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Projects - S (Sabrina) Dressel

  • MULTIPLE CHOICE of goals in forestry - voluntary transition of Swedish forest ecosystems to increase multifunctionality & sustainability

    Forest ecosystems offer a variety of ecosystem services (ESS), and studies show that values to society from heterogeneous stands are higher than from pure stands. Nevertheless, even aged homogenous stands usually is the goal in Scandinavian forestry, potentially as forest owners perceive alternative methods as risky and costly while mainly contributing public goods. There is a lack of knowledge of the variation in goals for forest owners and of factors influencing the willingness to implement alternative silvicultural practices, including perceived costs, benefits, and risks. In this project, we will investigate which factors steer the prospective behaviours of private forest owners, to understand what limits and determines their goals and choice of practices. We also investigate the role of professional advisers as influential change agents, and enhance the major decision support system used in forestry in Sweden for modelling a full range of ESS bundles. We will simulate the expected delivery of ESS to forest owners and to society across the wide range of strategies and practices adopted and contrast four main scenarios: conventional even-aged forestry, continuous cover forestry, increased rotation periods and
    regeneration of mixed stands. Our results will support a transition towards more resilient forest ecosystems and Sweden’s environmental goals, through enabling forest owners to make knowledge-based decisions for attaining diverse individual goals in forestry.

     

    PROJECT TEAM:

     

    PROJECT TIME: 

    2022-12-01 -- 2026-11-30

     

    Please feel free to send an email to sabrina.dressel@wur.nl if you are interested in thesis opportunities or collaborations related to the project.

  • MultiForSe - Multi-use forestry, private forest ownerships, and social learning networks. Approaching family forest owners as grassroots agents for alternative forest management.

    Alternative forest stewardship methods have the potential to diversify primary production and provide a wider variety of income opportunities in rural regions while also improving a wide range of environmental aspects. Individuals and families own slightly more than half of Sweden’s productive forests, which makes them a key driver of decision making for implementing alternative management. Although forest management practices in Sweden are embedded in a large, established industry with a high degree of inertia, a recent movement is picking up momentum in which Swedish family forest owners are venturing into new spaces of forest uses and management methods outside the status quo. Swedish family forest owners are at the center of a renewed interest in multi-use forestry (mångbruk), an umbrella term for a variety of non-commercial forest uses as well as new ways of using and managing forests, ranging from small volume wood products to launching forest-based enterprises in the service sector. This research project investigates how the social learning networks that facilitate processes of small-scale change in forest use already underway can be leveraged to accelerate the adoption of
    alternative forest management methods. By focusing on Swedish family forest owners as grass roots agents catalyzing management transitions, we assess the effects and benefits of alternative forest stewardship practices and the impacts they have on sustaining rural livelihoods at localized scales.

     

    PROJECT TEAM:

     

    PROJECT TIME:

    2022-12-01 - 2026-11-30

     

    Please feel free to send an email to sabrina.dressel@wur.nl if you are interested in thesis opportunities or collaborations related to the project.