Enhancing forestry and agroforestry networks in Europe (FOREST4EU)

Around Europe, there are hundreds of small projects promoted by small groups of farmers, researchers, forest managers, environmental associations and local communities, that all share the same goal; advancing innovation and good practices in forestry and agroforestry sectors.

These initiatives are known as “Operational Groups” (OG) and are usually financed by regional and European funding, in the context of the EIP-AGRI platform. However, the innovations and best practices developed, tend to remain in the local environments and do not reach other European communities or OGs beyond the national borders, losing in turn precious know-how and experiences.

The FOREST4EU project has the mission of tackling this problem, connecting dozens of OGs around Europe, and favouring the transfer of knowledge and best practices between experts of forestry and agroforestry sectors in 9 member states.

The 16 partners of FOREST4EU focus on 5 different topics:

• Wood mobilisation –increasing the production value and overall supply of wood from private forests.
• Forest adaptation to climate change – finding new solutions to help foresters adapting to climate change effects.
• Sustainable forest management and ecosystem services – promoting those practices that balance profit-oriented logging with environmental and social goals.
• Non-wood forest products – develop and share new business models revolving around the supply of non-wood products.
• Agroforestry – increase the attention on the need for design and implement adapted support policy measures within the production system of agroforestry.

FOREST4EU will also discuss and present the benefits of OGs relevant to the Green Deal to EU policy makers. In addition, FOREST4EU will establish connections with policy makers, particularly in countries where OGs dealing with Forest and Agroforestry are not funded, to promote new initiatives and a greater geographic balance between different EU regions.

As an official project partner, Steinbeis Europa Zentrum will develop the methodology for the knowledge transfer between the five established Innovation Topic Hubs. Additionally, it will support the communication activities in the project.

• Funding: European Commission, Horizon Europe
• Funding budget for all partners: 2 milion Euro
• Project duration: 01/2023 – 12/2025
• Participating Countries: Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain