Research project WindyForests is a project that focuses on the challenges that arise when wind power, forestry and local interests coexist in Swedish forest landscapes. Through a collaborative approach and with the help of advanced modeling and decision support, the project will contribute to more sustainable decisions and management of forests in relation to the establishment of wind power as part of the green transition, which together benefits both local communities and global climate goals.
Within WindyForests, collaborative platforms will be created, so-called Living Labs (in southern, central and northern Sweden), where researchers together with different rights and stakeholder groups can explore ways to reduce conflicts and increase synergies between different ecosystem services and stakeholders. In these Living Labs, we will co-produce planning tools, collaborative processes and future paths to promote a sustainable integration of wind power in forest landscapes where both global goals and local needs meet.
The expectations of forests to provide solutions to both global and local societal challenges are increasing. Contradictory expectations leads to new conflicts emerging, while synergies are also leading to the establishments of new partnerships. One such area that spawns both conflicts and synergies is related to the green transition and the establishments of windpower in contested multiple-use forest landscapes. To enable a sustainable integration of wind power in forest landscapes, WindyForests aims to co-produce tools, processes and future pathways together with rights- and stakeholders. This will be carried out in three Living Labs, i.e. arenas for multi-stakeholder collaboration and innovation, distributed across Sweden. In these labs, rights- and stakeholders, and an interdisciplinary research team will collaborate iteratively to develop and evaluate innovative planning tools, legitimate collaborative processes, and sustainable future pathways. This will include an evaluation of how enhanced forest management and collaboration could reduce conflicts and enhance synergies between wind energy, biodiversity, climate change mitigation and local interests. WindyForests will provide developers, planners and policymakers with improved toolkits for sustainable forest landscape planning, which will strengthen forests' potential to meet both global and local societal challenges.
