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Ecosystem Services from Forest Landscapes pp 57–87Cite as

Towards Functional Green Infrastructure in the Baltic Sea Region: Knowledge Production and Learning Across Borders

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Abstract

Natural capital is the foundation for delivering multiple ecosystem services important for biodiversity and human wellbeing. Functional green infrastructure (GI) is one of the land management approaches to secure the sustainable use of natural capital. This chapter presents the outcomes of a integrative research for knowledge production and learning towards functional GI in the Baltic Sea Region. The overview of attempts to develop functional GI in Sweden, Latvia, Belarus and the Russian Federation, the countries with different contexts, illustrates similar sets of challenges in the maintenance of GI functions for both biodiversity and human wellbeing. The main challenges are (1) sustaining sufficient amounts of representative ecosystems with functional connectivity, (2) maintaining land management practices that support natural and seminatural areas important for human wellbeing and (3) development of stakeholder cross-sectoral collaboration laboratories towards a sustainable use of ecosystem services across the Baltic Sea Region. To deal with these challenges, there are at least five main sets of opportunities: (1) favourable international policies towards functional GI, (2) the abundance of applied knowledge in biodiversity conservation needed for GI’s integrated spatial planning, (3) existing landscape approach initiatives with rich experience in sustainable management and governance of landscapes, (4) the potential of landscape restoration projects and (5) transdisciplinary research projects that have been practised in the Baltic Sea Region. Stakeholders have much to gain from increased multilateral, learning-based collaborations regarding all aspects of sustainable forest landscapes. Such collaborations could serve as laboratories for cross-border governance and management in the Baltic Sea Region.

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Acknowledgements

This study was made with funding from the Swedish Institute [grant number 10976/2013] to Marine Elbakidze and from the Swedish Research Council Formas [grant number 2011-1737] to Per Angelstam.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School for Forest Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Skinnskatteberg, Sweden

    Marine Elbakidze, Per Angelstam & Vladimir Naumov

  2. Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Lucas Dawson

  3. SSPA “The Scientific and Practical Center of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus for Biological Resources”, Minsk, Belarus

    Alena Shushkova, Uladzimir Ustsin & Natalia Yurhenson

  4. Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia

    Zigmārs Rendenieks & Laura Trasūne

  5. Faculty of Forestry, Latvia University of Agriculture, Jelgava, Latvia

    Liga Liepa

  6. State Scientific Institution “The Institute of Experimental Botany named after V.F. Kuprevich of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus”, Minsk, Belarus

    Siarhei Uhlianets, Maxim Yermokhin & Anton Zhivotov

  7. Faculty of Forest Science and Ecology, Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Kaunas, Lithuania

    Michael Manton

  8. State Environmental Institution National Park “Braslavskie Ozera”, Braslav, Belarus

    Marharyta Nestsiarenka

  9. Zemgale Planning Region Administration, Jelgava, Latvia

    Austra Irbe

  10. Pskovlesproekt Company, Pskov, Russian Federation

    Aleksandra Grebenzshikova

Authors
  1. Marine Elbakidze
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  2. Per Angelstam
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  3. Lucas Dawson
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  4. Alena Shushkova
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  5. Vladimir Naumov
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  6. Zigmārs Rendenieks
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  7. Liga Liepa
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  12. Michael Manton
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  13. Austra Irbe
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  16. Anton Zhivotov
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  17. Marharyta Nestsiarenka
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marine Elbakidze .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ontario Forest Research Institute, Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada

    Ajith H. Perera

  2. Institute of Forestry and Rural Engineering, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Tartu, Estonia

    Urmas Peterson

  3. Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

    Guillermo Martínez Pastur

  4. Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science Northern Research Station, US Forest Service, Delaware, Ohio, USA

    Louis R. Iverson

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Elbakidze, M. et al. (2018). Towards Functional Green Infrastructure in the Baltic Sea Region: Knowledge Production and Learning Across Borders. In: Perera, A., Peterson, U., Pastur, G., Iverson, L. (eds) Ecosystem Services from Forest Landscapes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74515-2_4

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