Research Projects
Coppice forest project:
More information soon to come...Contact: pia.jensen@uni-goettingen.de & plieninger@uni-kassel.de
Biodiversity Exploratories: Biodiversity Exploratories as Biocultural Landscapes: Past, Present and Future
TransforMed: Supporting and promoting large-scale adoption of successful agroforestry systems (AFS)
GI SMART: Investigating the contribution of geographical indications (GIs) to sustainable development and optimizing support for newly established schemes
The main objective of the project is to enhance the design and implementation of the GI system to support sustainable agriculture, healthy and sustainable food, and sustainable food systems, in line with the objectives of the Farm to Fork strategy.In the project, the role of the University of Kassel will be to cluster the main groups of GIs agri-food systems across Europe, and mapping of good sustainability practices. This will lead to a set of transition pathways for stakeholders of geographical indications who want to achieve greater sustainability and better value and valorisation of the sustainable outcome. Further, University Kassel will be responsible for developing and carrying out case studies in Germany and Austria.
The GI Smart consortium is made up of 17 public and private partners from 8 European Member States (France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain), from UK and Switzerland. It will be coordinated by INRAE – National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (France).
Contact: flinzberger@uni-kassel.de & plieninger@uni-kassel.de
RESTORE: Nature’s Contributions to People in Restoration Landscapes in Western Rwanda
Subproject six (SP6), "Nature's contributions to people in restored landscapes in western Rwanda," aims to capture the multiple tangible and intangible values that people attribute to ecosystems in restored landscapes. We will also explore the extent to which different kinds of knowledge and the plural values and rules of local and distant (inter)national actors shape and guide nature's contributions to people. To capture nature's contributions to people, we will develop valuation approaches from three different perspectives: an ecosystem perspective, a landscape perspective, and a cross-scale perspective. To this end, we will combine socio-cultural assessment methods (e.g., photovoice, photo elicitation, and narrative assessment) and participatory, spatial survey methods.Contact: laura.kmoch@uni-goettingen.de; gaelle.ndayizeye@uni-goettingen.de & plieninger@uni-goettingen.de
Dr. Cortés-Capano: Rural Transitions Toward Multifunctional Landscapes in Europe
RECONNECT: Reconciling fragmented and contested landscapes
RECONNECT is a three-year project funded through the European Biodiversity Partnership “BiodivERsA+”. To help stopping the ongoing biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation the recent agreement on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework as well as the European Biodiversity Strategy have set, among others, a clear target of 30% of protected terrestrial areas to be achieved by 2030. While this target has been welcomed by many, fragmentation, contestation, and disconnection between biodiversity conservation and other aspects of contemporary landscapes and societies still mostly prevail, leading to tensions between conservation, equity, and production goals, and to clashing governance priorities and land use practices.
In RECONNECT we interrogate social and ecological fragmentations of protected areas in multifunctional landscapes with the aim to identify key points for reconnection interventions. Our group combines governance and institutional analysis, biodiversity and ecosystem service modelling, participatory value mapping and geo-design stakeholder processes in protected areas in France, Germany, South Africa and Sweden. We work with an interdisciplinary team of research centres and universities such as the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the French CNRS lab of alpine ecology, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and local stakeholders.
Contact: marion.jay@uni-goettingen.de & plieninger@uni-goettingen.deWood Pastures: Distribution, Biodiversity and Strategies to Re-Establish Agroforestry Use
Agroforestry systems in forests, especially wood pastures, have once been widespread in Central Europe. Today the remaining areas of this use still exist, and show a high degree of biodiversity that is worth protecting.However, these areas, too, are decreasing, and agroforestry systems are only sporadially re-established. Together with the Department of Forest Conservation of the North-West German Forest Research Institut (NW-FVA), we aim to integrate scientific and practical knowledge on wood pasture management and create the foundations for an evidence-based revival of wood pastures in an adequate model region - especially through a mapping former and current wood pastures, as well as through building a 'community of practice'. The project focuses on North-West Germany.
Contact: plieninger@uni-kassel.de & andreas.moelder@nw-fva.de
KOOPERATIV: Promoting biodiversity at the landscape level
Against the background of agricultural intensification and biodiversity losses, the KOOPERATIV project aims to develop and test a participatory and integrative approach for the landscape-scale implementation of Agri-environmental measures.Based on the example of perennial flower strips, ideal area proportions as well as spatial configurations will be analyzed, and biodiversity and ecosystem services will be improved in the most cost-efficient way. KOOPERATIV aims to support collaboration of actors in the context of agricultural management and protection. Within the socio-ecological part of the project, supervised by Prof. Tobias Plieninger and Dr. Stefan Schüler, PhD student Jule Huber will analyze relevant framework conditions that could support or hamper the joint implementation of perennial flower strips at landscape level.
This project is funded by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN).
Contact: jule.huber@uni-goettingen.de; stefan.schueler@agr.uni-goettingen.de & plieninger@uni-kassel.de