DAAD East-West-Dialogue Programme 2016

Taking into consideration the address of the representatives of non-governmental organizations, state authorities, state forest enterprises, state forest reserves and scientists, participants of a workshop held in June 2016 have agreed on a declaration including concrete recommendations.

The project comprises different activities that shall function as platform for the dialogue about sustainable forest management in Western Ukraine engaging different representatives of the civil society. The project partners accompany this dialogue from an academic perspective.   

Since the independence of Ukraine structures and instruments for sustainable development are increasingly established in the country under rather unfavourable circumstances. This includes UNESCO Biosphere Reserves as learning sites for sustainable use of natural resources as well as programmes of academic and higher education. However, the involvement of the civil society or of self-organised citizens in such endeavours towards a sustainable development is still very low. Also the solution-oriented cooperation between disciplines and sectors is essential for the development of comprehensive strategic approaches.

The project aims to contribute to sustainable management of forests, which play a significant role both as resource as well as ecosystem and have a central function with regard to provisioning and regulating ecosystem services in the focal region, the Ukrainian Carpathians in the westernmost part of the country. The project is designed to foster the engagement of the civil society for sustainable forest management by triggering the dialogue in an interdisciplinary group of different actors such as universities, protected area administrations, forestry enterprises, NGOs and the wood industry. In this dialogue the present of the region situation shall be jointly investigated with instruments of systemic analysis and transformation scenarios be developed. The forest is considered as complex ecosystem with all its functions and factors that affect those functions. Management requirements for the implementation of the ecosystem approach (of the Convention of Biodiversity) in connection with the engagement of civil society will finally be deduced.

The project encompasses the implementation of

1. a workshop and a study trip to Lviv and the Ukrainian Carpathians (June 2016)

2. a workshop and study trip to Eberswalde and surrounding protected areas (September 2016)

3. three scholarships for research and study visits to the HNEE

(1) Together with the Ukrainian National Forestry University (UNFU) and the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve, in the city of Lviv, the Centre and staff from Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development held a joint workshop on Civil society participation in forest management in June 2016. Further participants represented NGOs such as Biosfera (Uzhgorod), WWF Ukraine or Michael Succow Foundation as well as members of state forest enterprises and public administration representatives.

The workshop integrated a panel discussion open to the broad public about the topic in Lviv. This event format enabling contact of any interested person from civil society with experts and giving the opportunity to everybody to actively partipate was adopted very well and generated a lot of contributions and rich discussions, although it seems a quite uncommon format in Ukraine.

The workshop was continued in the field, where the interinstitutional delegation visited State Forestry Enterprises and the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve in Transcarpathia.

(2) In September 2016, 12-17^th, a delegation of Ukrainian representatives of the Ukrainian National Forestry University (UNFU), the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve (CBR), regional public state administrations of Lviv and Transcarpathia as well as NGOs will visit the Centre and Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development for a workshop about the project topic. Further, the delegation will visit the surrounding protected areas (Barnim Nature Park, National Park Lower Odra Valley and UNESCO-Biosphere Reserve Schorfheide-Chorin) and meet representatives of their administrations as well as further experts like a representative of the Eberswalde Municipal Forest, forester managers from Templin Forest Administration of the Federal State of Brandenburg and the Head of the Lower Nature Conservation Authority of the County of Barnim to exchange experience about civil society engagement in conservation and forest management.

(3) Prof. Vasyl Lavny visited Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development twice for one month in the frame of a research stay to intensify the cooperation about silviculture and methods of civil engagement in forest management planning.Two Master students of the UNFU took part in the 3-weeks block module “Project-based Conservation and Land-use Management” at the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development. Here they developed in practical group work a project proposal for transboundary cooperation in nature conservation in Europe.