, at the Staszic Palace at the headquarters of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, a national workshop was organized at the initiative of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology (PAN-IFiS) on the topic: “Learning Processes for the Implementation of Multiple Objectives of Forest Policy in the Context of Stress and Climate Disruption.” Their conduct was financed within the framework of the EU’s Horizon 2020 program, from the pool of grants supporting scientific research for strengthening innovation in the area of implementation of EU climate policy goals taking into account the role of forests (research project no. 773324, ERA-NET CoFund ForestValue, entitled: “Learn for Climate”).

The partners of the project, implemented in the period 2023 – 2025, are scientific and research units from four EU member states:

• Poland: PAN-IFiS in Warsaw and the University of Agriculture in Krakow (URK)
• Germany: Forest and Environmental Policy, University of Freiburg; European Forest Institute Bonn
• Sweden: University of Technology, Lulea; Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
• Slovenia: Biotechnical Faculty Dept. of Forestry and Renewable Forest Resources, University of Ljubljana

Defined objectives of the project: to learn about and strengthen the learning mechanisms of those involved in forest policy implementation. Learning mechanisms allow more effective achievement of the goals of multifunctional forest management under changing climatic conditions and mitigation of conflicts arising from different beliefs, values and goals of social groups involved in the discussion of forest management.

About 30 people took part in the conducted workshops. The organizers addressed invitations to diverse institutions and socio-professional circles that are known for their active involvement in the implementation of climate, environmental, economic and social policy priorities in Poland. In response to a named invitation from PAN-IFiS, the paper industry was represented by J. Turski, director general of SPP.

The workshop was hosted by Prof. Krzysztof Niedziałkowski, who at the opening of the event invited the attendees to work within 5 problem tables. Opinions, comments, postulates made in individual subgroups were accepted by moderators (academics recommended by IFIS URK), thanks to skillful interaction with individual discussants. During the course of the workshop, separately at the beginning and before the end of the workshop, questionnaires containing proposed questions and answers were delivered, which were subject to individual evaluation by each participant. As the workshop leaders declared, the accumulated stock of material taking into account the participants’ contributions to the debate will be used in the next stage of the project. On the following day, after the workshop, Prof. K. Niedziałkowski thanked everyone for their participation, stating that gaining diverse perspectives on the challenges of forest management in the face of climate change-induced threats allows for a better understanding of which factors are key to assessing future scenarios for strengthening the adaptive and mitigation functions of forests.