• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage
• Publicationsclose
• 2017-2021close
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• Rural Landscapes: Society Environment History close
• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage close

Awareness of human–forest relationships offers a basis for meaningful forest policy participation. However, weakening connections to forests, particularly among young people, hamper youth inclusion in policy arenas. We consider the use of arts-based methods as knowledge practices that nurture human–forest relationships and may promote inclusive policies. Arts-based methods, such as photography, music, or drama, offer insights and elicit opinions. Within the forest domain, exploiting such methods requires better understanding of how participants perceive them. Here we present two cases where young people (17–30 years) unfold their forest relationships. Following prompted retrospective reflections, we qualitatively analyse participant perceptions of the interventions. Case one is an innovation workshop blending art and science, where young research participants joined artists and environmental and forest scientists. Case two is a writing exercise for young research participants, where a hip-hop/rap video about laser scanning and the role of forests in climate change was used to catalyse participants’ reflections. Analysis applied the tripartite model of attitude comprising cognitive, affective, and behavioural dimensions. The workshop results emphasise benefits of networking and fruitful reflections, coupled with unequal participation concerns. The video experience yielded a range of thoughts and emotions, including excitement and invitingness, but also irritation, doubts over its influence, and no explicit behavioural intentions. The findings suggest that realising the opportunities of arts-based knowledge practices requires time and space for ensuring that young people’s voices are heard. More inclusive participation of youth in formal and informal forest policy dialogue calls for careful facilitation and means to secure continuation.

The implementation of biodiversity conservation measures in forests managed for timber production usually implies trade-offs between ecological and economic objectives. In continuous cover forestry these trade-offs emerge at the scale of selecting individual trees for timber harvesting or habitat retention. Tree selection determines both the economic viability of timber management and the prevalence of tree-related microhabitats, considered a multi-taxon indicator of forest biodiversity. Recent studies find that tree selection is influenced by several factors, such as individual management preferences and goals, professional education and institutional context. To gain a deeper understanding of tree-selection practices in the context of retention forestry, we analyse four tree-selection exercises on silvicultural training sites (Marteloscopes) performed by groups with different professional backgrounds: conservationists, foresters, and students of each. Based on qualitative data from participant observations and group discussions, we explore their decision-making strategies, reasoning, and practices. Our analysis provides novel insights into decision-making processes when implementing conservation measures, especially with regard to dealing with trade-offs and uncertainties. Our findings indicate that tree-selection decisions are not merely the result of cognitive and rational weighing processes. They can be understood as practices requiring experience, professional routine, and intuition. These practices differ across professional cultures. Despite these differences, the participants of the analysed Marteloscope exercises developed an understanding of the other stakeholders’ motivations and restrictions. The setting stimulated a change of perspective that built awareness in many of the participants of their own routines and biases. This may facilitate professional cooperation, cross-disciplinary learning, and the implementation of biodiversity conservation.

Route networks are influenced by cultural and environmental dynamics. Consequently, route networks themselves often are dynamic as well. This is especially true in lowland areas, such as the Netherlands, where environmental processes (e.g. geomorphological changes, floods) probably reshaped these networks numerous times. Many of the existing route networks in the Netherlands were established relatively recently, and little is known of their historical predecessors. Recent developments in spatial modelling may improve locating and analysing these old, vanished routes. In this study we have applied two recently-developed applications for historical-route network modelling to the Veluwe (the Netherlands) in order to reconstruct the route network in the region around AD 1500. This region is not densely cultivated and is known to have a long history of routes and paths running through the landscape. The first method, network friction, uses high-resolution geoscientific and cultural data to calculate potential movement corridors and probable route zones. The second method uses a more traditional least-cost path (LCP) model based on surface, groundwater level and slope. The usefulness of these approaches for reconstructing past route networks and the general added value of these approaches was assessed by comparing the reconstructions to the few existing spatial overviews of historical-route networks in this region and hollow ways extracted from Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data. Our findings show that the results of the first method, network-friction modelling, correspond best with the comparison data regarding known routes in the study area. However, the general results point towards the necessity of integrating the two applied methods, since a combination of these models best reflects the multiscale variability within regional route networks.