Six attractive recipes for more biodiverse, climate-robust and nutrient-rich forest

In early 2022, we started the project "Attractive New Custom Forest Landscapes. In this, six forest landscapes are being designed, for six very different plots of landowners in Gelderland.

After all, in the Netherlands we want more and more varied forests, more biodiversity, and less nitrogen and CO2. But what can you do with forests and which forests fit where?

These pilots should provide clarity on this. A condition is that the forest landscape must produce something: a combination of income (food and wood), climate resilience, CO2 and nitrogen reduction and above all biodiversity. That is why in this project two country estates are making their forests more biodiverse, two dairy farmers are expanding their businesses in preparation for the future, a fruit grower wants more than rows of apples and a landowner with a very high groundwater level wants to learn how he can plant a food forest on it.

Further reading on this project: Click here

Monitoring and budgeting food forests

In this year we did not start a new project. We were allowed to harvest from the project 'Measure your Food Forest Harvest', started in 2020. The data flowed in from three ecological tests, the test methods were validated (successfully!) and we launched our economic budget tool. To communicate all this we followed the started tradition from 2020: A webinar in November. Full of speakers, knowledge and questions.

Webinar 2021: Click here

Measure Your Food Forest Harvest

With the project Measure Your Food Forest Harvest we developed a uniform and accessible way to measure the main yields of food forests. These are biodiversity, CO2 storage, soil improvement and the harvest in the traditional sense of the word with herbs, fruits, nuts and possible revenues from excursions etc.

The Measure Your Food Forest Harvest project, in which The Plant, Wageningen University & Research Centre, communication agency De Lynx, together with food forest Ketelbroek and estate Welna have developed four measuring instruments with which food forest owners can keep track of their own harvests, experienced its finale on October 29, 2020.

All about the project: Click here

Want to monitor your own food forest for free? Then read on quickly to find out how. 

For the results and the 2020 webinar: Click here

Business cases for Welna estate and you

Oct. 25, 2018, The Plant (Marieke Karssen), Landgoed Welna (Frank Gorter), Hogeschool Van Hall Larenstein (Derk Jan Stobbelaar and Gilbert Leistra), the Bosgroepen (Rino Jans) and Stichting Voedselbosbouw Nederland (Wouter van Eck and Fransjan de Waard) presented four concepts that can renew both the ecology and the economy of traditional forestry areas.

Present were about 200 invited guests from all over the Netherlands, background: country estates, forest management, policy and entrepreneurs. At the end of the afternoon the business cases for Welna estate were presented in a book by Fransjan de Waard and Wouter van Eck to Frank Gorter.

The four concepts have been worked out in detail for Welna estate and are also offered online in a much more general form, so that other forest managers can 'play' with the overall cost/benefit of these concepts in their specific situation.

Videos, reports and more on this project: Click here