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How can uniform coniferous stands be converted to a more natural and climate-friendly management? What is the effect on the economy of forestry and is there an effect on biodiversity? This is part of what the LIFE project Forest Fit for Future will investigate.
This film gives an introduction to the project.
Conifers provide a sustainable and climate-friendly material which is essential in the green transition and they can absorb significantly more CO2 per hectare. area than deciduous trees. Forests with coniferous trees are therefore important for our transition to a more climate-friendly and bio-based future. There is an increasing demand for wood as a replacement for fossil-based materials and energy, steel, concrete, plastic products, etc. But traditional, uniform conifer plantations have proven vulnerable to storms, droughts and insect attacks, which are expected to become more frequent with climate change. Therefore, it is relevant to consider changes in forestry practices.
Together with the private forestry and Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesforsten, the Danish Nature Agency is working in the LIFE project Forest Fit for Future to convert uniform and age-aging conifer plantations into more robust, varied forests with a sustainable forest climate. The film tells the story of the LIFE project, which focuses on collecting facts about close-to-nature forestry and describing and testing methods for conversion. All to achieve a more climate-friendly management of coniferous forests.

Many activities have now started in the project LIFE Forest Fit for Future. A number of stands have been designated for monitoring, experiences have been gathered from practitioners and we have held the first workshops for the project partners and have met with great enthusiasm.

The project started in September 2020 and since then there has been intense work on initiating a number of activities. However, before the work of converting conifer plantations to more diverse forests according to the principles of close-to-nature forestry can be started, a number of preparatory conditions must be in place.

Stands where the conversion work is to be carried out have been designated and a collection of existing practical knowledge within close-to-nature forestry has been summarized in a best practice manual. The manual describes the experiences a number of practitioners have gained within the last 10-15 years - both good and bad - and is built around the conversion models and models for quality improvement of stands that the project will work with. The manual will be available on the project's website, www.LIFEForfit.dk, in the autumn, and will be continuously expanded with the new experiences gathered in the project.

A very important part of LIFE Forfit is to systematically gather knowledge on a large number of parameters - and ensure the possibility of repetition of this in order to detect and demonstrate developments. Therefore, from the beginning of the project, stands have been designated, which must be included in the monitoring program throughout the project's 8-year period. The majority of the 200 monitoring plots have now been designated. Some of these will also be followed after the end of the project. In a number of previously converted stands, data has been collected on a number of the same parameters for use as a baseline in the conversion manual.

The practical experiences that the project partners so far have gained in the field of conversion to close-to-nature forestry, afforestation and wildlife damage management, have been presented and lively discussed at workshops held in the spring. The great commitment and desire to discuss these workshops shows a great interest among the project partners to jointly become wiser about methods and concrete actions within the close-to-nature forestry concept.