Replica project: Utrechtse Heuvelrug

On the Utrechtse Heuvelrug, Staatsbosbeheer and Bosgroep Midden-Nederland are working together to make multifunctional forests on sandy soils more resilient to climate change and acidification. The multi-year project ‘Climately Smart Forest Management’ (2024-2029) focuses on climate-proof design of a demo location and three practical locations with existing forest.

The project is in line with the national LIFE Climate Forest project of the Forest Groups and Staatsbosbeheer and was made possible thanks to a subsidy from the province of Utrecht and a generous donation from the MTB Utrechtse Heuvelrug Foundation.

This concerns a total of 58 hectares of forest. At these locations, Staatsbosbeheer and Bosgroep Midden-Nederland will work on further developing and refining climate-smart forest management. The effect of these measures will be monitored and forest managers, policy makers and municipalities of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug can see for themselves how climate-smart forest management is being implemented and what the results are. In addition, managers are trained through ‘learning on the job’ to be able to apply climate-smart forest management in other areas.

The Austerlitz Forestry demo location is accessible to the public. Current information about this project can be found online on the Staatsbosbeheer website: