Why FORESTS ARE SO IMPORTANT?
Around one third of the land surface in the world is covered by forests. They are home to most of Earth's terrestrial biodiversity, including plants, animals, and fungi. Indigenous communities and people in rural areas strongly depend on forests for their livelihoods, while human society benefits from forest resources and their derived products, that are used as a source of food, fodder, shelter, energy, medecine, and income generation. Forests play an essential role in the protection of soils from erosion, filtering water supplies, regulating nutrient cycles, and mitigating the effects of climate change.
NATURAL DISTURBANCES
Natural disturbances are an intrinsic component of forest ecosystems. They play a key role in the renewal, reorganization, and diversification at different levels of organization. However, although forest species have adapted to specific disturbance regimes, the current context of global change is triggering substantial changes in the frequency and intensity of natural disturbances. As a consequence, forests can be severely impacted by disturbances from which they are not able to recover.
objectives
The main goal of RESET is to assess the responses of forest dynamic regimes in the face of climate and land-use changes and the increasing incidence of extreme events.
RESET will address three main objectives:
RESET will address three main objectives:
Dynamic regimes in forestsTo develop an analytical framework to define dynamic regimes in forest communities
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Forest responses to disturbancesTo assess forest resilience and post-disturbance dynamics accounting for dynamic regimes
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Forest policy & managementTo provide support for management and policy to enhance forest resilience to disturbances
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