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The bio-economy as an opportunity to tackle wildfires in Mediterranean forest ecosystems
Forest Policy and Economics 86 (2018) 1–3
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Forest Policy and Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/forpol
The bio-economy as an opportunity to tackle wildfires in Mediterranean forest ecosystems
MARK
P.J. Verkerka,b,⁎, I. Martinez de Aranob, M. Palahía a b
European Forest Institute, Yliopistokatu 6, 80100 Joensuu, Finland European Forest Institute, St. Antoni M. Claret 167, 08025 Barcelona, Spain
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Bio-economy Forest management Mediterranean Wildfire
Wildfires represent a threat to forests and society and the risk of wildfires is expected to increase with global change. How should wildfires be tackled in the future? A paradigm shift is needed from the current focus on fire suppression to the management of forests, accompanied by the improved understanding that forests are a valuable resource and provide many benefits to society. Through the development of high value-added products, materials, fuels and chemicals, a forest-based bio-economy could provide the necessary investments and incentives to ensure sustainable, integrated forest and fire management strategies and thereby reduce fuel loads and fuel continuity, while at the same time revealing that forests are a valuable resource and provide many benefits to society.
1. Introduction
2. Wildfire prevention through forest management
Wildfires are a natural phenomenon in many forest ecosystems around the globe. Catastrophic wildfires, however, represent a threat to forest resources and society and cause significant economic damage and loss of human lives (Doerr and Santín, 2016; San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2013), as seen this summer in central Portugal and southern Spain. The Mediterranean basin is a global wildfire hotspot and wildfires in just five Mediterranean countries (France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) currently affect approximately 450 thousand ha year− 1, representing 85% of the total burnt area in the whole European Union and an annual economic damage of about 1.5 billion euros (San-MiguelAyanz and Camia, 2010). However, such a figure is an underestimation, as the full value of the numerous ecosystem services provided by forests and affected by wildfires is not taken into account. These five countries have been estimated to invest 2.5 billion euro annually on prevention and mostly suppression (Birot, 2009). Despite a decline in the number and area affected by wildfires in Europe and globally (Andela et al., 2017; Doerr and Santín, 2016), the damage from wildfires - expressed in the volume of wood that is lost - has increased during the 20th century. Moreover, this trend is expected to continue in the next decades due to climate change (Seidl et al., 2014), which requires rethinking how to effectively tackle wildfires in the future (Moritz et al., 2014).
In a context of climatic conditions which favor wildfires, the changing forest resource - in terms of area, growing stock and structure - has been a key factor in the increased frequency and impact of wildfires in the European Mediterranean region (Seidl et al., 2011). Driven to large extent by largely by changing socio-economic conditions (Moreira et al., 2011; Mourão and Martinho, 2014), forest resources in this region have expanded greatly due to active afforestation (especially in Portugal and Spain) and to natural vegetation encroachment after abandonment of agricultural lands (Kuemmerle et al., 2016). Mediterranean forests are generally characterized by low active forest management with wood extraction representing low shares of the increment (Levers et al., 2014). Consequently, the young, expanding and largely unmanaged forests contain high fuel loads and favorable conditions (fuel continuity over large areas) for rapid and large spread of wildfires, which at the same time can result in large CO2 emissions. Basic forest management practices (e.g. tree species selection, thinnings, harvesting systems), as well as other land management practices, can contribute to reducing wildfire risk through the reduction of fuel loads and altering fuel continuity at the landscape level (Birot, 2009; Corona et al., 2015; Fernandes, 2013; Moreira et al., 2011; SanMiguel-Ayanz and Camia, 2010). Such practices should adapt and spatially diversify the structure of the forests to make them less prone to the risk of wildfires (Lauer et al., 2017). This would lead to more resilient forests as they would be better able to withstand the
⁎
Corresponding author at: European Forest Institute, Yliopistokatu 6, 80100 Joensuu, Finland. E-mail address: hans.verkerk@efi.int (P.J. Verkerk).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2017.10.016 Received 18 September 2017; Received in revised form 13 October 2017; Accepted 14 October 2017 1389-9341/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Forest Policy and Economics 86 (2018) 1–3
P.J. Verkerk et al.
slowly emerging in the region (Martínez de Arano et al., 2016). The development of new, high value-added products, materials, fuels and chemicals in the Mediterranean region needs to take place in a synergistic relationship with the enhancement of the long-term resilience of forest ecosystems and the provision of ecosystem services. Adequate policy frameworks and policy incentives are crucial to attract necessary investments and support the structural development of specific Mediterranean value chains, infrastructures (e.g., bio-refineries) (cf. Koukios et al., 2017), which will support the development and financing of integrated forest and fire management strategies. The political momentum triggered by the Paris Climate Agreement and the global Sustainable Development Goals offers a unique opportunity to address the problem of wildfires. A forest-based bio-economy will offer opportunities to tackle wildfires through private and public investments. These investments are needed to finance and develop sustainable, integrated forest and fire management activities at relevant scales that can, in turn, ensure the resilience of the Mediterranean forests - and ultimately society - to confront the problem of wildfires.
consequences of global change (Moritz et al., 2014). If carefully planned, forest and fire management could thus be integrated to jointly reduce wildfire risk and to supply (high-quality) timber or biomass, as well as other ecosystem services, in the context of global change. However, active forest management is currently absent in many parts of the region (Valente et al., 2015) due to the lack of forest value chains and markets for both products and the provision of ecosystem services. 3. Existing wildfire policy Despite the existing scientific knowledge that forest management as well as other land management practices - could help to prevent wildfire risk, existing legislation and policy generally focuses on suppressing wildfires (Fernandes, 2013; Montiel-Molina, 2013). Unfortunately, the focus on fire suppression instead of on fire prevention, in a context of already low management intensities, leads to the paradox of an increased accumulation of biomass, thereby paving the way to high intensity fires surpassing the most sophisticated suppression capacities (Collins et al., 2013; Moreira et al., 2011; San-MiguelAyanz and Camia, 2010). Thus, while wildfire suppression may be effective in reducing the burned area in the short term, a suppression strategy may not be advisable in the long-term, especially in a context of global change (Curt and Frejaville, 2017).
Acknowledgments The authors thank Yves Birot, Marcus Lindner and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive comments on draft versions of this article and Sarah Adams for a language revision. The authors received funding from the Catalan Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food (subsidy number 51/17255-2015). Any views expressed are those of the authors only.
4. Paradigm change Human actions are the main cause of wildfires as ignition is mostly due to runaway agricultural fires, negligence and arson (Ganteaume et al., 2013). This clearly indicates a perceived low value of forests. Therefore, to effectively address the problem of wildfires change, a new paradigm is needed that is rooted in the understanding of Mediterranean landscapes as complex, fire-prone, socio-ecological systems (Tedim et al., 2016). In this new paradigm, the current focus is shifted from fire suppression to fire management at the landscape scale (Collins et al., 2013; Corona et al., 2015; Moreira et al., 2011; San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2013) and society values the many benefits that forests provide to society. The new paradigm builds around recognizing forests as a valuable resource that provide important renewable biological resources and other ecosystem services. A transition towards a bio-economy, as planned in many countries (e.g., Lainez et al., 2017), could offer opportunities to finance and operationalize long-term, landscape-scale management strategies.
References Andela, N., Morton, D.C., Giglio, L., Chen, Y., van der Werf, G.R., Kasibhatla, P.S., DeFries, R.S., Collatz, G.J., Hantson, S., Kloster, S., Bachelet, D., Forrest, M., Lasslop, G., Li, F., Mangeon, S., Melton, J.R., Yue, C., Randerson, J.T., 2017. A human-driven decline in global burned area. Science 356, 1356. Birot, Y., 2009. Living With Wildfires: What Science Can Tell Us. EFI Discussion Paper 15. European Forest Institute, pp. 82. Collins, R.D., de Neufville, R., Claro, J., Oliveira, T., Pacheco, A.P., 2013. Forest fire management to avoid unintended consequences: a case study of Portugal using system dynamics. J. Environ. Manag. 130 (1–9). Corona, P., Ascoli, D., Barbati, A., Bovio, G., Colangelo, G., Elia, M., Garfì, V., Iovino, F., Lafortezza, R., Leone, V., Lovreglio, R., Marchetti, M., Marchi, E., Menguzzato, G., Nocentini, S., Picchio, R., Portoghesi, L., Puletti, N., Sanesi, G., Chianucci, F., 2015. Integrated forest management to prevent wildfires under Mediterranean environments. Ann. Silvicultural Res. 39, 22. Curt, T., Frejaville, T., 2017. Wildfire policy in Mediterranean France: how far is it efficient and sustainable? Risk Anal. Doerr, S.H., Santín, C., 2016. Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 371. Evans, A.M., Finkral, A.J., 2009. From renewable energy to fire risk reduction: a synthesis of biomass harvesting and utilization case studies in US forests. GCB Bioenergy 1, 211–219. Fernandes, P.M., 2013. Fire-smart management of forest landscapes in the Mediterranean basin under global change. Landsc. Urban Plan. 110, 175–182. Ganteaume, A., Camia, A., Jappiot, M., San-Miguel-Ayanz, J., Long-Fournel, M., Lampin, C., 2013. A review of the main driving factors of forest fire ignition over Europe. Environ. Manag. 51, 651–662. Hermann, S., 2009. Hidden Champions of the Twenty-First Century. The Success Strategies of Unknown World Market Leaders. Springer-Verlag, New York. Koukios, E., Monteleone, M., Texeira Carrondo, M.J., Charalambous, A., Girio, F., Hernández, E.L., Mannelli, S., Parajó, J.C., Polycarpou, P., Zabaniotou, A., 2017. Targeting sustainable bioeconomy: a new development strategy for Southern European countries. The manifesto of the European Mezzogiorno. J. Clean. Prod. Kuemmerle, T., Levers, C., Erb, K., Estel, S., Jepsen, M.R., Müller, D., Plutzar, C., Stürck, J., Verkerk, P.J., Verburg, P.H., Reenberg, A., 2016. Hotspots of land use change in Europe. Environ. Res. Lett. 11, 064020. Lainez, M., González, J.M., Aguilar, A., Vela, C., 2017. Spanish strategy on bioeconomy: towards a knowledge based sustainable innovation. New Biotechnol. Lauer, C.J., Montgomery, C.A., Dietterich, T.G., 2017. Spatial interactions and optimal forest management on a fire-threatened landscape. Forest Pol. Econ. 83, 107–120. Levers, C., Verkerk, P.J., Müller, D., Verburg, P.H., Butsic, V., Leitão, P.J., Lindner, M., Kuemmerle, T., 2014. Drivers of forest harvesting intensity patterns in Europe. For. Ecol. Manag. 315, 160–172. Martínez de Arano, I., Garavaglia, V., Farcy, C., 2016. Chapter 5. Forests: facing the challenges of global change. In: Mediterra (Ed.), Zero Waste in the Mediterranean. Natural Resources, Food and Knowledge. International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM) and Food and Agriculture Organization
5. Bioeconomy as a solution to tackle wildfires The bio-economy is expected to become a key growth engine in the 21st century and forests are expected to play an important role in the future bio-economy, in the Mediterranean (Koukios et al., 2017; Lainez et al., 2017), as well as Europe as a whole (Pätäri et al. 2016; Scarlat et al., 2015). Studies based on theory (Regos et al., 2016) and practice (Evans and Finkral, 2009) have already linked woody biomass extraction to reduced risk of wildfires systems, but indicate it is still difficult to develop profitable value chains with bio-energy (Evans and Finkral, 2009). However, a bio-economy offers many more opportunities than bio-energy systems only. The development of new technologies provides unprecedented possibilities in transforming biological resources into new bio-based solutions that can replace fossil-based products and non-renewable raw materials. Cellulose and lignin, which are widespread compounds found in plants, are important components from which new bio-based construction materials, textiles, chemicals and plastics can be developed (Sillanpää and Ncibi, 2017). Innovative forest-based business models already exist in the region, including a world-market leader relying on regional resources to produce and sell cork products and flooring worldwide (Hermann, 2009). Furthermore, new business models for not yet commercially explored resources, including medicinal and aromatic plants, honey, mushrooms, etc. are 2
Forest Policy and Economics 86 (2018) 1–3
P.J. Verkerk et al.
San-Miguel-Ayanz, J., Camia, A., 2010. Forest fires, mapping the impacts of natural hazards and technological accidents in Europe. An overview of the last decade. In: EEA Technical Report No 13. European Environment Agency, Copenhagen. San-Miguel-Ayanz, J., Moreno, J.M., Camia, A., 2013. Analysis of large fires in European Mediterranean landscapes: lessons learned and perspectives. For. Ecol. Manag. 294, 11–22. Scarlat, N., Dallemand, J.-F., Monforti-Ferrario, F., Nita, V., 2015. The role of biomass and bioenergy in a future bioeconomy: policies and facts. Environ. Develop. 15, 3–34. Seidl, R., Schelhaas, M.-J., Lexer, M.J., 2011. Unraveling the drivers of intensifying forest disturbance regimes in Europe. Glob. Chang. Biol. 17, 2842–2852. Seidl, R., Schelhaas, M.-J., Rammer, W., Verkerk, P.J., 2014. Increasing forest disturbances in Europe and their impact on carbon storage. Nat. Clim. Chang. 4, 806–810. Sillanpää, M., Ncibi, C., 2017. A Sustainable Bioeconomy. Springer International Publishing, The Green Industrial Revolution. Tedim, F., Leone, V., Xanthopoulos, G., 2016. A wildfire risk management concept based on a social-ecological approach in the European Union: fire smart territory. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduction 18, 138–153. Valente, S., Coelho, C., Ribeiro, C., Liniger, H., Schwilch, G., Figueiredo, E., Bachmann, F., 2015. How much management is enough? Stakeholder views on forest management in fire-prone areas in central Portugal. Forest Pol. Econ. 53, 1–11.
of the United Nations (FAO), Paris. Montiel-Molina, C., 2013. Comparative assessment of wildland fire legislation and policies in the European Union: towards a fire framework directive. Forest Policy Econ. 29, 1–6. Moreira, F., Viedma, O., Arianoutsou, M., Curt, T., Koutsias, N., Rigolot, E., Barbati, A., Corona, P., Vaz, P., Xanthopoulos, G., Mouillot, F., Bilgili, E., 2011. Landscape – wildfire interactions in southern Europe: implications for landscape management. J. Environ. Manag. 92, 2389–2402. Moritz, M.A., Batllori, E., Bradstock, R.A., Gill, A.M., Handmer, J., Hessburg, P.F., Leonard, J., McCaffrey, S., Odion, D.C., Schoennagel, T., Syphard, A.D., 2014. Learning to coexist with wildfire. Nature 515, 58–66. Mourão, P.R., Martinho, V.D., 2014. The choices of the fire — debating socioeconomic determinants of the fires observed at Portuguese municipalities. Forest Policy Econ. 43, 29–40. Pätäri, S., Tuppura, A., Toppinen, A., Korhonen, J., 2016. Global sustainability megaforces in shaping the future of the European pulp and paper industry towards a bioeconomy. Forest Pol. Econ. 66, 38–46. Regos, A., Aquilué, N., López, I., Codina, M., Retana, J., Brotons, L., 2016. Synergies between forest biomass extraction for bioenergy and fire suppression in Mediterranean ecosystems: insights from a storyline-and-simulation approach. Ecosystems 1–17.
3
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Forest Policy and Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/forpol
The bio-economy as an opportunity to tackle wildfires in Mediterranean forest ecosystems
MARK
P.J. Verkerka,b,⁎, I. Martinez de Aranob, M. Palahía a b
European Forest Institute, Yliopistokatu 6, 80100 Joensuu, Finland European Forest Institute, St. Antoni M. Claret 167, 08025 Barcelona, Spain
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Bio-economy Forest management Mediterranean Wildfire
Wildfires represent a threat to forests and society and the risk of wildfires is expected to increase with global change. How should wildfires be tackled in the future? A paradigm shift is needed from the current focus on fire suppression to the management of forests, accompanied by the improved understanding that forests are a valuable resource and provide many benefits to society. Through the development of high value-added products, materials, fuels and chemicals, a forest-based bio-economy could provide the necessary investments and incentives to ensure sustainable, integrated forest and fire management strategies and thereby reduce fuel loads and fuel continuity, while at the same time revealing that forests are a valuable resource and provide many benefits to society.
1. Introduction
2. Wildfire prevention through forest management
Wildfires are a natural phenomenon in many forest ecosystems around the globe. Catastrophic wildfires, however, represent a threat to forest resources and society and cause significant economic damage and loss of human lives (Doerr and Santín, 2016; San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2013), as seen this summer in central Portugal and southern Spain. The Mediterranean basin is a global wildfire hotspot and wildfires in just five Mediterranean countries (France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) currently affect approximately 450 thousand ha year− 1, representing 85% of the total burnt area in the whole European Union and an annual economic damage of about 1.5 billion euros (San-MiguelAyanz and Camia, 2010). However, such a figure is an underestimation, as the full value of the numerous ecosystem services provided by forests and affected by wildfires is not taken into account. These five countries have been estimated to invest 2.5 billion euro annually on prevention and mostly suppression (Birot, 2009). Despite a decline in the number and area affected by wildfires in Europe and globally (Andela et al., 2017; Doerr and Santín, 2016), the damage from wildfires - expressed in the volume of wood that is lost - has increased during the 20th century. Moreover, this trend is expected to continue in the next decades due to climate change (Seidl et al., 2014), which requires rethinking how to effectively tackle wildfires in the future (Moritz et al., 2014).
In a context of climatic conditions which favor wildfires, the changing forest resource - in terms of area, growing stock and structure - has been a key factor in the increased frequency and impact of wildfires in the European Mediterranean region (Seidl et al., 2011). Driven to large extent by largely by changing socio-economic conditions (Moreira et al., 2011; Mourão and Martinho, 2014), forest resources in this region have expanded greatly due to active afforestation (especially in Portugal and Spain) and to natural vegetation encroachment after abandonment of agricultural lands (Kuemmerle et al., 2016). Mediterranean forests are generally characterized by low active forest management with wood extraction representing low shares of the increment (Levers et al., 2014). Consequently, the young, expanding and largely unmanaged forests contain high fuel loads and favorable conditions (fuel continuity over large areas) for rapid and large spread of wildfires, which at the same time can result in large CO2 emissions. Basic forest management practices (e.g. tree species selection, thinnings, harvesting systems), as well as other land management practices, can contribute to reducing wildfire risk through the reduction of fuel loads and altering fuel continuity at the landscape level (Birot, 2009; Corona et al., 2015; Fernandes, 2013; Moreira et al., 2011; SanMiguel-Ayanz and Camia, 2010). Such practices should adapt and spatially diversify the structure of the forests to make them less prone to the risk of wildfires (Lauer et al., 2017). This would lead to more resilient forests as they would be better able to withstand the
⁎
Corresponding author at: European Forest Institute, Yliopistokatu 6, 80100 Joensuu, Finland. E-mail address: hans.verkerk@efi.int (P.J. Verkerk).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2017.10.016 Received 18 September 2017; Received in revised form 13 October 2017; Accepted 14 October 2017 1389-9341/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Forest Policy and Economics 86 (2018) 1–3
P.J. Verkerk et al.
slowly emerging in the region (Martínez de Arano et al., 2016). The development of new, high value-added products, materials, fuels and chemicals in the Mediterranean region needs to take place in a synergistic relationship with the enhancement of the long-term resilience of forest ecosystems and the provision of ecosystem services. Adequate policy frameworks and policy incentives are crucial to attract necessary investments and support the structural development of specific Mediterranean value chains, infrastructures (e.g., bio-refineries) (cf. Koukios et al., 2017), which will support the development and financing of integrated forest and fire management strategies. The political momentum triggered by the Paris Climate Agreement and the global Sustainable Development Goals offers a unique opportunity to address the problem of wildfires. A forest-based bio-economy will offer opportunities to tackle wildfires through private and public investments. These investments are needed to finance and develop sustainable, integrated forest and fire management activities at relevant scales that can, in turn, ensure the resilience of the Mediterranean forests - and ultimately society - to confront the problem of wildfires.
consequences of global change (Moritz et al., 2014). If carefully planned, forest and fire management could thus be integrated to jointly reduce wildfire risk and to supply (high-quality) timber or biomass, as well as other ecosystem services, in the context of global change. However, active forest management is currently absent in many parts of the region (Valente et al., 2015) due to the lack of forest value chains and markets for both products and the provision of ecosystem services. 3. Existing wildfire policy Despite the existing scientific knowledge that forest management as well as other land management practices - could help to prevent wildfire risk, existing legislation and policy generally focuses on suppressing wildfires (Fernandes, 2013; Montiel-Molina, 2013). Unfortunately, the focus on fire suppression instead of on fire prevention, in a context of already low management intensities, leads to the paradox of an increased accumulation of biomass, thereby paving the way to high intensity fires surpassing the most sophisticated suppression capacities (Collins et al., 2013; Moreira et al., 2011; San-MiguelAyanz and Camia, 2010). Thus, while wildfire suppression may be effective in reducing the burned area in the short term, a suppression strategy may not be advisable in the long-term, especially in a context of global change (Curt and Frejaville, 2017).
Acknowledgments The authors thank Yves Birot, Marcus Lindner and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive comments on draft versions of this article and Sarah Adams for a language revision. The authors received funding from the Catalan Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food (subsidy number 51/17255-2015). Any views expressed are those of the authors only.
4. Paradigm change Human actions are the main cause of wildfires as ignition is mostly due to runaway agricultural fires, negligence and arson (Ganteaume et al., 2013). This clearly indicates a perceived low value of forests. Therefore, to effectively address the problem of wildfires change, a new paradigm is needed that is rooted in the understanding of Mediterranean landscapes as complex, fire-prone, socio-ecological systems (Tedim et al., 2016). In this new paradigm, the current focus is shifted from fire suppression to fire management at the landscape scale (Collins et al., 2013; Corona et al., 2015; Moreira et al., 2011; San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2013) and society values the many benefits that forests provide to society. The new paradigm builds around recognizing forests as a valuable resource that provide important renewable biological resources and other ecosystem services. A transition towards a bio-economy, as planned in many countries (e.g., Lainez et al., 2017), could offer opportunities to finance and operationalize long-term, landscape-scale management strategies.
References Andela, N., Morton, D.C., Giglio, L., Chen, Y., van der Werf, G.R., Kasibhatla, P.S., DeFries, R.S., Collatz, G.J., Hantson, S., Kloster, S., Bachelet, D., Forrest, M., Lasslop, G., Li, F., Mangeon, S., Melton, J.R., Yue, C., Randerson, J.T., 2017. A human-driven decline in global burned area. Science 356, 1356. Birot, Y., 2009. Living With Wildfires: What Science Can Tell Us. EFI Discussion Paper 15. European Forest Institute, pp. 82. Collins, R.D., de Neufville, R., Claro, J., Oliveira, T., Pacheco, A.P., 2013. Forest fire management to avoid unintended consequences: a case study of Portugal using system dynamics. J. Environ. Manag. 130 (1–9). Corona, P., Ascoli, D., Barbati, A., Bovio, G., Colangelo, G., Elia, M., Garfì, V., Iovino, F., Lafortezza, R., Leone, V., Lovreglio, R., Marchetti, M., Marchi, E., Menguzzato, G., Nocentini, S., Picchio, R., Portoghesi, L., Puletti, N., Sanesi, G., Chianucci, F., 2015. Integrated forest management to prevent wildfires under Mediterranean environments. Ann. Silvicultural Res. 39, 22. Curt, T., Frejaville, T., 2017. Wildfire policy in Mediterranean France: how far is it efficient and sustainable? Risk Anal. Doerr, S.H., Santín, C., 2016. Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 371. Evans, A.M., Finkral, A.J., 2009. From renewable energy to fire risk reduction: a synthesis of biomass harvesting and utilization case studies in US forests. GCB Bioenergy 1, 211–219. Fernandes, P.M., 2013. Fire-smart management of forest landscapes in the Mediterranean basin under global change. Landsc. Urban Plan. 110, 175–182. Ganteaume, A., Camia, A., Jappiot, M., San-Miguel-Ayanz, J., Long-Fournel, M., Lampin, C., 2013. A review of the main driving factors of forest fire ignition over Europe. Environ. Manag. 51, 651–662. Hermann, S., 2009. Hidden Champions of the Twenty-First Century. The Success Strategies of Unknown World Market Leaders. Springer-Verlag, New York. Koukios, E., Monteleone, M., Texeira Carrondo, M.J., Charalambous, A., Girio, F., Hernández, E.L., Mannelli, S., Parajó, J.C., Polycarpou, P., Zabaniotou, A., 2017. Targeting sustainable bioeconomy: a new development strategy for Southern European countries. The manifesto of the European Mezzogiorno. J. Clean. Prod. Kuemmerle, T., Levers, C., Erb, K., Estel, S., Jepsen, M.R., Müller, D., Plutzar, C., Stürck, J., Verkerk, P.J., Verburg, P.H., Reenberg, A., 2016. Hotspots of land use change in Europe. Environ. Res. Lett. 11, 064020. Lainez, M., González, J.M., Aguilar, A., Vela, C., 2017. Spanish strategy on bioeconomy: towards a knowledge based sustainable innovation. New Biotechnol. Lauer, C.J., Montgomery, C.A., Dietterich, T.G., 2017. Spatial interactions and optimal forest management on a fire-threatened landscape. Forest Pol. Econ. 83, 107–120. Levers, C., Verkerk, P.J., Müller, D., Verburg, P.H., Butsic, V., Leitão, P.J., Lindner, M., Kuemmerle, T., 2014. Drivers of forest harvesting intensity patterns in Europe. For. Ecol. Manag. 315, 160–172. Martínez de Arano, I., Garavaglia, V., Farcy, C., 2016. Chapter 5. Forests: facing the challenges of global change. In: Mediterra (Ed.), Zero Waste in the Mediterranean. Natural Resources, Food and Knowledge. International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM) and Food and Agriculture Organization
5. Bioeconomy as a solution to tackle wildfires The bio-economy is expected to become a key growth engine in the 21st century and forests are expected to play an important role in the future bio-economy, in the Mediterranean (Koukios et al., 2017; Lainez et al., 2017), as well as Europe as a whole (Pätäri et al. 2016; Scarlat et al., 2015). Studies based on theory (Regos et al., 2016) and practice (Evans and Finkral, 2009) have already linked woody biomass extraction to reduced risk of wildfires systems, but indicate it is still difficult to develop profitable value chains with bio-energy (Evans and Finkral, 2009). However, a bio-economy offers many more opportunities than bio-energy systems only. The development of new technologies provides unprecedented possibilities in transforming biological resources into new bio-based solutions that can replace fossil-based products and non-renewable raw materials. Cellulose and lignin, which are widespread compounds found in plants, are important components from which new bio-based construction materials, textiles, chemicals and plastics can be developed (Sillanpää and Ncibi, 2017). Innovative forest-based business models already exist in the region, including a world-market leader relying on regional resources to produce and sell cork products and flooring worldwide (Hermann, 2009). Furthermore, new business models for not yet commercially explored resources, including medicinal and aromatic plants, honey, mushrooms, etc. are 2
Forest Policy and Economics 86 (2018) 1–3
P.J. Verkerk et al.
San-Miguel-Ayanz, J., Camia, A., 2010. Forest fires, mapping the impacts of natural hazards and technological accidents in Europe. An overview of the last decade. In: EEA Technical Report No 13. European Environment Agency, Copenhagen. San-Miguel-Ayanz, J., Moreno, J.M., Camia, A., 2013. Analysis of large fires in European Mediterranean landscapes: lessons learned and perspectives. For. Ecol. Manag. 294, 11–22. Scarlat, N., Dallemand, J.-F., Monforti-Ferrario, F., Nita, V., 2015. The role of biomass and bioenergy in a future bioeconomy: policies and facts. Environ. Develop. 15, 3–34. Seidl, R., Schelhaas, M.-J., Lexer, M.J., 2011. Unraveling the drivers of intensifying forest disturbance regimes in Europe. Glob. Chang. Biol. 17, 2842–2852. Seidl, R., Schelhaas, M.-J., Rammer, W., Verkerk, P.J., 2014. Increasing forest disturbances in Europe and their impact on carbon storage. Nat. Clim. Chang. 4, 806–810. Sillanpää, M., Ncibi, C., 2017. A Sustainable Bioeconomy. Springer International Publishing, The Green Industrial Revolution. Tedim, F., Leone, V., Xanthopoulos, G., 2016. A wildfire risk management concept based on a social-ecological approach in the European Union: fire smart territory. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduction 18, 138–153. Valente, S., Coelho, C., Ribeiro, C., Liniger, H., Schwilch, G., Figueiredo, E., Bachmann, F., 2015. How much management is enough? Stakeholder views on forest management in fire-prone areas in central Portugal. Forest Pol. Econ. 53, 1–11.
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