Search Results (19)

Human capital is a key element necessary for the smooth operation of an organization based on sustainable development. It is not only important for building strategy but also affects the performance of day-to-day operations. Managers must constantly monitor the changes taking place around the organization and make quick decisions in line with sustainability. They enable the organization to adapt to current market conditions and meet closed-loop requirements. These solutions are an important issue in forest management organizations. Considering the expanded mission of forests, it is clear that the role of forests today is much broader than just protecting biodiversity. Forestry institutions need adequate staff and human resources to effectively carry out forest management tasks and properly analyze trends and patterns of the sustainable use of forest resources. The purpose of the article was to analyze and evaluate human capital through its commitment to the organization’s tasks within the framework of sustainability. The research involved a sample for employees working in a selected unit of the State Forest Holding in Poland. The research was based on an anonymous employee survey on job engagement. The following aspects were assessed, commitment to the organization, sense of responsibility to the organization, interest in the work, and willingness to make sacrifices for the company in order to meet the demands of a modern forestry company oriented to the requirements of the new forestry strategy. Our reanalysis showed that gender and job type do not have a significant impact on commitment. However, an employee’s age and length of service do influence the behaviour and commitment of state forestry employees. Full article

Ecotourism encompasses various forms of tourism which are implemented in accordance with the principles of sustainable development of the EU. They maintain a balance between the three pillars of sustainable development: economic development, sustainable use of natural resources, and respect for social and cultural values. Ecotourism in forests holds particular significance due to its ability to sustain the ecological, social, and economic integrity of these areas. Activities promoting access to forests focus on ensuring a safe and enriching experience for forest users while simultaneously conserving nature. In response to the needs of forest tourism and recreation enthusiasts, innovative developments and new information and communications technologies (ICTs) such as websites, web platforms, mobile apps, QR codes, and others are being introduced with increasing frequency. These technologies already have a wide range of applications in providing access to tourism information and services in other sectors of tourism management and are now supplanting conventional sightseeing information systems. This paper aims to present the activities currently underway in connection with the development of a new tourism and recreation offering in the forests owned by the State Treasury and managed by the State Forests National Forest Holding in Poland. The research involved conducting an environmental survey among representatives of all forest districts in Poland (n = 425). A questionnaire survey was created using the Microsoft Forms web-based programme and made available online to representatives of all State Forests’ forest districts in Poland participating in the Stay Overnight in the Forest programme. The scope of this paper covers the present day, with a primary focus on desk research and analysis of statistics and source materials pertaining to the period from 2007 to 2022, retrieved from internal documents and reports prepared by the General Directorate of the State Forests. The research demonstrated that technological innovations such as mobile apps, social media, websites, web portals, and YouTube TV, when employed for developing forest tourism and forest recreation in Poland, can contribute to the advancement of the forest’s non-productive role, namely, a social role and in particular, the tourism, leisure, and recreational function of the State Forests. Full article

This paper presents the results of an analysis of the effects of Poland’s forest management evolution over the last 75 years on forest biodiversity at the ecosystem level. Forest biodiversity changes in the two politically and economically different eras (socialism and democracy) are interpreted based on four indicators used in assessments of forest stands (naturalness; habitat diversity; forest management system; forest stand age structure). In the era of socialism (1945–1989), there were dynamic increases in the area of semi-natural forests as well as in the proportion of the most fertile habitats, whilst the proportion of the poorest habitats decreased quite dynamically. Then, the clearcutting management system was regularly implemented, with adverse impacts on forest spatial structure diversity. The proportion of old/mature tree stands and the stand average age increased at relatively slow rates. In the era of democracy (1990–2020), there were comparatively more dynamic increases observed in the area of forests undisturbed by man, as well as in the proportions of mixed broadleaved and wetland forest habitats. At the same time, the proportion of old/mature stands and stand average age kept increasing at relatively fast rates. The area of forests managed with the use of the shelterwood system increased and the area of forest plantations substantially decreased. On the other hand, irrespective of the era under study, there occurred a noticeable not-so-favourable decreasing trend in the proportion of the youngest forest stands. All in all, during the analysed period of more than seven decades, the evolution of forest management practice implemented in Poland’s forests by State Forests National Forest Holding led to the restoration of/an increase in biodiversity at the ecosystem level. Yet, there have remained unsolved issues, as regards the following aspects: organisational (the assurance of further reconstruction of forest stands, and the restoration of water profiles), political (a lack of up-to-date national forest policy), and financial (the costs of protecting/restoring biodiversity vs. State Forests’ self-financing), as well as conceptual (old-growth stands in managed forests, and controversy over clearcutting) and natural/anthropogenic (climate change, and the eutrophication of forest habitats) issues. The solutions may require measures outside the limits of Poland’s forestry, if not far beyond national borders. Full article

The Białowieża Forest is a contested transboundary forest massif in Poland and Belarus. Reflecting on transitions from value chains built on sustained yield forestry to ecotourism, we pioneer documentation of how country-specific legacies shape preferences toward increased forest protection at the expense of wood production. For both countries, we used a quantitative ordered logit model based on questionnaires to Polish and Belarusian ecotourism business owners to, for the first time, empirically study drivers of their preferences toward different Białowieża Forest values, and we used qualitative data to identify attitudes toward the expansion of protected areas in the Białowieża Forest. Whilst Belarusian ecotourism business owners supported increased area protection, the opposite was true for their Polish counterparts. The proportion of foreign guests co-varied with support toward increased area protection. Conversely, local origin, size of hospitality business, and role of foresters as customers decreased interest in area protection. The qualitative data revealed that narratives against extended area protection were spread in Poland but not in Belarus. The conflict over the conservation of the Polish part of the Białowieża Forest involves actors and stakeholders with competing interests. A solution is that this remnant massif of the once widespread European temperate lowland forest becomes subject to a regional planning and zoning perspective. Encouraging multiple value chains and evidence-based collaborative learning are key components. Full article

Although deforestation remains a continuing threat to both the natural world and its resident human populations, a countervailing land cover dynamic has been observed in many nations. This process of landscape turnaround, the so-called forest transition, holds the potential of regenerating ecosystem services by sparing land from agricultural activities and abandoning it to forest succession. Here, we present a case study of a long-term process of forest transition that is ongoing in the Patzcuaro watershed of the state of Michoacán, Mexico. The research to be discussed comprises a remote sensing analysis designed to (1) capture the land cover impacts of a multidecadal process of trade liberalization (1996–2018); (2) ascertain the role that land tenure plays in land use dynamics affecting forest cover, and (3) resolve forest cover types into native forest, secondary vegetation, and “commodity” covers of fruit trees, in this case, avocado. Mexico presents a useful case for addressing these three design elements. Our analysis, undertaken for both private property and collective modes of resource management in five communities, reveals a forest transition annualized at 20 ha-yr⁻¹, or a gain of eight percent for the period. This translates into a relative rate of forest transition of 0.39%-yr⁻¹ which is three times faster than what is occurring in the temperate biome on a national scale (0.07%-yr⁻¹). Most of the forest transition is occurring on private holdings and stems from field abandonment as farming systems intensify production with avocado plantations and cow–calf operations. As this study demonstrates, forest transitions are not occurring ubiquitously across nations but instead are highly localized occurrences driven by a myriad of distal and proximate factors involving disparate sets of stakeholders. Consequently, policy makers who are keen to expand forest transitions to fulfill their national climate action commitments under the Paris Agreement must first promote research into the complexity of landscapes and drivers of land change at regional and local scales. Full article

Domestic violence (DV) is a public health crisis that threatens both the mental and physical health of people. With the unprecedented surge in data available on the internet and electronic health record systems, leveraging machine learning (ML) to detect obscure changes and predict the likelihood of DV from digital text data is a promising area health science research. However, there is a paucity of research discussing and reviewing ML applications in DV research. Methods: We extracted 3588 articles from four databases. Twenty-two articles met the inclusion criteria. Results: Twelve articles used the supervised ML method, seven articles used the unsupervised ML method, and three articles applied both. Most studies were published in Australia (n = 6) and the United States (n = 4). Data sources included social media, professional notes, national databases, surveys, and newspapers. Random forest (n = 9), support vector machine (n = 8), and naïve Bayes (n = 7) were the top three algorithms, while the most used automatic algorithm for unsupervised ML in DV research was latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) for topic modeling (n = 2). Eight types of outcomes were identified, while three purposes of ML and challenges were delineated and are discussed. Conclusions: Leveraging the ML method to tackle DV holds unprecedented potential, especially in classification, prediction, and exploration tasks, and particularly when using social media data. However, adoption challenges, data source issues, and lengthy data preparation times are the main bottlenecks in this context. To overcome those challenges, early ML algorithms have been developed and evaluated on DV clinical data. Full article

The development of reinforced polymer composite materials has had a significant influence on the challenging problem of shielding against high-energy photons, particularly X-rays and $\gamma$-rays in industrial and healthcare facilities. Heavy materials’ shielding characteristics hold a lot of potential for bolstering concrete chunks. The mass attenuation coefficient is the main physical factor that is utilized to measure the narrow beam $\gamma$-ray attenuation of various combinations of magnetite and mineral powders with concrete. Data-driven machine learning approaches can be investigated to assess the gamma-ray shielding behavior of composites as an alternative to theoretical calculations, which are often time- and resource-intensive during workbench testing. We developed a dataset using magnetite and seventeen mineral powder combinations at different densities and water/cement ratios, exposed to photon energy ranging from 1 to ${100}^6$ kiloelectronvolt (KeV). The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) photon cross-section database and software methodology (XCOM) was used to compute the concrete’s $\gamma$-ray shielding characteristics (LAC). The XCOM-calculated LACs and seventeen mineral powders were exploited using a range of machine learning (ML) regressors. The goal was to investigate whether the available dataset and XCOM-simulated LAC can be replicated using ML techniques in a data-driven approach. The minimum absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE), and $R2score$ were employed to assess the performance of our proposed ML models, specifically a support vector machine (SVM), 1d-convolutional neural network (CNN), multi-Layer perceptrons (MLP), linear regressor, decision tree, hierarchical extreme machine learning (HELM), extreme learning machine (ELM), and random forest networks. Comparative results showed that our proposed HELM architecture outperformed state-of-the-art SVM, decision tree, polynomial regressor, random forest, MLP, CNN, and conventional ELM models. Stepwise regression and correlation analysis were further used to evaluate the forecasting capability of ML techniques compared to the benchmark XCOM approach. According to the statistical analysis, the HELM model showed strong consistency between XCOM and predicted LAC values. Additionally, the HELM model performed better in terms of accuracy than the other models used in this study, yielding the highest R2score and the lowest MAE and RMSE. Full article

Currently, woodchips and logging residues form the greatest share of biomass fuels used to generate heat in combined heat and power plants. They are supplied from various regions of the EU. The calorific values of the wood species used as biomass may vary significantly depending on the moisture and composition of the fuel, harvest seasonality, location, and other factors. This article presents the main resources of forest biomass and its characteristic features, as well as the calorific value of woodchips depending on the moisture content. Our research is based on the source data of forest resources from the State Forests National Forest Holding (PGLLP) in Poland. The research conducted by the main forestry enterprise in Poland covered a period of four years. The data on the harvesting of woodchips and logging residues converted into the calorific values of biomass were based on our research and a review of reference publications. Standard methods were used in the research, which included an analysis of the species and assortment structure of the forest biomass of energetic significance that was available for use. The research showed that the moisture content of the woodchips and lump wood was about 30%. The average annual energy value of the wood in the total area of forest resources was 0.07 GJ/ha, whereas the highest value was 0.14 GJ/ha. Between 2018 and 2021, the average energy resources of forest biomass in Poland increased from 351.8 TJ to 498.4 TJ. Full article

The sessile oak is one of the most significant forest tree species in Europe. This species is vulnerable to various stresses, among which drought and powdery mildew have been the most serious threats. The aim of this study was to determine the influence of irrigation levels (overhead sprinklers) on the damage caused by powdery mildew to Quercus petraea growing in a nursery setting. Four irrigation rates were used: 100%, 75%, 50% and 25% of the full rate. The area of the leaves was measured and the ratio between the dry mass of the roots and the dry mass of the entire plant was calculated after the growing season in years’ 2015 and 2016. Limiting the total amount of water provided to a level between 53.6 mm × m⁻² and 83.6 mm × m⁻², particularly in the months when total precipitation was low (VII and VIII 2015), a supplemental irrigation rate between 3 and 9 mm × m⁻² resulted in a lower severity of oak powdery mildew on leaves and lead to a favorable allocation of the biomass of the sessile oak seedlings to the root system. The severity of infection on oak leaf blades was lower when irrigation rates were reduced. The greatest mean degree of infestation in 2015 was noted in the 100% irrigation rate (14.6%), 75% (6.25%), 50% (4.35%) and 25% (5.47%). In 2016, there was no significant difference between the mean area of leaves infected by powdery mildew depending on the applied irrigation rate. The shoot-root biomass rate showed greater variation under limited irrigation rates. Controlling the irrigation rate can become an effective component of integrated protection strategies against this pathogen. Full article

Climate change is an important issue that increasingly affects our lives. One of the proposals for mitigating climate change is fighting biodiversity loss, which can support climate mitigation and adaptation actions. In Poland, the possibility of excluding large tracts of forest areas from use is being considered. The discussed the exclusion of forest land from use will affect the timber supply and market, especially for broadleaved wood. The main purpose of this analysis is to present a timber supply forecast, with a particular focus on the possibility of obtaining broadleaved hardwood timber in Poland from forests managed by State Forests National Forest Holding under three scenarios that assume different criteria for selecting forest areas for protection. The work was divided into two main phases: (1) the analysis of historical sales volume of wood products and average sale prices of hardwood during the period 2011–2020; (2) the preparation of a forecast of the potential possibility of maintaining broadleaved hardwood production in the three decades between 2020 and 2049. In the forecast, it was assumed that about 2.7 million hectares of planted and production forests are excluded from use in order to implement the provisions of the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy. In Scenario “I”, the supply of merchantable broadleaved roundwood volume will be reduced to 14%–18% that of Scenario “0”. In Scenario “II”, 55% of the “0” scenario is harvested, and in Scenario “III”, 33%–37% of the “0” scenario merchantable broadleaved roundwood is harvested. The introduction of restrictions on timber harvesting as a result of Poland’s compliance with European Union requirements in the area of environmental protection will lead to a significant reduction in the supply of timber on the market. This may lead to a further increase in timber prices and an increase in the importance of large timber buyers at the expense of local buyers. The recommendations contained in the policy objectives that the EU sets for the states should be supported by a thorough analysis when selecting areas for strict protection. Full article

Structural, economic, and climate changes human activity and the growing complexity of the business environment significantly affect the forestry sector, which faces the need to adapt to the dynamically changing environment by strategic development of appropriate resources and skills. In this paper, we attempted to take on the managerial lens of dynamic capabilities, i.e., the abilities to adapt to the changes in the business environment to analyze whether the forestry sector is able to strategically develop resources that influence adaptability. We have attempted to demonstrate how the resources of the forest enterprises affect the adaptability described by the dynamic capabilities construct. Bearing in mind the importance of State Forests, we collected data from 129 forest districts in Poland and applied the ordered logistic regression to identify models that show the impact of specific categories of resources onto the forestry sector adaptability, described by the construct of dynamic capabilities. The results suggest that the forest districts strategically investing in technological, as well as human resources and skills, have higher chances of maintaining and developing the ability to adapt to the constantly changing economic environment. At the same time, our findings show that financial, reputational, and marketable resources and skills have no impact on the adaptability of the State Forests National Forest Holding. Full article

Fraxinus excelsior L. is threatened by a variety of environmental factors causing a decline of the species. The most important biotic factors negatively affecting the condition of the F. excelsior population are fungi such as the pathogen Hymenoscyphus fraxineus. Abiotic factors with potentially harmful effect to the F. excelsior population are the accumulation of heavy metals and salinity in soils. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the impact of selected biotic and abiotic stress factors to determine which of them pose a threat to European ash. The study was conducted using in vitro techniques based on callus and seedlings regenerated via indirect organogenesis. Tissue cultures exclude the influence of other factors, including the environmental impact on ash extinction. The results confirmed very strong pathogenic potential of H. fraxineus in which after 14 days the callus tissue cells died as the tissue failed to activate its defense mechanisms. Experiments showed the high toxicity of cadmium in concentration of 0.027 mmol/L. Salinity caused the activity of oxidation enzymes to vary among seedlings and calluses in the control suggesting the enzymes play a role in controlling the morphogenetic development of tissue cultures. Full article

At all times, historical, political, economic, and social factors have affected the management of forests, with direct and indirect effects on the landscape. This study aimed to trace the impact of Poland’s forestry evolution over the last 75 years (1945–2020) on forest biodiversity at the landscape level. Five indicators were selected (forest area, forest fragmentation, protected forests, protective forests, harvesting intensity) to identify directions and dynamics of changes of the forest landscape and their determinants and repercussions. In addition, there were determined forest landscapes threats and recommendations for further action and intervention were formulated. The study period embraced two eras of widely divergent political-economic conditions in Poland (socialism and democracy). In the socialism era (1945–1989), there promptly increased total forest cover, wood resources (total growing stock) and the total area of protective forests (essential for safeguarding biodiversity, including the landscape level). In the era of democracy (1990–2020), average growing stock density increased intensely, and at the same time, a greater emphasis was put on reducing forest fragmentation and clear-cut logging. The results obtained showed equal average increase in the area of protected forests in both eras under the study (most intense at their crossing point). In view of the protection of biodiversity at the forest landscape level, the changes throughout the study period were considered positive, although not without problems and challenging consequences for foresters. The determined pressures to the forest landscapes, requiring legal, political, or financial solutions, include a risk of alteration of the ownership structure of Poland’s forests or possibility of operational changes in the State Forests National Forest Holding; outdated forest policies; organizational difficulties in the forest landscape protection; insufficient conservation funding; uneven distribution and further fragmentation of forests; and—last but not least—climate change impacts, including extreme weather events and droughts. Full article

Given the changing market conditions and uncertainty arising from climate change, forest management tends to focus on the financial functioning of forest holdings. The objective of this work is to study the financial performance of forest districts using ratio analysis, synthetic financial indicators, as well as the relationship between synthetic indicators and forest district categories defined in terms of forest site type, site fertility, compatibility stand species composition, species composition, harvesting system, harvesting intensity, fragmentation of forest complexes and management difficulty level. The study material consists of financial documentation from 82 forest districts of the State Forests National Forest Holding (SFNFH) in eastern Poland from the years 2015–2019 and 2005–2009 (for comparison purposes). Synthetic indicators were calculated using two sets of financial ratios as well as two variants of accounting data. In the study period, forest districts were found to differ in terms of their financial performance, which was affected by the natural and economic factors. The synthetic indicators were significantly higher (p > 0.05) for forest districts operating on low-fertility lowland sites, those managing stands with dominant pine, and those implementing a clearcutting regeneration system. The findings concerning the effects of selected natural and economic factors on the financial condition of forest districts may be used for financial planning and management by SFNFH, in particular in decision-making processes to optimize forest management. The applied methods may stand as a basis for the construction of a sectoral evaluation tool. Full article

While there is no universal right to land enshrined in existing human rights treaties, access to land is intrinsically linked to the achievement of human rights. For example, the right to food, adequate housing, property and equality and non-discrimination are of special concern for smallholder farmers, pastoralists, women, and other marginalized groups. In this regard, the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the context of national food security (VGGT) is considered a milestone document. They link binding human rights frameworks with universally agreed principles of responsible land governance. However, the implementation of the Guidelines is impeded by their voluntary nature and the absence of clear monitoring and accountability structures. The objective of this paper is to make a case for adopting human rights-based monitoring approaches that strengthen the implementation of the VGGT and, ultimately, responsible land governance. This policy analytical paper draws from a literature review, an analysis of secondary data gathered from National Human Rights Institutions working on land rights, as well as findings from two pilot case studies. The cases illustrate the need for a human rights-based land governance monitoring approach, relevant for policy-makers as well as land rights practitioners. Furthermore, this paper shows that there is currently no systemic approach that monitors the implementation of the VGGT from a human rights perspective. Therefore, the paper suggests that a human rights-based monitoring approach centered around established human rights monitoring and reporting mechanisms can provide a new, and urgently needed, impetus for implementing the VGGT. Linking VGGT implementation to human rights obligations by states can strengthen efforts towards responsible land governance reforms and contributes to holding governments accountable to their commitments. Full article