Building on the Focali 2026 annual meeting, shaped around the mutirão spirit, this online session at the GLP Week of Land System Science will provide an overview of some of the research and collaboration areas within the Focali research network.
Cultivating a collective effort, a Mutirão for protecting forests and forest-reliant communities across disciplines, sectors, and regions
Focali session at the GLP Week of Land System Science 2026
Wednesday, 17 June at 4:15–5:30 PM CEST
Rooted in South American Indigenous practices, a mutirão is a collective effort – when community members jointly tackle shared challenges. A similar spirit and spaces are also needed to protect the world’s forests and forest-reliant communities, by collectively bringing knowledge and actions together across disciplines, sectors, and regions. This is critical for mitigating and adapting to climate change, securing the food system and communities’ livelihoods. Initiatives addressing these issues too often remain siloed, despite well-intentioned programs, thus failing to address critical parts of the underlying systems. In this session, we aim to address these issues holistically by consolidating the biophysical, social, economic, and political perspectives. Building on the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Forests, Climate, and Livelihoods (Focali) Research Network in Sweden, during which we gathered scientists, advisors, policy makers, and practitioners, we will collectively reflect on the complex challenges forested land systems face. The session will address four main themes, each covered in 15-min slots, concluded by plenary discussions; (1) forest conservation: current developments, policies, and ways forward, (2) forest restoration: aligning global goals with local contexts, (3) bringing people, their rights, and relation with nature back into focus (4) conserving and restoring forests participatorily and with care through knowledge weaving.
Session outline:
Wednesday, 17 June at 4:15–5:30 PM CEST
Moderator: Agnes Pranindita
Focali introduction and glimpse from the annual meeting, Maria Ölund
Forest-climate-livelihoods-food interconnection, Agnes Pranindita
Tropical deforestation – drivers and policy responses, Martin Persson & Malaika Yanou
Forest and ecosystem restoration, Laura Kmoch & Harry Fischer
Social dimensions of biodiversity, Stephen Woroniecki & Hanna Ekström
Weaving of knowledges, Taís González & (Maria Ölund for Carlos Vélez & Torsten Krause)
Q&A and closing
Zoom link to join the session: https://stockholmuniversity.zoom.us/j/68888133220
Co-organizers of session: Agnes Pranindita, Laura Kmoch and Maria Ölund
Speaker affiliations:
All speakers are members in the Focali research network see them in the promotion card and list below.
Agnes Pranindita Post doc Stockholm Resilience Centre SRC
Maria Ölund Focali Network Manager, University of Gothenburg
Martin Persson Professor at Chalmers University of Technology
Malaika Yanou Post doc at Chalmers and visiting researcher Stockholm Environment Institute
Laura Kmoch, Research Associate, Social-Ecological Interactions in Agricultural Systems, University of Göttingen and University of Kassel, Germany
Harry Fischer, Associate Professor, Department of Forest Ecology and Management, SLU
Stephen Woroniecki, Research Fellow, School of Geographical and Earth Sciences University of Glasgow
Hanna Ekström Pigot PhD graduate, Dept of Political Science, Lund university
Carlos Alberto Hernandez Vélez, PhD student LUCSUS
Torsten Krause Associate Professor and Deputy Director LUCSUS Lund University
Taís Sonetti González, Postdoctoral Researcher at Unicamp - AmazonFACE
Focali annual meetings:
Read more about the recent Focali 2026 annual meeting here
Read about the 2025 annual meeting here and re-watch talks on the Focali you tube.
Hear what Focali members and partners share about the value of Focali in this video from the 2023 annual meeting.
Connect!
Interested to learn more about Focali or to collaborate with us? Please contact the Focali network manager Maria Ölund maria.olund@gu.se