As of this week, the 2018 AHIA-proposal has been selected and approved officially. The chosen proposal is entitled:

'Land-sparing vs. land-sharing for functional green infrastructure that sustains biodiversity and ecosystem services? – European landscape approach initiatives provide regionally adapted solutions.'

We are now calling for ALTER-Net researchers to join in this innovative, high-impact project.

Background:
Biodiversity conservation is about maintaining viable populations of species through functional habitat networks that are sustained by abiotic, biotic or anthropogenic processes. This forms the foundation for the provisioning of ecosystem services. Given the diversity of landscape histories, land ownership and landscape stewardship on the European continent, biodiversity conservation requires regionally adapted solutions. Landscape approach is the umbrella concept for place-based transdisciplinary knowledge production and learning involving researchers and stakeholders to implement on the ground policies like the EU Biodiversity strategy, Green Infrastructure policy, Sustainable Forest Management and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) platform, Model Forest, Biosphere Reserve and Landscape Observatory are examples aiming at landscape approach.

Invitation to face-to-face and Skype workshops during autumn 2018 and winter-spring 2019 with the aims:

• To define barriers to green infrastructure governance, planning and management in social-ecological systems forming Pan-European biodiversity hotspots representing visions of natural disturbance regimes on the onehand, and traditional cultural landscapes on the other (ranging from intact forest landscapes in Russia to dehesa and montado systems on the Iberian peninsula). The results will be presented as a manuscript for a high-level peer-review journal.
• To explore the opportunity for bridges through place-based transdisciplinary initiatives committed to landscape approach concepts on the European continent to engage in developing regionally adapted solutions. The results will be presented as a manuscript for a high-level peer-review journal.
• To formulate key messages to share and disseminate insights, and to communicate these insights to policymakers and the general public. The findings will be summarized as a fact sheet, a jargon-free text for ALTER-Net and other websites, an ALTER-Net labeled webinar, a short video presentation for YouTube, and a final report.

Send your expression of interest to participate in this exciting work not later than August 31st 2018 with:

• A letter explaining your skills and long-term experience of relevance to three bullet points above.
• A list of peer-review publication on these points, and where you were the lead author.
• An estimation of the in-kind contribution you can invest in this work, expressed as person-weeks during the coming academic year 2018/19. A detailed programme will be developed jointly in September 2018 when theteam has been assembled.

Project Coordinator:
Per Angelstam
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Faculty of Forest Sciences
[email protected]; +46702444971

Current Project Participants:
Fatima Cruz, University of Valladolid, Spain
Mariia Fedoriak, Chernivtsi National University, Ukraine
Michael Manton, Alexandras Stulginskis University, Lithuania
Marc Metzger, University of Edinburgh, UK
Teresa Pinto-Correia, University of Évora, Portugal
Frans Sijtsma, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Natalie Strymets, Foscari University of Venice, Italy