Forest and Environmental Policy Freiburg

Erstmals seit dem Waldsterben in den 19080er Jahren ist der Wald wieder ein zentrales Thema in der deutschen Öffentlichkeit und Politik. Philipp Mack beschäftigt sich mit der Konstruktion des „Waldsterbens 2.0“ als Krisennarrativ klimawandelbedingter Waldschäden. Dabei geht er vor allem auf die Fragen der Deutungshoheit ein: Welche Perspektiven und Akteure sind in der aktuellen Debatte dominant? Während sich an der Oberfläche das Bild zweier gegenüberstehender Lager von Forst und Naturschutz abbildet, zeigen die Analysen öffentlicher und politischer Dokumente jedoch ein deutlich differenzierteres Bild der Argumentationen. Daher geht die Promotionsarbeit auch der Frage nach, wie diese Polarisierung zwischen Forst und Naturschutz im Diskurs selbst konstruiert wird.

In the course of her PhD, Sabeth Häublein is investigating the forest-water nexus and, specifically, local narratives on water and forests in Germany. How do narratives circulating in the water and forestry sector overlap, how do they differ? Do they perceive and talk about the same issues - if they interact, at all? Those questions and more will be addressed in this podcast's episode!

There are various perspective on how forests should be managed the "right" way. Depending on who you ask, answers can vary greatly. What are the underlying mechanisms and values that support the formation of certain beliefs on forest management? And how is it possible that people with different stands can communicate effectively, without dismissing each other? These are the questions Lena Riemann is interested in. In her PhD, she is conducting interdisciplinary research on the barriers and enablers of communication about forestry among a variety of stakeholders with different values, beliefs and interests.

Fafali Roy Ziga-Abortta is currently undertaking his PhD research on the role of policy networks and institutional vulnerabilities in flood disaster risk management. His work at the chair of forest and environmental policy broadly entails sustainability research and environmental policy analysis and specifically how actors interact amongst themselves and with governance arrangements, while integrating both quantitative (e.g. social network analysis) and qualitative (e.g. interviews, document analysis) approaches. In this episode you hear about the context of the research project and how to make sense of a complex topic out of a lense from policy analysis and social science.

Fafali Roy Ziga-Abortta is currently undertaking his PhD research on the role of policy networks and institutional vulnerabilities in flood disaster risk management. His work at the chair of forest and environmental policy broadly entails sustainability research and environmental policy analysis and specifically how actors interact amongst themselves and with governance arrangements, while integrating both quantitative (e.g. social network analysis) and qualitative (e.g. interviews, document analysis) approaches. In this episode you hear about the context of the research project and how to make sense of a complex topic out of a lense from policy analysis and social science.

Maddie Shelton is a cotutelle PhD candidate in the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University (ANU), and with the Chair of Forest and Environmental Policy, University of Freiburg. In her research, she explores the power structures that shape global discourses on forest landscape restoration. Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) can be identified as a procedural approach to restore ecological processes on deserted or degraded landscapes in order to maintain biodiversity, safeguard ecosystem functions, and confer resilience to environmental change. Even though restoration has been practiced for many years by local actors, the term FLR is rather new and has been coined by international players. Maddie seeks answers to questions such as: How is the relationship between livelihoods and restoration? What detrimental effects are possible if the social aspect is neglected in the implementation of FLR? How can human wellbeing and conservation efforts be ensured at the same time? Who defines what restoration is and how it is to be done?

Dr. Tanya Baycheva-Merger is a post-doctoral researcher at the Chair of Forest and Environmental Governance. Her research interest focuses on the intersection of environmental governance and information exchange in digital technologies. Advanced digital tools have been rapidly developed and increasingly propagated as important tools for improving environmental governance, e.g. through delivering real-time monitoring information. But digitalization is not just technology-driven, it also includes social processes and changes. Governments are confronted with the challenge to develop policies that take more than one dimension into account. In her research, Tanya wants to find out how can the power of those technologies be harnessed in order to address environmental challenges, while at the same time ensuring effective and equitable governance.