Helga PülzlEuropean Forest Institute | EFI · Policy Support Facility
Helga Pülzl
Mag. Dr.phil
About
71
Publications
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
April 2012 - present
April 2008 - March 2012
Publications
Publications (71)
Deforestation and forest degradation remain huge global environmental challenges. Over the last decades, various forest governance initiatives and institutions have evolved in global response to interlinked topics such as climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, indigenous rights, and trade impacts – accompanied by various levels of ac...
Citizens living in Europe appreciate forests for the many societal benefits they provide, and literally all of them consume forest-based products ranging from furniture to paper products.
The forest policy framework sets overall legislative, administrative, stimulation, communication and other conditions for forest management. It is an essential component of sustainable forest management, considering the environmental and socioeconomic conditions at international, national and sub-national level. Key messages: • National forest prog...
The first EU Forest Strategy was adopted in 1998 to provide general guidelines for an EU forest policy designed to coordinate other EU forest-relevant policies. The implementation of the first strategy was done under the auspices of the EU Forest Action Plan, covering the period from 2007 to 2011. The Forest Action Plan was a tool that facilitated...
Supplementary materials to https://doi.org/10.3390/su12103999.
Forests and forest-relevant policies in Europe face a wide array of challenges in a rapidly changing world. Issues such as Brexit, the new European Parliament and European Commission, and the recent European Green Deal proposal are certain to affect policymaking, as are the as-yet unknown impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19).
A new science-policy...
Die Umweltdebatte hat in den westlichen Industriestaaten erst seit den 1960er- und 1970er-Jahren ernsthaft Fuß fassen können. Dafür gab es mehrere Auslöser: ein wachsendes Umweltbewusstsein infolge größerer technischer Unfälle, ein schleichender – zunächst teilweise kaum sichtbarer – Prozess der ökologischen Degradation, Gesundheitsgefährdungen sow...
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
A novel European Union forest policy based on the best and
most up-to-date information available is urgently needed. Without such change, forests will not provide the resources we need and will suffer heavily under climate change. Forest inventories and many information sources exist in all countries but are not properly used in European Union pol...
Context
Achieving sustainable development as an inclusive societal process, and securing sustainability and resilience of human societies as well as the natural environment are wicked problems. Realising sustainable forest management (SFM) policy in local landscapes is one example.
Objectives
Using the European Union as a case study for the implem...
The aim of this study is to help build a knowledge base for the review of the EU Forest Strategy that was adopted by the European Commission in 2013. The EU Forest Strategy addresses 8 priority areas that were identified as being particularly relevant for forests and the forest-based sector until 2020. These priority areas address: (i) support of r...
This article looks at forest policy as empirical case study of European integration. By applying different theoretical lenses of European integration approaches (neo-functionalism, liberal intergovernmentalism, three institutionalist approaches and constructivism), it seeks to explain and understand the integration of forest policy in the European...
While very many decision-support (DS) tools (i.e. models and decision support systems (DSS)) have been developed to address forest management problems in Europe, the use of such tools in supporting forest policy processes remains limited. Additionally, while there has been very limited sharing of these tools between European countries, there may be...
Supplementary materials to https://doi.org/10.3390/f9030125.
The second European Union (EU) Forest Strategy responds to new challenges facing both forests and the forest-based sector which highlights the EU’s need for a policy framework ensuring coordination and coherence of forest-related policies. The objective of the present article is to analyse whether the new Strategy contributes towards horizontal pol...
The term "orchestration" is predominately used in relation to studying or practicing music. Recently the term has also been used to describe the automated coordination and management of complex computer systems in order to make their service-oriented architecture and provisioning more efficient. Both terms conceptualize a process of different eleme...
The overarching aim of this review paper is to investigate the involvement of experts, citizens, and participatory professionals in forest policy decision-making processes. Three interpretations of governance are distinguished to translate the idea of an orchestra to European (forest) policy making processes, referring to Frank Fischer's differenti...
The first part of this chapter discusses some national bioeconomy strategies and country highlights in relation to forests. The second part turns to reviewing and discussing some of the most recent social scientific research focusing on the forest-bioeconomy in Europe.
The term bioeconomy has been generated as a new discourse in the environmental policy arena. This paper raises three questions: (i) are environmental concerns integrated in the political discourses of bioeconomy and, if so, to what extent?, (ii) in which way is the environment framed in the political discourses of bioeconomy?, and (iii) are environ...
Information needs on a forest-based bioeconomy go beyond the classical instruments so far employed by the sector. These requirements are by nature multi-sectoral, interconnected and integrative across value chains. Against this background, new modalities of a forest-based knowl-edge base need to be developed that facilitate a broader approach towar...
The European forest-based bioeconomy is affected by a huge number of policy instruments. Different policies affect distinct stages of the forest-based value chain (and its respective sub-sectors) in different ways. Diversification processes, as part of a cross-sectoral bioeconomy, increase this complexity. (i) Several policies address trade-offs be...
The concepts of sustainability and sustainable development (SD) are often used by policy-makers, stakeholders and the private sector, as ‘selling points’ for their agendas and goals. Thanks to the wide, but also self-interpretive definition, the concepts allow various actors to make related pledges without necessarily undertaking any significant ch...
European forests and the forest-based sector play a central role in a bioeconomy: they provide material (wood and non-wood), bioenergy and a wealth of other regulating and cultural ecosystem services. These demands need to be properly balanced, and many targets have to be tackled simultaneously. How is wood grown and used? What are the economically...
Forests are rich in biodiversity and valuable for recreation, water regulation and soil protection. As well as for providing timber and other non-wood forest products, forests are important for mitigating climate change and for the renewable energy sector. Forest ecosystems are exposed to a range of environmental, economic and social pressures that...
Sustainable development (SD) is highlighted in different national strategies as the overarching goal of the shift towards bioeconomy. It promises to address major societal and economic challenges and at the same time to create a more favourable environment. The bioeconomy in itself however cannot be considered as self-evidently sustainable as visio...
Bioeconomy has been identified as a new (meta-)discourse (Pülzl et al., 2014) fueled by different political organizations and at different political levels highlighting sustainable development (SD) as a major goal. Addressing major societal and economic challenges and at the same time create a more favorable environment is promised in different bio...
Sustainability is often used by policy-makers, stakeholders and the private sector, as a ‘selling point’ of their existing agendas and goals. Thanks to its wide, but also self-interpretive definition, the concept allows various actors to make sustainability pledges without necessarily undertaking significant changes in their respective policies, st...
In the light of major global problems and/or emerging challenges such as for example climate change, the continuing loss of biodiversity, deforestation and desertification, the need for a stable provision of renewable energy, and the further dispersal of invasive species, the identification of criteria and indicators (C&I) to generate knowledge abo...
The pursuit of sustainable development requires a political system that secures effective citizen participation in decision-making, an economic system that is able to generate surpluses on a sustained basis and a social system providing for a solution to tensions arising from disharmonious development; it recognizes also the rights of the individua...
The pursuit of sustainable development requires a political system that secures effective citizen participation in decision-making, an economic system that is able to generate surpluses on a sustained basis and a social system providing for a solution to tensions arising from disharmonious development; it recognizes also the rights of the individua...
We, like many colleagues, were deeply shocked and saddened to hear of Herbert Gottweis’ untimely death on the 31 March this year. While we were aware of Herbert’s illness, we also hoped that, against the odds, he would recover in his typical, buoyant style. This was not to be. A few days after receiving the terrible news, we began a discussion of w...
The term bioeconomy and closely related notions like bio-based economy or knowledge-based bioeconomy (KBBE) are increasingly used by scientists and politicians in the last years. It does therefore have the potential of becoming an influential global discourse. Its role is however so far unclear. The general assumption that guides this paper is that...
“We carry a strong responsibility: for the future of our country, our currency and the future of Europe”. This statement of a German MP is not only typical for as to how the European financial crisis is talked about in the debates of the German Bundestag, but also the Austrian
Nationalrat. Germany is the most important European crisis manager owing...
“We carry a strong responsibility: for the future of our country, our currency and the future
of Europe”. This statement of a German MP is not only typical for as to how the European
financial crisis is talked about in the debates of the German Bundestag, but also
the Austrian Nationalrat.
Germany is the most important European crisis manager owing...
Since the Brundtland report the world is still struggling to solve the riddle of sustainability. If there is no "blueprint" for implementing sustainable development, the practical meaning has to emerge out of an interactive process of social dialogue and reflection. Sustainability therefore goes through a constant process of redefinition and interp...
We argue in this paper that research and policy on sustainable development, democracy and governance need to be better linked to each other in order to be able to implement the political requirements simultaneously. Thus we propose an integrated approach that respects the ideas of sustainable development, governance modes and democracy.
Since the Brundtland report the world is still struggling to solve the riddle of sustainability. If there is no "blueprint° for implementing sustainable development, the practical meaning has to emerge out of an interactive process of social dialogue and reflection. Sustainability therefore goes through a constant process of redefinition and interp...
Since the Brundtland report the world is still struggling to solve the riddle of sustainability. If there is no “blueprint” for implementing sustainable development, the practical meaning has to emerge out of an interactive process of social dialogue and reflection. Sustainability therefore goes through a constant process of redefinition and interp...
Since the Brundtland report the world is still struggling to solve the riddle of sustainability. If there is no “blueprint” for implementing sustainable development, the practical meaning has to emerge out of an interactive process of social dialogue and reflection. Sustainability therefore goes through a constant process of redefinition and interp...
In this article, the development and operationalisation of forestry-wood chain indicators within the frame of sustainability
impact assessment are discussed. The analytical framework follows a distinction between indicator definition and selection
in a first phase, and a second operational phase of indicator application in terms of interconnecting...
The thesis deals with the question of why no international legally binding instrument for forest policy exists so far. The thesis shows that the problem definition presents a form of control for the decision making process and for the problem solution. Therefore, it is demonstrated how locations, reports and non-human objects are related to the dev...
Politics are not only about interests and institutions but discourses as well. Discourses are (dominant) ideas, concepts and categorisations in a society that give meaning to reality and that shape the identities, interests and preferences of individuals and groups. The assumption of this chapter is that forest discourses are constitutive to global...
In sustainability impact assessments the development of widely accepted indicators that structure the subject area and provide the framework for assessing sustainability impacts is clearly important. We argue that the development of sustainability indicators in science-based initiatives works across the science/policy interface where social and nat...
The efforts to develop sustainability indicators have strongly increased since the beginning of the 1990s, often led by intergovernmental processes. More recently, a number of sustainability indicator development processes have been initiated within large research projects that aim to design tools for sustainability assessments, funded by the Europ...
Governance has become one of the central concepts in political science, but what is absent is the question: Which modes of governance produce which policy output? This paper develops a classification scheme for modes of governance in all dimensions of public policy and then applies it empirically in four Austrian case studies concerning higher educ...
It is the aim of this chapter to summarize the theoretical lessons to be drawn from the wealth of literature produced by more than thirty years of implementation research. The chapter is structured as follows: Section 2 discusses three different analytical approaches in traditional implementation theory in more detail: top-down models, bottom-up cr...
Until relatively recently, forest governance across the globe followed a "top down" or hierarchical approach. In this traditional model, policy goals were determined and developed within the confines of the nation state and implemented by state officials invoking a variety of "command and control" policy instruments. However, the limitations of tra...
In this article we outline three different modes of natural resource governance that can be traced in international policy making and planning over the last 40 years. We show that a shift from the hierarchical to the heterarchical mode of governance can be found in natural resource governance. Agenda 21 introduced new planning ideas to the internat...
Projects
Projects (10)
(i) develop business models and mechanisms to internalize the socio-economic value of forest ecosystems,
(ii) combine public policy tools with business models for implementing payments for forest ecosystem services at multiple levels, and
(iii) demonstrate and compare alternative approaches for payments in case studies in Europe.
see: https://nobel.boku.ac.at/
ArcticHubs (EU funded H2020 -project) will develop sustainable solutions for reconciliation of competing livelihoods and land-use modes in key Arctic ‘hubs’—important socioeconomic nodes in a geographical network—and their surroundings, considering in particular the needs and cultures of local communities (incl. indigenous people). This will be achieved by applying multi- and interdisciplinary, multi-actor participatory approaches to systematically map, identify and analyse global drivers and pressures with high environmental, societal and economic impacts affecting 33 key hubs examining sustainability of fish farming, multiple use of forests, tourism, mining and indigenous cultures.
This project, which will involve workshops in Viennese schools as a key element of the research, aims to gain a better understanding of how young citizens envisage their climate futures, and what they perceive to be necessary and possible climate actions in the city of Vienna.
At the core of the project is the development of a climate action game that will be a tool for exploring the roles of different actors in developing climate action in the city of Vienna.
