Keywords

Introduction

The IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report highlights the urgency of the climate crisis, predicting a potential 96–187% increase in burnt forest areas under a 3 °C temperature rise by the end of the century, contingent on fire management practices. Beyond this threshold, irreversible losses and damages are anticipated. Recent research by wildfire experts suggests that current Mediterranean fire management policies, focused on suppression, are destined to fail as they are unfit to account for the non-linear impacts of climate and landscape changes (Moreira et al., 2020).

The primary risks of climate change to forest ecosystems include increased fire danger, shifts in precipitation patterns, altered species compositions, disruptions in carbon sequestration, impacts on water resources, and the introduction and spread of invasive species, further threatening forest health and biodiversity. Moreover, the effects of these changes on the adaptive capacity of species and ecosystems remain uncertain, amplifying the urgency for comprehensive understanding and action.

Considering that Mediterranean forests in southern Europe play a vital socio-ecological role, providing crucial ecosystem services that shape economies, cultures, and societies, there is a need for a comprehensive re-evaluation and expansion of the EU Adaptation Strategy (2021) to prioritise climate-related risks to health and ecosystem well-being. We argue that this necessitates a holistic planning approach grounded in multispecies justice, capable of building greater capacity to counter these risks.

To develop a holistic perspective, this chapter draws on a critical literature review co-conducted by its authors in fields as diverse as political ecology, ecological economics, conservation biology, and forest ecology. Further enriching this perspective, an expert workshop in March 2024 brought together a diverse group of 12 specialists, including forest engineers, rural sociologists, ecological economists, environmental education experts, spatial planners, and environmental justice organisers. Additionally, we systematically examined EU strategies on adaptation and forestry to ensure that our approach was grounded in both academic research and real-world practices.

In what follows, we offer a value-based approach to climate risk management and a multispecies justice-focused policy planning process for the Euro-Mediterranean forests. As such, we first present the key debates at the intersection of climate policy and forest management. Subsequently, the discussion shifts to wildfires, highlighting these as a critical issue in the context of climate change and emphasising fire management as one of the key challenges associated with climate change. Offering a value-based approach grounded in IPBES’s Nature’s Contribution to People (NCP) framework, we conclude with a recommendation to mobilise multispecies justice in climate risk management and environmental planning in Euro-Mediterranean forests.

Changing Façades of Forest Policy in Europe

Forests constitute a key subject in various regulations within the EU’s environmental policy. The new EU Forest Strategy for 2030 (European Commission, 2021a, 2021b) aims to enhance the multifunctional forests in EU territory with a focus on building resilience against the high uncertainty posed by the changing climate. Yet, this policy shift does not proceed uncontested. On the one hand, forest owners and the forest products industry claim that the European Commission did not fully acknowledge the socio-economic sustainability aspect (Eustafor, 2021). On the other hand, nature conservation interests, while admitting that the strategy recognises the need to strengthen the protection, restoration, and biodiversity-friendly forest management, simultaneously accuse the Commission of putting short-term economic gains ahead of other considerations (WWF, 2021). Furthermore, the new Forest Strategy also led to a political cleavage among member states, which became evident in a joint letter issued by the ministers from Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. The joint letter asserted that the new forest strategy appeared to favour a “technocratic, one-size-fits-all, and top-down approach developed by the Commission” and demonstrated a lack of comprehension regarding the multifunctional role of forests and the forest-based sector (Köstinger, 2021, p. 2).

These criticisms of the new EU Forest Strategy can be addressed by redirecting the policy focus towards ecosystem integrity and socio-ecological well-being, instead of emphasising the primacy of other interests. The claim that this strategy does not acknowledge the differences among member states can also be interpreted as the negligence and lack of attention to the peculiarities of different and diverse forest ecosystems. EU territory covers 14 different forest ecosystems with 76 sub-types (European Environment Agency, 2006) in which Mediterranean woodlands (forests & shrublands) represent 13% of the total area. Due to an overlap of rich biodiversity with major climate change risks (Giorgi, 2006), the EU plays a crucial role in addressing forest-related global goals (FAO, 2018).

Through guidelines of the Commission such as “Closer to Nature Forest Management”, “Primary and Old Growth Forests”, “Biodiversity-friendly Afforestation”, and “Reforestation and Tree Planting”, scientific forestry can contribute to achieving more biodiversity-enriched forests instead of focusing on economic gain. Similarly, a coordinated effort to address the complex challenges to the well-being of forest communities, the needs of the forest industry, and the ambition to enhance ecosystem integrity requires sharper attention to wildfires as the prime example of risks in Euro-Mediterranean forests.

Beyond the Firefighting Trap

Mediterranean forests stand as crucial ecosystems of plant diversity on Earth, hosting around 25,000 species, approximately half of which are endemic to the region. Moreover, these forests offer a multitude of essential benefits and services to society, extending well beyond conventional forest products (Rizvi et al., 2015). The spectrum of vegetation types encompasses diverse landscapes, ranging from forests and woodlands to shrublands, and grasslands. The forest management systems in Mediterranean countries also exhibit a great diversity and unique characteristics, varying from one country to another despite similarities in climate and vegetation. The distinctions are particularly evident in factors such as land ownership ranging from predominantly privately owned western wing of Euro-Mediterranean forests to public ownership dominated eastern flank (Pulla et al., 2013) and the objectives set for ecosystem services. Together, these factors position the Mediterranean as a region with high fire activity, rendering it uniquely vulnerable. Changes in historical fire regimes, driven by climate change and anthropogenic influences, are currently observed and expected to continue. Consequently, the implementation of rapid and comprehensive solutions to address this issue is imperative.

In light of projections indicating a future increase in burned areas (Amatulli et al., 2013), an intriguing paradox emerges when contrasted with the existing trend of decreasing burned areas in European countries (Turco et al., 2016). This shift is likely to be influenced by prevailing fire suppression policies. Expenditure on suppression activities has increased and is expected to continue to do so (Mateus & Fernandes, 2014). However, despite intensive suppression efforts, it is recognised that extreme wildfire events are expected to continue, raising concerns about the long-term sustainability of the resources allocated to suppression activities (Moreira et al., 2020). Thus, this expected increase in extreme wildfire events, regardless of the substantial resources allocated to fire suppression, raises a critical question: Why do national policies continue to focus on and heavily invest in fire suppression even though such policies fail to address the challenges of a climate-changed future in forests?

The dominant policy approach in the Mediterranean, which emphasises fire suppression to minimise total burned areas, is expected to be ineffective in the long term for several reasons. For instance, successful implementation of fire suppression policies may inadvertently lead to a “firefighting trap” (Collins et al., 2013). This “firefighting trap” happens when a significant portion of the fire management budget and effort is allocated to fire suppression, with insufficient focus on strategies such as fuel removal to prevent fuel buildup at the landscape scale. Fuel buildup, when coupled with fire management policies that neglect the impacts of climate change results in larger and more intense fires in the long term under extreme fire weather conditions. Moreover, traditional suppression methods are proving inadequate to cope with the size and intensity of these large fires (Fernandes et al., 2016). While these reasons are not exhaustive, they highlight the pressing need for major policy change in Europe, particularly as the significance of wildfires grows not only in Mediterranean Europe but also in other European regions, including northern parts of the continent (Stoof et al., 2024). In recent years, experts have called for concrete measures to address the current challenges highlighting the severe ecological and economic consequences of changes in long-standing fire regimes (Kreider et al., 2024; Mauri et al., 2023; MedECC, 2020; Moreira et al., 2020). These calls should be rapidly acknowledged and integrated into the EU adaptation strategy, emphasising the urgency of transformative action and synergies between mitigation and adaptation (Rayner, 2023).

Towards a Value-Based Understanding of Forest–Climate Interaction

According to The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) NCP framework, the nature–people relationship can be framed in a wide range of different views, where on one extreme, there is a clear separation between humans and nature and on the other, humans and non-humans are deeply interconnected with strong bonds (Díaz et al., 2018). These bonds provide a more direct and suitable framework for a discussion around multispecies approaches. Mediterranean forests promote human well-being by delivering multiple material, non-material, and regulating NCPs, such as regulating watershed hydrology, protecting against erosion, filtering water, providing wood and food resources. They also feature cultural, spiritual, and religious importance for local people and communities (FAO, 2018). As a result of the multiplicity of different NCPs, policies regarding governance, management, and protection must entail an inclusive, multi-layered, and pluralistic process.

However, despite growing recognition of the importance of incorporating diverse socio-ecological values into policy and decision-making frameworks (IPBES, 2022), contemporary approaches to forest management and governance continue to primarily prioritise market values and concentrate on NCPs that directly impact human well-being economically (Isaac et al., 2024). The implicit hierarchy of values, which is dominated by an anthropocentric perspective that sees humans as separate and, more problematically, superior to other species, results in the mal-governance of forest ecosystems as well as maladaptation to climate impacts.

People, especially forest communities, “have complex and multifaceted interactions with forest ecosystems that go well beyond subsistence” (Bozok, 2024, p. 277). This, in turn, creates a strong relationship between humans and forests insofar as when individuals consider the natural world, they often first think about forests. However, while such sentiments are broadly beneficial for establishing societal legitimacy for forest protection, they may lead to an excessive emphasis on fire suppression to protect forests, resulting in alteration of forest dynamics, and rendering them more vulnerable to larger and more intense wildfires in the long term. Equating forests to untouched nature is also detrimental to broader environmental policy and socio-ecological objectives when other natural areas (e.g., steppes, wetlands, prairies) are considered.

Centring Multispecies Justice in Climate Risk Management

To go beyond the conundrum of forest protection-climate change adaptation, we argue that a multispecies justice lens can provide a helpful way out. Multispecies justice seeks to decentre the human by going beyond human exceptionalism through its focus on cross-scalar and mundane interactions between human societies and more-than-human worlds (Tschakert et al., 2021). Thus, it is defined as “politics for composing a common world that considers the needs and livelihoods of a diversity of human and non-human life” (Jones, 2019, p. 485). This calls for relational, cross-scalar, and careful attention to humans and more-than-humans in Mediterranean forest environments to move beyond a utilitarian and unidimensional understanding of the values of these areas.

A major implication of the multispecies lens to climate risk management is to scrutinise property relations as the basis of justice. By foregrounding the “property” question against privatisation and individualisation, multispecies justice helps re-centre relationality, collective ownership, commoning, and care dimensions (Celermajer et al., 2023). Reframing the web of relations between humans and their non-human environment under climate duress is a key step here. For instance, rather than resorting to catastrophic narratives under increased fire danger in Mediterranean forests, a multispecies approach could help reveal the inherent values of fire-adapted ecosystems (including but not limited to forests and scrubs) to their human and non-human inhabitants. This also calls for a culturally sensitive, gender-conscious, grounded, and relational understanding of fire risk management (often a technical response to naturally occurring phenomena) by not solely resorting to end-of-the-pipe fire suppression solutions. In line with calls for a shift from “matters of fact” to “matters of care” in climate adaptation (Tozzi, 2021), we argue that a rendering of vulnerability as a “state of shared fragility” between humans and more-than-human nature can expand the policy horizon.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Euro-Mediterranean forests stand at crossroads. They face a complex intermesh of stressors such as climate risks amplified by demographic pressures, economic disparities, and societal change. Addressing these challenges demands a specific approach that acknowledges the region's complex interplay of ecological, social, and cultural factors. Such an approach necessitates a transformative shift in policy framing, moving beyond one-size-fits-all strategies and embracing localised solutions grounded in a deep understanding and collaborative action.

An important pillar of this new approach must be rethinking climate risk management policies imposed from above. Instead, a co-creation approach beyond tokenistic participation in policymaking, one that features open dialogue and cooperation with diverse stakeholders, including scientists from social and natural sciences, forestry experts, and local communities is imperative. To carefully assess trade-offs, such co-creation processes may embrace frameworks such as NCPs and multispecies justice as their starting points. Based on our SSH-STEM collaboration experience, we conclude that interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder endeavours are challenging, especially considering the current divide between social and natural sciences requiring additional effort and time to learn from each other. However, this co-creation and scientific translation process is absolutely crucial to a holistic understanding of the problem. Therefore, such scientific and societal collaborations need to be nurtured further.

Forests are highly valuable, diverse natural ecosystems that justify current fire management and restoration methods. Nonetheless, a new set of policies is required to transform people's relational values under climate impacts, particularly through raising public awareness about effective fire management and restoration methods while preserving instrumental, relational, and intrinsic benefits. Drawing on a more balanced and pluralistic NCP approach in forest governance will not only enhance the efficacy and legitimacy of these policies but will also foster the connection between rights-based approaches to conservation and sustainable use of nature for a good life (IPBES, 2022).

Humans actively make and re-make their environments but so do non-human actors. Vulnerability to wildfires, in this sense, is a conflict-ridden, resistance-generating process that inherently is emotional and thus foregrounds relations of care and interconnectedness between human and non-human nature (González-Hidalgo, 2023). Furthermore, the increase in the size and intensity of fires due to inadequate fire management strategies reinforces this conflict-ridden and resistance-generating process (Kreider et al., 2024). As such, the aftermath of wildfires should not only be thought of as a hurried ecological and biophysical reconstruction effort but also as a psycho-social health process involving grief for lost lives and landscapes (ibid.).

In sum, building a resilient future for the Euro-Mediterranean forests requires embracing contextualised knowledge held by forest communities. Integrating their voices, local ecological knowledge, and concerns alongside scientific forestry approaches can lead to more effective climate risk management strategies that are culturally sensitive and context-appropriate. Such knowledge exchange needs to go beyond mere data extraction; it necessitates genuine partnerships and respect for the diverse ways of being and knowing that have sustained these communities for centuries.