Publications

Action E47, European Network for Forest Vegetation Management—Towards Environmental Sustainability was formed in 2005 and gathered scientists and practitioners from eighteen European countries with the objective of sharing current scientific advances and best practice in the field of forest vegetation management to identify common knowledge gaps and European research potentials. This paper summarizes the work of the COST action and concludes that although diverse countries have by necessity adopted different means of addressing the challenges of forest vegetation management in Europe in the 21st century, some common themes are still evident. In all countries, there is a consensus that vegetation management is a critical silvicultural operation to achieve forest establishment, regeneration, growth and production. It appears that herbicides are still in use to some degree in all the countries reviewed, although at a lower intensity in many of the northern countries compared to other regions. The most common alternatives to herbicides adopted are the use of mechanical methods to cut vegetation and achieve soil cultivation; overstorey canopy manipulation to control vegetation by light availability; and in some instances the use of mulches or biological control. Any reductions in herbicide use achieved do not seem to have been driven solely by participation in forest certification schemes. Other factors, such as national initiatives or the availability of additional resources to implement more expensive non-chemical approaches, may be equally important. The development of more cost-effective and practical guidance for managers across Europe on non-chemical control methods can best be brought about by future collaborative research into more sustainable and holistic methods of managing forest vegetation, through the identification of silvicultural approaches to reduce or eliminate pesticide use and through gaining a better understanding of the fundamental mechanisms and impacts of competition.

In this report of the COST 269 action we have collected seven articles representing some of the results reached by the working group that had dedicated itself throughout the whole project to an analysis of collective practices emerging around ICT use.

These are articles that show two important aspects of the structure of the COST projects: on the one hand a strong intercultural orientation, and on the other the deliberate interdisciplinary nature of this workgroup (Haddon, Mante, 2003; Haddon et al., 2003). The intercultural nature of this group is evident from the contribution of scholars from various European countries, such as Belgium, France, Italy, Romania and Spain. These scholars have compared and related quite different traditions of scientific research and debate. For example, the presence of scholars from Romania made it possible to also include the contribution of an Eastern European country preparing to enter the European Union in the debate. As for the interdisciplinary side, various disciplines mingled in this workgroup, such as sociology, media studies, engineering and IT studies, and this is reflected in the text.

The chapters collected here show, even if to different degrees, the direction of debates within this study group, in that what its members have in common is a desire to reflect on major issues such as e-democracy, e-communication and e-information from points of view, and the experience and knowledge, that have been accumulated in studies of ICT use.