The power of social innovation to increase the wellbeing of forest-dependent communities in the Carpathian and other mountain regions

The power of social innovation to increase the wellbeing of forest-dependent communities in the Carpathian and other mountain regions

The IUFRO Working Party 4.05.05 Social innovation and entrepreneurship organised a special session of the6th Forum Carpaticum entitled “The power of social innovation in mountain areas to steer a sustainable governance of nature”. Scientists from over the world were brought together (online) to discuss the emergence and development of social innovation in the Carpathian Mountains and beyond. The Forum’s presentations included a conceptual talk based on findings on social innovation in mountain forestry from H2020 SIMRA project coordinated by James Hutton Institute, topics on how social innovation can offer transformative opportunities to forestry in Ukraine; communities’ empowerment through carbon forestry in Slovakia; impacts of social innovation on inequalities in mountain–lowland relationships in Swiss Alps; citizen science and adopting Living Lab approach to foster sustainability transformations and foster biodiversity conservation through participatory management of nature protected areas, and others.

Prof Dr Maria Nijnik, Steering Committee member of Science for the Carpathians and the leader of the Session on social innovation said:  “The session aimed to advance the knowledge on the role, power and place of social innovation in the development of Carpathian socio-ecological system, seeking to provide innovative solutions and sustainability considerations and ideas potentially useful for policy makers and practice communities of different levels, with ultimate aims of building the resilience to global changes in marginalized mountain areas.” The session leaders formulated recommendations for Science for the Carpathians and the Secretariat for the Carpathian Convention, emphasising that:

• social (including socio-ecological) innovations and innovative forest governance are important for sustainable development in the Carpathians to help reduce marginalization processes;
• it is important to analyse and improve the ways of how public and private sectors, various partnerships and collaborations can enhance, scale-up and scale-out social innovations in mountain areas and forest-dependentcommunities;
• attention is to be given to a consideration of enablers and barriers to answer the question of how social innovations can deliver transformative opportunities on the ground.

Dr Mariana Melnykovych, a Deputy Coordinator of the IUFRO Working Party on Social innovation and entrepreneurship and newly elected Steering Committee member of Science for the Carpathians commented: “Policy support is in the outmost importance in reaching sustainability objectives. We trust that our messages to decision-makers on how to foster sustainability transition through social innovations in the Carpathians will be considered by the communities of practice at various levels to contribute to the development of better policies for mountain regions and steer the green recovery”.

As a follow-up of the Forum Carpaticum and to promote knowledge sharing, Maria Nijnik delivered two educational modules for United Nations Mountain Partnership: Course 2021 (fao.org, 6-19 July)  with her lectures explaining the role and place of social innovation in the Post-Covid-19 process of green recovery in mountain areas. Approximately 35 participants attended this online course (selected among government staff, development experts and practitioners from all over the world). Social innovation examples from forestry in Scotland were presented, along with selected findings from forest research conducted under the Strategic Research Programme of The Scottish Government, the European Commission supported SIMRA Project and our collaborative work in the Carpathian region (carpathianscience.org). Online classes will be made publicly available.