The overall objective of this project is to carry out a comprehensive inventory of Romanian wood-pastures in Transylvania in order to generate understanding on their cultural-ecological profiles, collect best practice examples and to draw up recommendations for practice and applied nature conservation anchored in this understanding. The project combines expertize from various academic fields (such is ecology, social sciences, economic sciences, agroforestry, botany, geography, sustainability sciences) as well as the practitioners working with- and stewarding wood-pastures (farmers and their various forms of associations, eco-touristic and educational initiatives, local action groups, nature conservation institutions). Knowledge will be generated via disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary means.
The project is intended to trigger a primarily application-oriented knowledge by making the results from the research and case studies accessible to the local communities via comprehensible materials (in the form of text as well as movies) and, in a further step, to the political decision-makers. Currently, requests from all cultural regions of Romania show the need for practical, actionable knowledge, guidance and support in order to build up locally linked economic and nature conservation initiatives in the sense of a sustainable rural bioeconomy for the benefit of the wood-pastures and the local communities owning them.