Mercedes Rois

Social innovations are grassroots processes aiming to achieve impacts beyond an individual level and towards a broader societal good. The environmental dimension of impacts refers to any direct change to the environment resulting from social innovation activities, products, or services, which are not addressed by pre-existing systems. In this paper...

Agroforestry is a sustainable land management system recognized worldwide but not implemented in a extensive form in temperate and developed countries. Agroforestry has been promoted in the last decades at global level as it provides more efficient and sustainable farming systems. This review aims at summarizing the main research findings explainin...

Wildfires have always been an integral part of the ecology of many terrestrial ecosystems, but their frequency is increasing in many parts of the world. Wildfires were once a natural phenomenon, but after humans learned to control fire, it has been used as a management tool to increase soil fertility, to regenerate natural vegetation for grazing an...

The TECH4EFFECT project (http://www.tech4effect.eu/), funded by the "Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program", is an international research collaboration of 20 partners from science and industry. The objective of the project is to enhance efficient wood production, by adapting t...

The circular forest-based bioeconomy is firmly anchored in the understanding of an economy which combines holistic, responsible and integrated management of natural resources, and products designed for circularity. Ecosystem services play a major role in production, mitigation and resilience of European forests.

Wildfires have always been an integral part of the ecology of many terrestrial ecosystems, but their frequency is increasing in many parts of the world. Wildfires were once a natural phenomenon, but after humans learned to control fire, it has been used as a management tool to increase soil fertility, to regenerate natural vegetation for grazing an...

Agroforestry is considered a sustainable form of land management that optimizes the use of natural resources (nutrients, radiation, water). Agroforestry was a traditional land use system in Europe before modern times. However, before the sixties land intensification and conso- lidation destroyed millions of trees all over Europe. On the contrary, s...

Agroforestry is one of the most prominent tools to make easy the transition of European agricultural and forestry farms to more sustainable land use systems such as agroforestry. The extent of agroforestry in Europe is 19.5 million of hectares, of which 85% is allocated to silvopastoralism mainly associated to European Southern countries but also p...

Agroforestry is an integrated land use management that combines a woody component with a lower story agricultural production recognized as one of the most important tools to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The objective of this paper is to provide a categorization and extent of agroforestry practices linked to agricultural and forest lands at...

Whilst the benefits of agroforestry are widely recognised in tropical latitudes few studies have assessed how agroforestry is perceived in temperate latitudes. This study evaluates how stakeholders and key actors including farmers, landowners, agricultural advisors, researchers and environmentalists perceive the implementation and expansion of agro...

Potential benefits and costs of agroforestry practices have been analysed by experts, but few studies have captured farmers’ perspectives on why agroforestry might be adopted on a European scale. This study provides answers to this question, through an analysis of 183 farmer interviews in 14 case study systems in eight European countries. The study...

The factors that determine the implementation of four alternative agroforestry practices or no agroforestry on a theoretical 200 ha farm in Mediterranean Europe were examined using an analytic network process (ANP) model. The four agroforestry practices considered were implementation of a form of (i) high natural and cultural value agroforestry, (i...

Agroforestry is considered a sustainable form of land management that optimizes the use of natural resources (nutrients, radiation, water). Agroforestry is defined as the deliberate integration of woody vegetation with agricultural activities in the lower story. It provides a higher biomass production per unit of land, while providing more ecosyste...

Agroforestry is a sustainable land management system that should be more strongly promoted in Europe to ensure adequate ecosystem service provision in the old continent (Decision 529/2013) through the common agricultural policy (CAP). The promotion of the woody component in Europe can be appreciated in different sections of the CAP linked to Pillar...

In Europe, the adoption of agroforestry practices by farmers is limited. Therefore, it is important to understand how farmers perceive agroforestry practices to promote their adoption. The aim of this study was to understand the knowledge that farmers have on apple orchard silvopasture in Galicia (NW Spain) through an analysis of farmer qualitative...

Agroforestry definitions and practices are difficult to understand mainly because of both time and spatial scale understanding is needed to fully be aware of the concept. The definition of agroforestry to facilitate the identification by policy makers could be "the deliberate integration of woody vegetation (trees and/or shrubs) as an upper storey...

Agroforestry has to play a key role in the next Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) with regard to the environment. Cross-compliance, Pillar I and Pillar II intend to protect the woody component in agricultural lands. However, the implementation is rather complex and usually inefficient as highlights the court of auditors. This paper summarizes the ma...

Agroforestry practices and systems are sustainable use land management that should be fostered by the global and European Union policies. Within the Common Agrarian Policy (CAP) there are opportunities to foster agroforestry practices and systems that are not fully recognized as agroforestry but that should be improved. Main challenges of agrofores...

Foreword. It is a great pleasure to share with you the excellent book of abstracts of the 4th European Agroforestry Conference carried out in the beautiful city of Nijmejen (The Netherlands) during the European Green Capital 2018. The book is plenty of extraordinary information and experiences about agroforestry practices and systems around the wo...

Many excellent results are obtained in agricultural and forestry research projects, but their practical adoption is often limited. The aim of the European project VALERIE is to increase the transfer and application of innovations produced by research in agriculture and forestry, by facilitating their integration into management practices. The proje...

After an introduction, the second section provides a definition of agroforestry for policy as ""the integration of woody vegetation (first component) in at least two vertical layers on land, with the bottom layer providing an agricultural product such crops or forage/pasture (second component) which may be consumed by animals (third component)”. It...

Agroforestry is a traditional land use practice where trees are deliberately combined with agricultural crops and/or livestock on the same piece of land. This practice can possibly contribute in achieving Europe's ambitious green economy goals. A positive aspect of agroforestry for the farmer is that it diversifies the enterprise base. An agrofores...

Silvopastoral systems reflect some aspects of multifunctionality­ of European forests. Sylvopastoral systems combine timber production with pastoral activities and associated animal products while concurrently preserving different aspects of biodiversity that has been reduced in Europe in the last century. For the first time within EU policy, the C...

These proceedings contain 123 papers which are divided into 5 main sessions. The first session includes the characterization of silvopastoral systems in a global context while the second session deals with the effects of the management tools on the productivity and quality of silvopastoral systems. The ecological implications of the silvopastoral s...

Not much is known about the dynamic development of a multi-species beech forest in the juvenile stage. This contribution presents an exemplary analysis of the growth pattern of a 0.23 ha research plot in the southern part of Lower Saxony. The age of the trees ranges between 36 and 41 years. The data were obtained during two successive measurements...