ForestPaths’ Policy Lab 3 took place in Berlin, Germany, from 19–21 November, organised by project partners Prospex Institute and hosted by Oeko Insitute. The Lab brought together a diverse group of around 15 institutions, including public bodies, academic organisations, industry representatives and civil society actors from across Europe. Their combined expertise and perspectives helped identify priorities, clarify uncertainties and strengthen the collaborative co-creation process at the heart of ForestPaths.
The event opened with an introduction by the project coordinator, Dr Hans Verkerk (EFI), who welcomed participants and set the stage for three days of collaborative scenario exploration, scientific exchange and pathway development.
Building on the visions co-created in Policy Lab 2, stakeholders and project experts worked together to understand which pathways could be followed to reach these visions under two contrasting future global development scenarios. Discussions focused on the policy actions and measures to be included in the pathways, as well as assessing trade-offs, feasibility and clarifying knowledge needs to guide the next stages of modelling.
The session began with revisiting the three visions, ensuring that all participants shared a common understanding of their core ambitions and tensions. This was followed by an explanation of the exploratory scenarios that provide the contextual backdrop for the visions. In this segment, project partners Mikko Peltoniemi and Anna Repo (Luke) introduced two alternative global development scenarios, illustrating how differing socio-economic and technological developments influence future climate-change conditions. She also presented a prototype of CANOPY, an upcoming interactive visualisation tool designed to help users explore integrated model results.
With this foundation established, participants moved on to exploring how the visions unfold within these scenarios, discussing how each vision interacts with the opportunities and constraints embedded in the two diverging contexts. Project partner Aapo Rautiainen (Luke) then explained how the measures identified during Policy Lab 2 had been aligned with the exploratory cases for each of the three visions.
The session continued with four rounds of pathway building, during which participants identified and refined measures, assessed potential trade-offs, and received targeted feedback from modelling experts. Scientific insights were central throughout these rounds. Joanna Raymond (KIT) presented the environmental and societal impacts of forest protection and restoration policies using IMAGE, PLUM, CRAFTY and GLOBIO. Carlijn Bos (PBL) shared findings on the influence of wood-based products and energy on greenhouse gas emissions, based on results from IMAGE, EFI-GTM, aiphoria and bw_timex, developed together with EFI and VITO. Finally, Mart-Jan Schelhaas (WR) and Thomas Pugh (Lund University) highlighted how forest management affects carbon uptake, harvest potential and biodiversity using EFISCEN-SPACE and LPJ-GUESS.
These modelling perspectives helped stakeholders to refine their understanding of the three visions and the measures needed to reach them. As modellers integrated feedback and updated scenario analyses, participants also took part in a study visit to the Eichwerder Moorwiesen Nature Reserve, where they gained first-hand insight into forest and ecosystem reserve management practices.
By the end of the Lab, participants had explored how far the visions can be achieved under future global development scenarios, defined measures considered in pathways, examined key trade-offs and formulated requests for the final Policy Lab 4, scheduled for 2026.
The Lab benefited greatly from the strong collaboration and commitment of the project partners and participating stakeholders. Their combined organisational efforts, scientific contributions and active engagement were essential to the success of the session.
Find out more about the previous Policy Labs here.