The webinar brought together project partners, researchers and representatives of four FORWARDS third-party projects. Participants exchanged practical experience, compared approaches and discussed openly what works and what doesn’t.

Why engagement matters for FORWARDS

Nina Horstmann (Prospex Institute) and Gesche Schifferdecker (European Forest Institute) opened the session. Elaine Parlade and Gerhard Weiss (BOKU University) then explained the role of stakeholder and citizen engagement in FORWARDS. It supports the development of the ForestWard Observatory and helps ensure that local perspectives inform future approaches to forest management. The lessons emerging from the third-party projects will feed into the project’s engagement strategies, toolkits and scientific outputs.

Four projects, four approaches

MIMONTE and Living Forests were funded under FORWARDS calls dedicated to citizen and stakeholder engagement. CALI-LAB and CLIBIFO are climate-smart forestry pilots with a strong engagement component, and their field data will feed into the ForestWard Observatory.

• MIMONTE (eastern Spain), presented by Wim Cambien, works in Mediterranean areas exposed to climate change, wildfire risk and low participation in forest management. The project set out to rebuild people’s connection with forests through tree planting, outdoor and educational activities, and public dialogue, tailored to schoolchildren, families, tourists and vulnerable groups. It also brought landowners, authorities and organisations together to tackle barriers to active management. A key takeaway: plan for continuity from day one, so that engagement leads to concrete support and lasting collaboration.
• Living Forests (Montes Vivos, Galicia, Spain), presented by Joám Evans Pim, works with common-land communities that manage large forest areas. The project developed a participatory visioning method: communities imagine their forests 30 years from now, drawing on personal memories, mapping and collective storytelling, then work backwards to define the actions needed today. The result is a shared “lighthouse narrative” built on ownership, creativity and optimism.
• CALI-LAB (Călimani National Park, Romania), presented by Elena Musca, tests climate-smart forest management options through citizen science, involving forest owners, park authorities, schools and local communities through advisory boards, field consultations and nature walks rather than meeting rooms. A mobile app lets citizens report forest observations, and schoolchildren learn in the forest while helping collect ecological data. Early lessons point to the value of trusted intermediaries such as teachers and rangers, while sustaining participation over time and keeping digital tools accessible to everyone remain challenges.
• CLIBIFO (Styrian Eisenwurzen Nature and Geopark, Austria), presented by Julia Kaufman, supports the conversion of vulnerable spruce plantations into more resilient forests. Locally relevant issues, wildlife management in particular, proved effective in bringing forest owners, hunters, municipalities and conservation groups to the same table. Regular roundtables and a forest partner network now help sustain this collaboration beyond individual projects.

Common threads

The discussion showed that many challenges are shared across countries and project types:

• Reaching people who rarely take part in forest dialogues and keeping their interest once initial activities end.
• Participants pointed to working through trusted local actors, starting from concrete local concerns such as wildfire prevention or wildlife, and adapting methods to each audience, since one-size-fits-all approaches rarely work.
• Practical support, such as help with administrative procedures, was also highlighted as an often overlooked way to build engagement.

Asked about their “secret ingredients”, participants mentioned welcoming social settings with food and music, data-driven storytelling, careful listening, and creative, arts-based methods such as drawing.

The overall message: successful engagement rests not only on information, but on trust, creativity, local ownership and long-term relationships.

A longer account of the webinar is available on the Forest Knowledge Gateway.

Featured image by Aine Parlade