Forests in steep terrain can reinforce the soil, regulate the movement of rocks and debris, stabilize snow cover and buffer water runoff, thus reducing the probability or magnitude of natural hazard events, such as flash floods, landslides, rockfall, and snow avalanches. This service can be provided by different types of forests, including natural forests and plantation forests. Protecting and managing these forests can be seen as a nature-based solution for disaster risk reduction, since they can protect settlements and infrastructure against natural hazards. In the following, we refer to forests that provide protection from natural hazards as “protective forests”.

In some regions, these protective forests have a special status and are subject to specific regulations, or are managed in specific ways to maintain their protective effect against natural hazards. However, the governance and management of protective forests differ between different countries and regions. 

Here, we aim to get a global overview of the management and governance of protective forests to facilitate international learning and exchange. We address you as we believe you have some specific expertise on protective forests and their management in your country or area. Your expertise can provide a valuable basis for this review, so we highly appreciate you taking the time to answer the following questions. Please include as many details as possible, including explanations of the local context or links to relevant studies or reports. 

While the questions are in English, you may also write your answers in another language. We currently have capacity to translate answers from French, German, and Slovenian. If you prefer another language, please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate.

The questionnaire may take approximately 30 - 60 minutes. You will have the option to pause the questionnaire and resume later. 

To acknowledge your valuable inputs, we invite you to join the resulting publication as a co-author (in which case we may ask you for additional inputs or more in-depth information). 

If you have any questions, please reach out to ana.stritih@mses.uni-freiburg.de