2018 Forest Innovation Workshop: report and presentations now available!

The third edition of the Forest Innovation Workshop “Inform-Prioritize-Collaborate: Cooperation of Regions on Innovation in Forest Management, Use of Wood and Forest-related Services” took place on 28 April 2018 in Brussels.

The event aimed at focusing on practical ideas and cases tackling forest-related challenges through innovation. The plenary session provided an overview on the European framework for innovation in forestry, while 4 break-out sessions were organised on the following topics:

• Managing Impacts related to Climate Change,
• Supporting Wood and Biomass Mobilization,
• Supporting the Provision of Ecosystem Services,
• Improving Sustainable Forest Management Approaches and Tools.

Mark Carlin, Director of Forest Operations at Coillte (Irish state forests) presented SATMODO – Timber Harvesting Information & Communication Technology which was developed to create one single platform to integrate all harvesting information to and from all of Coillte’s harvesting sites. The Satmodo platform is designed to optimise operational efficiency, reduce waste and improve environmental sustainability. The main aim of this technology is to provide ‘live’ data communications.

Kaisa Vainio from Metsähallitus (Finnish State Forests) delivered a presentation on a new method developed by Metsähallitus, which sets new forest management targets are defined based on CO2 binding and C storage. Each of Finnish State Forests 10 million compartments in GIS-data has been classified into seven classes. E.g. in habitats and areas where growth possibilities are good, management objectives emphasize enhancing forest growth and production. In areas and habitats with lower growth potential and/or land use restrictions the management priorities forest health, multiple use of forests and carbon storage. Seven classes offer the instructions for forestry planning by taking into account climate sustainability.

Still, Regions were at the core of the workshop, and in some cases, as for Spain and Italy, Regional Services are in charge of forest management for state forests.

EUSTAFOR was invited to chair the session about climate change, and in the concluding report from the session, Salvatore Martire (from EUSTAFOR Executive Office), which was chairing the session, stated how climate change adaptation is a priority for forestry and this should be recognized by the upcoming new CAP.

The presentations and the documentation of the plenary and break-out sessions are now available on the event page.

This third edition of the workshop was jointly organised by Euromontana, the ERIAFF Network (European Regions for Innovation in Agriculture, Food and Forestry), the European Forest Institute (EFI), the European Confederation of Forest Owners (CEPF), EUSTAFOR (the European State Forest Association), COPA-COGECA (European Farmers and Agri-cooperatives) and ERRIN (European Regions for Research and Innovation Network).