Abstract

The project "Futures and Visions Forest 2100", funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), sets itself the task of identifying long-term developments and options for action, because the forest and forestry are facing profound changes. The project aims to stimulate the debate on the future of forests and land use with a time horizon up to 2100 and to raise awareness of the problem among all stakeholders. As part of the project "Futures and Visions Forest 2100", the IZT - Institute for Futures Studies and Technology Assessment and the Institute for Forest and Environmental Policy at the University of Freiburg conducted a survey among experts from the forestry and timber industry, forest research, associations and administrations between November 2007 and March 2008. 640 experts dared to look into the future and contributed their know-how and experience to the project. This is the first broad-based Delphi survey on new opportunities and perspectives for forests and land use in Germany. The Delphi study was conducted as a two-stage survey, with the second round building on the first round: 1st round: Written survey of 640 experts in November 2007 2nd round: Written survey of 399 experts in February 2008 The high level of participation in both survey rounds documents the great interest in addressing future issues within forestry. Due to the selection of participants, the results represent an internal perspective of the forestry sector on future developments. The groups of actors surveyed have very different assessments of the developments described, especially between representatives of nature conservation and the timber industry as well as private forest enterprises, which can lead to conflicts of interest and influence strategic orientations. In the following, the most important results of both survey rounds are summarised

Authors

Mickler, Tobias; Behrendt, Siegfried, Erdmann, Lorenz; Knoll, Michael; Rupp, Johannes; Schraml, Ulrich; Detten, Roderich von; Wurz, Antje