Multi-actor perspectives on afforestation and reforestation strategies in Central Europe under climate change

Abstract

• Key message

Understanding forest genetic diversity and national legislation on trade and utilization of forest reproductive material (FRM) are key aspects for management and adapting forests to climate change. Despite concerns about the negative effects of climate change on forests, awareness of the role of genetic diversity in climate change adaptation is limited.

• Context

Adaptive forest management strategies such as afforestation and reforestation depend on the selection of appropriate FRM and their knowledge among the relevant stakeholders.

• Aims

To analyze the perceptions among the forest, conservation, and nursery managers of six Central European countries on awareness of genetic diversity and practical and legislative issues of afforestation and reforestation in climate change.

• Methods

A survey was conducted with structured questionnaires.

• Results

Around 80% of the respondents believe in climate change. Local FRM is preferred for reforestation. Although 80% of the conservation and forest managers perceive the importance of forest genetic diversity, almost half of them feel unaware of it. The majority of respondents believe that national and European legislation on seed transfer is not adapted to climate change.

• Conclusion

Inadequacy in the awareness of genetic diversity and policies on FRM is likely to influence forest adaptation to climate change in Europe.

1 Introduction

Climate change has long-lasting implications on forest ecosystems demanding urgent adaptation and mitigation action by governments and civil societies across the globe (Osberghaus et al. 2012; IPCC 2018). Effects of climate change on European forests may include changes in productivity (Reyer et al. 2014), intensifying disturbance and drought events (Allen et al. 2010; Seidl et al. 2017), changing carbon budgets (Jandl et al. 2019), and altered species compositions with significant changes of the economic value of forests (Hanewinkel et al. 2013).

Among a variety of different management options, afforestation and reforestation can contribute significantly to both mitigation and forest adaptation (Nilsson and Schopfhauser 1995; Reyer et al. 2014; IPCC 2018; Spathelf et al. 2018). Afforestation programs have been widely claimed as nature-based solutions to remove carbon from the atmosphere (Griscom et al. 2017; IPCC 2018; Bastin et al. 2019) although their efficacy is controversial from a scientific point of view (Grainger et al. 2019; Lewis et al. 2019; Popkin 2019). Forest transformation and reforestation programs aiming to maintain the provision of ecosystem services in the future may include change in species composition, new tree species mixtures, non-native tree species, and selecting adapted forest reproductive materials (Bolte et al. 2009; Keenan 2015; Andersson et al. 2017; Luyssaert et al. 2018).

Since the implementation of the EU directive on trade and utilization of forest reproductive material (FRM) (European Council Directive 1999/105/EC), afforestation and reforestation activities mainly implied native tree species and local seed provenances following the principle of “local is best” (MCPFE 1993). However, because climate change is predicted to occur much faster than the natural ability of tree species to adapt and to migrate (Savolainen et al. 2007; Aitken et al. 2008), the link between the respective site climate and local adaptations is at risk of being disrupted (Aitken and Whitlock 2013; Hamann and Aitken 2013; Keenan 2015; Polechová and Barton 2015). To overcome the increasing risk of maladaptation of forest trees (Bradley St Clair et al. 2007; Frank et al. 2017), assisted migration and assisted gene flow were suggested as reliable adaptive management measures (Aitken and Whitlock 2013; Benito-Garzón and Fernández-Manjarrés 2015; Sáenz-Romero et al. 2016; Peterson St-Laurent et al. 2018; Messier et al. 2019). While assisted migration aims at facilitating the colonization of forest tree species into new habitats with a suitable climate, assisted gene flow aims at the managed translocation of preadapted seeds and seedlings within the current species range to facilitate rapid adaptation to climate change and improve the long-term prospects of trees and its related communities. A further management measure often discussed in Europe is the planting and utilization of non-native tree species, which are better adapted to the expected climate conditions (Klimo et al. 2000; Bolte et al. 2009; Lindner et al. 2010; Temperli et al. 2012; Chakraborty et al. 2015; Jandl et al. 2019), because within some regions, the natural tree species and tree genetic diversity in Europe have already been seriously reduced due to the legacies of prehistoric glaciations (Latham & Ricklefts 1993; Malcolm et al. 2002; Svenning 2003; Tollefsrud et al. 2008), while other regions are high in forest biodiversity (e.g., Petit et al. 2003). Besides the need for empirical scientific evidence, the implementation of assisted migration also depends on national and international policies for forest seed transfer as well as on the perception and willingness of the involved actors and businesses. In Europe, trade and utilization of forest reproductive materials (FRMs) of most tree species involve elaborate national and international legal frameworks such as the European Council Directive 1999/105/EC (European Commission 2000) and its derived national legislations as well as the “Scheme for the Control of Forest Reproductive Material Moving in International Trade” of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD 2012). These regulations were mostly designed under the “local is best” paradigm, when conservation of regional forest genetic resources was the major objective at that time and climate change was not considered such an urgent issue. The scope of the Directive is limited to 47 species and artificial hybrids important for forestry purposes (listed in Annex-1 of the directive). The Council Directive on the marketing of FRM is harmonized with the “OECD Scheme for the Certification of Forest Reproductive Material Moving in International Trade.” Generally, a supplier needs an official license for trading material for forestry purposes. In certain countries of Central Europe like Czechia, there are restrictions related to the marketing of FRM, based on the protection of valuable local genetic resources.

Existing legislations influence a wide range of actors from different branches of forest restoration and conservation, such as forest managers, forest-nursery managers, and conservation managers. Therefore, understanding the perceptions of the involved practitioners and decision-makers on issues such as climate change and its effects on forest ecosystems, the awareness of genetic diversity, and the current legislation on FRM is crucial.

Generally, adapting forests to climate change is a challenging task and requires concordance between the understandings and desires of the stakeholder. This requires harmony between sociopolitical aspects such as legislation and the management aspects of adaptation such as silviculture, choice of species, and land-use planning. The stakeholder perceptions on the expected effects of climate change and their willingness to implement changes influence forestry management, design, and policies (Arbuckle et al. 2013; Lenart and Jones 2014). Perception studies in forestry usually focus on issues such as management for risk reduction, effects of climate change, and its likely economic outcomes (Hajjar et al. 2014; Halofsky et al. 2018; Jalonen et al. 2018; Laakkonen et al. 2018; Sousa-Silva et al. 2018). However, studies focusing on the management as well as legislative issues related to trade and utilization of forest reproductive materials (FRM) are rare in Europe (Jensen et al. 2019). In a recent study, Vinceti et al. (2020) examined the perceptions of forest owners and managers of 15 European countries and found that the respondents prefer FRMs from local sources over foreign planting materials and are aware of the potential benefits of using genetic diversity as an adaptive management strategy. Their study also reported that more efforts are needed in understanding the perception of multiple actors to develop advisory for adapting forests to climate change.

We aim at understanding the perceptions of forest managers, conservation managers, and nursery managers with regards to (a) the effects of climate change, (b) current practices in selecting FRM, and (c) the importance of genetic diversity and the influence of legislation on utilizing FRM under climate change. These perceptions were collected via surveys conducted in six Central European countries considering the various national languages of the respondents.

2 Materials and methods

2.1 Survey design

Structured questionnaires (Bryman 2012) were used to collect primary data from the six central European countries: Austria, Germany, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia (Hazarika et al. 2020). These central European Countries have similarities in their forest tree species composition, have a long tradition of forest restoration, and have a comparable legal framework to control trade and utilization of FRMs. Three questionnaires (Tables 6, 7, 8 in Appendix) were designed, one for each of the three groups of respondents namely forest managers, conservation managers, and nursery managers. Forest managers are those working for the preservation and protection of forests and woodlands. They are responsible for the management of areas used for timber production, public recreation, and natural preservation. The conservation managers are considered as those managing the national parks and protected areas. Here, nursery managers are those who manage forest nurseries. Based on these criteria, the respondents identified their role as either a conservation manager, forest manager, or nursery manager and selected the respective questionnaire to respond.

This survey was launched online for 4 months from May 2017 until August 2017. As practitioners in all six countries mainly communicate in their local language, all three questionnaires were translated from English into the five local languages of the partner countries, i.e., German (for both Austria and Germany), Hungarian, Czech, Polish, and Slovakian. In total, the conservation managers were asked 12 questions; the forest managers, 14 questions; and 10 questions to the nursery managers (Tables 6, 7, 8 in Appendix). These questions were grouped into three categories: (1) perceptions on the effects of climate change on forests and their forest-related businesses, (2) current practice of the use of FRM for afforestation and reforestation, and (3) perceptions on the importance of genetic diversity and the adaptation of current national and European legislations on FRM in climate change (Table 1, Table 9 in the Appendix). Most questions were common across the three groups of respondents, while some questions were specific to each group (Table 9 in the Appendix).

Table 1 Question asked to analyze (i) the perceptions on the effects of climate change on forests, (ii) current practice of reforestation/afforestation, and (iii) perceptions on the importance of genetic diversity

In addition to online access, for a wider dispersal of the survey, the questionnaires were also disseminated through email lists, social media platforms, targeting organizations, and forest SMEs, involved in the forest management, forest nursery, and forest conservation, triggering an exponential non-discriminative snowball sampling (Goodman 1961) also known as chain referral sampling. The questions were mainly multiple choice, and the participants had the option of choosing one or more relevant options to certain questions or also to “not respond” to certain questions according to their convenience. To avoid exclusion of participants with limited access and competencies in online surveys, forms were also sent by post and received back as hand-filled forms or via email, particularly in Austria, Hungary, and Poland. Data received on hand-filled forms and via email were processed into the official online survey system.

2.2 Statistical analysis

The results from the survey were first assessed through exploratory analyses. For a more comprehensive understanding of the views and perceptions, multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) was used to understand patterns or associations, if any, in the perceptions between countries and among respondent groups. MCA is analogous to principal component analysis for quantitative variables and aims at reducing the dimensions in the qualitative data to detect associations, patterns, and relations and has been used in studies for understanding perceptions on climate change (Ali et al. 2018; Brunette et al. 2018). The result of the MCA was depicted as MCA biplot, which shows the grouping, if any, within and between individuals and variable categories. MCA analysis was done with the statistical software R (R Core Team 2016) using the package- “factoextra” (Kassambara and Mundt 2017) to implement and visualize the results of MCA. The significance in the MCA analysis was tested with a Wilks test.

3 Results

In total, 815 participants from six Central European countries (Austria, Germany, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary) had responded to this survey (Table 2). The number of survey participants varied between the three groups of respondents and between the countries, with forest managers showing the highest and conservation managers the lowest number of responses (Table 2).

Table 2 Details of the participants in the local survey along with the basic data on forest ownership

3.1 Perceptions of the likely effects of climate change

Although on average, across countries (83% of conservation managers, 87% of forest managers, and 85% of nursery managers) perceived that climate change is likely to influence their operational area and businesses (Table 3), there are some variations between the countries. It was observed that between 93 and 100% of the respondents among all three managers in Austria, Germany, and Hungary expected changes in their managed land and businesses, due to global warming, whereas, in Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia, this percentage ranged only between 40 and 88% of the respondents (Table 3).

Table 3 Differences in perception of the conservation managers (CM), forest managers (FM), and nursery managers (NM) on the effects of climate change on their respective operational areas and businesses. n = number of respondents for that specific question (total number of respondents may vary for each question as every participant might/might not respond to every question)

On average, 26% of the conservation managers believed that their management objectives will be affected by climate change, whereas, among the forest managers, 62% believed that their management objectives will require adjustment (Fig. 1, Tables 10 and 11 in Appendix). Moreover, between 40 and 80% of the forest managers expect that management objectives will be more difficult to reach, while among the conservation managers, less than 40% expect such negative consequences (Fig. 1, Tables 10 and 11 in Appendix).

Fig. 1

The expected effect of climate change on conservation and forest management objectives as expressed by (a) conservation managers (CM), (b) forest managers (FM), and (c) nursery managers (NM). Total (a and b) refers to a combined response of all CM and FM across countries

Furthermore, the nursery managers were asked more specifically about the expected effects of climate change on their operational areas (Fig. 2; Table 12 in the Appendix). With decreasing order of relevance, nursery managers from all countries expect (1) increasing demand for other tree species with a change from conifers to broadleaved trees; (2) increasing demand for other provenances with higher resistance to climate extremes or new pest/diseases; and (3) increasing demand for non-native tree species. The perception of the nature of expected changes for nursery managers also varied among countries. In Austria and Germany, increasing demand for non-native tree species such as a Douglas fir and Red oak was observed as the highest-ranked perception (Fig. 2). Nursery managers in Poland and Hungary rather expect higher demand for more resistant provenances, and in Slovakia, they were found to be more inclined towards a higher demand for provenances from outside the country. Only a few among this group of respondents were found to expect a decreasing demand for FRM (Table 12 in the Appendix).

Fig. 2

Expected changes in climate warming on the demand of various forest reproductive materials as expressed by nursery managers

3.2 Current practices for selecting FRM for afforestation-reforestation

Among the forest managers, between 63% (Hungary) and 97% (Germany) of respondents (on average 88%) consider planting and reforestation an option to improve forest ecosystem services and forest stability in climate change (Table 11 in the Appendix). Among the conservation managers, planting activities were considered by 70% on average to 100% (Hungary, Czechia) (Table 10 in the Appendix).

When selecting FRM for afforestation/reforestation, 68% of conservation and 92% of forest managers, across countries, prefer to use FRM from their own or nearby registered seed stand or even buy it from the closest nursery (Fig. 3). Planting materials utilized in afforestation/reforestation are usually obtained by considering national provenance regions (Table 4). The survey revealed that on average, 80% of the conservation and 99% of the forest managers take national provenance regions into account while selecting FRM for reforestation (Table 4). The share of conservation and forest managers using FRM originating from regions outside of their respective country (non-national) is low with an average of 13% in both groups (Table 4). However, this share might increase slightly as 15% of conservation managers and 25% of forest managers would be willing to use non-national FRM. Interestingly among nursery managers, who typically provide FRM to forest and conservation managers, the use of FRM from outside the country is 39% on average across all countries (Table 4). The response of nursery managers varied widely among countries with 84% and 88% of them in Austria and Germany that already uses FRM from other European countries, while only between 9 and 29% in the other countries used non-local FRM. The lowest 9% observed from Poland, and 29% from Hungary, and Slovakia and Czechia falls in between (Table 12 in the Appendix). The main reason given for using non-local FRM by conservation, forest, and nursery managers was the unavailability of domestic FRMs (Fig. 4). So, in Poland, Slovakia, and Czechia, for 58–100% of respondents, the main reason for the utilization of other non-local European seed sources was the unavailability of domestic seeds/seedling and a lesser reason cited as the availability of better genetic material, as we saw from 33% respondents from Poland (Fig. 4). Also in Austria and Germany, the unavailability of seeds and seedlings was stated as the main cause (38% and 45%), while better genetic material (27%) and better adaptation to expected climate conditions (23 and 18%) were also considered respectively (Fig. 4).

Fig. 3

Current practices of a selection of FRM by (a) conservation managers(CM) and (b) forest managers (FM). The total represents the combined response across countries

Table 4 Differences in perception of the conservation managers (CM), forest managers (FM), and nursery managers (NM) on the role of FRM and its current practice of utilization for reforestation. n = number of respondents for that specific question (total number of respondents may vary for each question as every participant might/might not respond to every question)

Fig. 4

Reasons for using non-local FRM for reforestation given by (a) conservation managers (CM), (b) forest managers (FM), and (c) nursery managers (NM)

MCA was carried out to identify trends in the perceptions of nursery managers on the likely effect of climate change and their interest and motivations in FRM of foreign origin. Taking into consideration the size of their nurseries in terms of the number of plants sold per year, this analysis revealed that the motivation of nurseries to deploy FRM of foreign origin was the most important variable explaining around 55% of the total variation of Dim 1 and Dim 2 combined (Fig. 9 in the Appendix). Larger nurseries, which sell 2–10 million or more than 10 million seedlings per year, are the ones who deal with seedlings of foreign origin because of the scarcity of local seedlings (Fig. 5). Also, these nurseries have a stronger perception of the effect of climate change on their business. Nurseries that are relatively smaller in size (selling 0.1–0.5 million seedlings per year) either do not use foreign FRM or are unaware of it. Also, small nurseries are rather unaware of the effects of climate change on their businesses (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5

MCA biplot showing the beliefs of NM on the expected effect of climate change on nursery business, the experience of nursery managers with non-domestic seeds and seedlings including the reasons for utilizing such seed sources in relation to the size of nurseries in terms of the number of plants sold. The two dimensions (Dims 1 & 2) explain around 35% of the variance in the responses analyzed. The coordinates of the variable categories are shown with black triangles, and the coordinates of the individuals of each country are marked with colors shown in the index. The questions included within this analysis are (i) do you believe that climate change will influence your business (cc_yes, cc_no, cc_un) ?, (ii) have you ever received seeds/seedlings from other European countries (Foreign FRM_yes, Foreign FRM_no, Foreign FRM_un)?, (iii) reason for receiving seeds/seedlings from other European countries (Unavailability of domestic FRM, less expensive FRM, better genetic material, better adapted FRM), (iv) how many plants are you selling per year? Suffixes _yes, _no, and _un refers to yes, no and uncertain respectively

The conservation and forest managers were asked about the importance of four management measures (Fig. 6). For concise reporting, here, we have combined the responses under “important” and “very important” together. Therefore, around 48% of conservation and 82% of forest managers believed that planting adapted provenances fit for climate change is important/very important (Fig. 6a). In total, 91% of conservation and 93% of forest managers believed that the use of domestic seed sources is either an important or a very important management activity (Fig. 6c). Keeping the current tree composition was perceived as a slightly less important management activity among both the conservation and forest manager groups because only 57% and 65% of them respectively considered it important/very important (Fig. 6b). Minimizing the anthropogenic influence in their areas was mainly considered important/very important for conservation managers (77%) but to a lesser degree for forest managers (65%) (Fig. 6d).

Fig. 6

Perceptions of conservation managers and forest managers on the importance of the management activities in their area. The activities include (a) plant tree provenances fit for climate change (also from other countries), (b) keep the tree composition of the area the same, (c) use of domestic seeds and plants, and (d) minimize anthropogenic influence in the area

3.3 Perceptions of genetic diversity and implications of national and regional policies on trade and utilization of FRM

The majority of respondents of conservation and forest managers across all six countries believe forest genetic diversity to be important (Fig. 7). Also, 76% of conservation managers and 83% of forest managers consider genetic diversity in their management plan. However, in contrast to the positive perception of genetic diversity, almost half (on average 49% and 56% among conservation and forest managers respectively) among the same set of respondents says that they were not well-informed about forest genetic diversity (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7

The response of (a) conservation managers (CM) and (b) forest managers (FM) on (i) the importance of genetic diversity of forest trees, (ii) if they consider forest genetic diversity in their management plans, and (iii) their perceived level of knowledge about forest genetic diversity

The MCA combining the perception of genetic diversity and the effects of climate change revealed two groups (i) those who feel well-informed about genetic diversity, do not expect the negative effects of climate change, and do not consider the importance of genetic diversity in their management plans; and (ii) those who consider the negative effects of climate change and account for genetic diversity in their management plan but also responded that their level of awareness about genetic diversity is not adequate (Fig. 8). In this analysis, the importance of genetic diversity and its use in management plans were the most influential variables explaining about 95% of the total variation in the response of forest and conservation managers on the subject of genetic diversity and climate change (Fig. 10 in the Appendix). The responses did not differ significantly between the countries, but among the managers, as demonstrated by a Wilks test (p-value: manager 0.00008; country 0.1181).

Fig. 8

MCA biplot depicting the beliefs of forest managers (FM) and conservation managers (CM) on the expected effects of climate change on their operational areas together with their believes on the importance of genetic diversity and perceived level of knowledge. The two dimensions (Dims 1 & 2) explain around 56% of the variance in the responses analyzed. Coordinates of variable categories are shown with black triangles and coordinates of the individuals of each country are marked with colors shown in the index. The analyzed questions were the following: Do you expect changes in your forest area due to climate change? (CC_yes,CC_no, _CC_un); Do you consider the genetic diversity of forest trees to be important? (GD_imp_yes, GD_imp_no, GD_imp_un); Do you consider forest genetic diversity in your management plans? (GD_mgt_yes, GD_mgt_no, GD_mgt_un); and Do you feel you are well-informed about forest genetic diversity? (GD_informed_yes, GD_informed_no, GD_informed_un). The groups were defined by 95% confidence ellipse that plot confidence ellipses around group mean points

Among forest and nursery managers, the two groups dealing mostly with FRM, 30% of forest managers and 45% of nursery managers consider their national seed legislation to be well-adapted to climate change, while 29% of forest and 27% of nursery managers do not agree to this (Table 5). In both groups, the share of uncertain respondents is high being 41% of forest and 28% of nursery managers (Table 5). Concerning European legislation on FRM, the number of uncertain respondents is even higher (71% of forest and 57% of nursery managers) and only small groups (9% of forest and 26% of nursery managers) believe European legislation to be well-prepared for climate change (Table 5).

Table 5 Differences in perception of the forest managers (FM) and nursery managers (NM) on the role of national and European legislation on seed transfer for selecting FRM for afforestation under climate change. n = number of respondents for that specific question (total number of respondents may vary for each question as every participant might/might-not respond to every question)

4 Discussion

Afforestation and reforestation can transform vulnerable forests into diverse, productive, and climate-resilient mixed forests (Bolte et al. 2009; Reyer et al. 2015). Both afforestation and reforestation entail the active involvement of actors from forestry, conservation, and nursery business. This study examines the perception of these actors on adapted seed and seedling provision in climate change.

In this survey, the majority of respondents regardless of their country or role (as conservation, forest or nursery managers) had expressed concern that climate change is likely to affect their operations and businesses (Table 3). This has also been reported in several other studies based on perceptions of foresters towards the effects of climate change in central Europe (Yousefpour and Hanewinkel 2015), northern Europe (Blennow and Persson 2009), Mediterranean (Sousa-Silva et al. 2018), and Balkans (Gudurić et al. 2011; Živojinović and Wolfslehner 2015). In a survey among forest stakeholders in Sweden, France, Germany, and Italy, the respondents agreed to have experienced changes in the climate over time but were unsure about the nature and extent of the impacts of such changes in their forests (Keskitalo et al. 2015). A recent survey among forest owners and managers in 15 European countries by Vinceti et al. (2020) reported that the majority of the respondents expressed their concerns about pests and diseases, storms, and droughts to be the top-ranking threats to forests. They also found that FRMs from local sources are largely preferred over foreign planting materials. Although there is a general awareness about the potential benefits of using genetic diversity as an adaptive management strategy, more efforts are needed to include multiple actors and raising the level of awareness on genetic diversity to design management plans and advisory for adapting forests to climate change (Vinceti et al. 2020). These perception studies spanning across a decade were found to be a major stimulus for increased global awareness on climate change impacts among forestry and related stakeholders (Williamson et al. 2005; Ameztegui et al. 2018). Our study builds on these contemporary studies by including multiple actors such as forest managers, conservation managers, and nursery managers and analyzing the perceptions from a practical and sociopolitical standpoint.

It is notable that although 80% of the conservation and forest managers believed that climate change is likely to influence their conservation and management areas (Table 3), the perceptions on the nature of such effects of climate change vary between the countries (Fig. 1). Some conservation managers especially from Austria and Poland seemed to be cautious as they believe their conservation objectives are unlikely to change under climate change (Fig. 1a). Scientific evidence, however, indicates that conservation areas in altitudinally uniform countries of the Pannonian basin are vulnerable to climate change especially due to drought stress (Hannah et al. 2007; Araújo et al. 2011). Changes in conservation objectives are challenging and usually associated with tedious political processes (Hannah et al. 2007; Camacho et al. 2010; Hagerman et al. 2010; Barbour and Kueppers 2012). This may also have contributed to the perception of the conservation managers on the static nature of their conservation objectives. Another reason for such a perception of the conservation managers may arise from the belief that natural genetic processes will be sufficient to mitigate the effects of climate change (Fady et al. 2016). With more than 100,000 sites across 54 countries, Europe has more protected areas than any other region in the world with both national and transnational conservation areas such as nationally designated areas and NATURA 2000 sites (Araújo et al. 2011; European Commission 2014). However, the efficacy of such conservation areas to fulfill their objectives under climate change has come under intense debate (Araújo et al. 2011) because of various reasons such as disharmony in national and transnational policies, conservative attitude of policymakers citing lack of proof, and uncertainty of the climate change impacts (Camacho et al. 2010; Geyer et al. 2017).

A majority of forest managers believed not only that climate change would change their management objectives but also that these objectives would be more difficult to achieve (Fig. 1b). This may be due to reasons, such as uncertainty of the impact of climate change, tradeoffs between forest management and desired ecosystem services (Lindner et al. 2010; Briner et al. 2013; Blennow et al. 2014), and many others.

Again, the indicators used to describe the nature of climate change impacts were different for the nursery managers (Fig. 2). This set of indicators was specifically aimed to describe the possible aspects of forest nursery operations and businesses. The responses of the nursery managers reflected the perceived rise in demand for broadleaved species and adapted provenances in response to climate change. Such responses by the nursery managers were expected because in Central Europe, there has been a steady trend in forest management to reduce the share of secondary conifer forest with species such as Norway spruce (Klimo et al. 2000; Hanewinkel et al. 2013) and use of adapted planting material (Bolte et al. 2009; Jensen et al. 2019).

The current practice of utilizing FRM for reforestation by both forest and conservation managers were mainly focused on the selection of local planting material (Fig. 3a, b). The conservation and forest managers attribute the occasional use of planting materials of foreign origin to the unavailability of domestic material (Fig. 4). The nursery managers, however, also considered better adaptation when trading FRM of foreign origin (Fig. 4c). This is because cross border trade and utilization of FRM in European countries are regulated by the European Council Directive 1999/105/EC (European Commission 2000) and the “Scheme for the Control of Forest Reproductive Material Moving in International Trade” (OECD 2012). An expert survey conducted in 2017 (SUSTREE 2017), within six countries of Central Europe, revealed that the deployment and transfer of FRM within and between them differ due to varying national legislations. For example, in Austria, Hungary, and Germany, the use of FRM from outside the country but originating within Europe is allowed without restrictions, whereas in Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia, the introduction of foreign FRM is subjected to significant restrictions. Poland allows free transfer of FRM up to 100 km from its official border. In other cases, permission from the Ministry and other administrative intervention is required. Slovakia allows the use of FRM from neighboring countries such as Poland, Hungary, Czechia, and Austria. In Czechia, the import of FRM from outside the country for afforestation is restricted. This restriction is relaxed to a certain extent in the case of tree species such as Douglas fir and Grand fir from the USA and Canada (Konnert et al. 2015).

Local planting materials are commonly selected, and in some cases, it is the only option allowed under national and regional law (MCPFE 1993, Jensen et al. 2019; Vinceti et al. 2020). The argument behind the preferential use of local planting material is embedded in the paradigm of “local is best” which assumes tree populations are locally adapted to their place of occurrence thereby using local seed sources to reduce chances of maladaptation (Aitken and Bemmels 2016). However, under climate change, the paradigm of local being the best has been criticized (Jones 2013; Chakraborty et al. 2015). For many temperate tree species, it was observed that trees are not optimally adapted to their place of occurrence. In many cases, populations gain fitness when moved to a few degrees warmer than their origin indicating an adaptation lag (Wang et al. 2010; Leites et al. 2012; Rehfeldt et al. 2014; Chakraborty et al. 2015, Fréjaville et al. 2019). Broadhurst et al. (2008) emphasize that utilizing local seed sources alone might lead to poor quality restoration especially in the context of wider geographical scales. Therefore, the focus should be more on increasing the genetic diversity of the seed source to maximize adaptive potential in climate change. Hajjar and Kozak (2015) conducted a survey among the public in British Colombia and Alberta in Canada, where they found that 60% of the respondents supported reforestation with non-local seed for climate change adaptation and that increasing awareness of the reforestation process increased the likelihood of acceptance of the strategy. In our survey, we found that larger nurseries, selling more than 2–10 million seedlings per year, are the ones who deal with FRM of foreign origin (Fig. 5). The smaller nurseries mostly rely on local material and deal with seedlings of foreign origin mainly in case of scarcity of local seedlings (Fig. 5).

The preference for using local FRM may also be related to the level of awareness about genetic diversity and regulations that limit the utilization of FRMs of foreign origin. The survey revealed that despite perceiving the importance of genetic diversity in forest trees, the majority of the respondents feel that they are not adequately aware of genetic diversity (Fig. 7) and how it might contribute to forest adaptation to climate change. Vinceti et al. (2020) also reported the need for further awareness on the importance of genetic diversity in adapting forests to climate change. Again, this lack of awareness and knowledge is reflected in the response to the question on the adaptation of national and European legislation on FRM to climate change. The survey also reveals that the majority of respondents either do not agree or are uncertain whether the national and European seed transfer legislations are adapted to climate change (Table 5). Recent research by Jensen et al. (2019) also reported this general lack of awareness among foresters of Europe except for certain north European countries such as Sweden. A survey conducted by Whittet et al. (2016) among UK nurseries found that they were conservative about using non-local FRM and mostly source seeds from warmer locations also known as predictive provenance. Therefore, it is evident that despite a large body of literature on the importance of genetic diversity, the level of awareness and its implementation on advisory for adaptive management are limited because of lack of training and rigid and outdated laws and regulations.

Certain limitations due to the initial design of the survey should be taken into consideration while adopting the survey results into practice. These include some dissimilarity in the questions asked to the three groups of respondents, giving rise to difficulty in the comparative analysis of responses. We addressed this issue by focusing on the questions which were comparable across the three groups as far as practicable. Also, the survey represents more public forest managers (55%) compared to private forest managers (27%) which may underrepresent or overrepresent the respective stakeholders in a certain country. Besides, limitations such as the number of respondents and possible biases resulting from the experimental design and snowball sampling also should be considered. With this method of sampling, the surveyor has limited control in the circulation of the survey at some point in time. Kirchherr and Charles (2018) identified an important bias in the snowball sampling method known as “cold call,” where surveys are circulated surveys via email without personal follow-up. We have tried to avoid this “cold call” bias by following up with the email recipients as far as practicable. In spite of its limitations, this method enables us to gather a substantial number of responses in a short duration of time like our study of four months.

5 Conclusions

There is no doubt that awareness of climate change is growing rapidly, and practitioners in forestry, nature conservation, and nurseries are aware of the impacts of these changes on their forests and related businesses. The outcome of our survey also highlights this trend that the understanding of the likely effects of climate change is consistently high across all the countries and all three groups of managers with only limited variation. It was also found that trade and utilization of FRM so far are guided by the national provenance regions, and the use of foreign materials is not a broadly accepted adaptation strategy requirement yet. Issues of genetic diversity in forest trees are perceived as important but discrepancies and knowledge gaps are evident. It has been observed that the forest practitioners are keen on including genetic diversity in their management plans but admitted lacking the understanding of these scientific and technical mechanisms. Most importantly this study reveals that there are critical uncertainties in the awareness of existing national-level and European-level policies and their likely effects in trade and utilization of FRM for afforestation in Europe. Nevertheless, it generates valuable insights on the understanding of climate change and the associated transnational issues of trade and utilization of FRM to grow adaptive forests under climate change.

Appendix

Fig. 9

Contribution of the variable categories on the total variance explained by Dims 1 and 2 in Fig. 5. For_FRM why = on the likely effect of climate change, why NM are interested in buying FRM of foreign origin; Business_size = size of the nurseries in terms of the number of plants sold in millions; Foreign_FRM = whether the NM receive FRM from other European countries; and CC_imp = whether the NM feels that climate change will adversely affect their business

Fig. 10

Contribution of the variable categories on the total variance explained by Dims 1 and 2 in Fig. 8

Table 6 Questionnaire for Conservation manager (CM)

Table 7 Questionnaire for Forest managers (FM)

Table 8 Questionnaire for Nurseries (NM)

Table 9 The questions analyzed to test (1) perceptions on climate change, (2) reforestation and afforestation for promoting stability of forest ecosystem under climate change, and (3) perceptions on genetic diversity and implications of national and regional policies on trade and utilization of FRM

Table 10 Responses of CM. All figures in percentage of the total responses for the respective question (n)

Table 11 Responses of FM. All figures in percentage of the total responses for the respective question (n)

Table 12 Responses of NM. All figures in percentage of the total responses for the respective question (n)