EFI News

Storms cause more than 50% of all damage to European forests. If they continue to be managed as they are now the intensity and frequency of this damage is expected to increase. Future projections of storm tracks suggest storms will affect larger areas and penetrate further to the east of the continent. Currently the growing stocks and the age of forests are increasing and this will further aggravate the future vulnerability of forests to storm damage. What can policy and forest management do to mitigate storm damage and help to restore damaged forests? Are the policies that are currently in place effective? Researchers, policy makers, and stakeholders from across Europe discussed whether the current systems are adequate at both national and European level in a workshop last week in Brussels on ‘Policies for Forest Storm Damages Mitigation and Restoration‘.

Forest externalities are those forest goods and services which are not actively marketed, but which are also valuable other people than the forest owners. Often these externalities include biodiversity, erosion protection and recreation – externalities that we know to be valuable, but the value of which is difficult to assess. This makes it also difficult to promote them and to offer the forest owners incentives to do so.

In order to strengthen the regional links in its forest research network, EFI has established Regional Offices throughout Europe. These Regional Offices have a great potential for bringing together forest research resources at the European level. In the latest issue of EFI News, we focus on the North and Central-East European Regional Offices. Other topics include the EU Forest Action Plan and Integrated Fire Management.

The AGORA project has now focused on the identification of gaps of knowledge from the point of view of stakeholders and decision-makers from Tunisia and Morocco. With these results, AGORA will fine-tune the objectives of development of scientific capacities in the framework of the project and will propose adjustments of the research strategies of the partner institutions.

The EU public consultation on the Commission Green Paper “Forest Protection and Information in the EU: Preparing forests for climate change” is running from 1 March to 31 July 2010. EFI has compiled a concept note on the Green Paper, with the aim to motivate the EFI Associate Members to participate in the consultation. We also invite the Member Organisations to contribute in finalising the EFI response. The EFI concept note does not provide “model responses” to the consultation. Rather, it provides elements and viewpoints to defining of a response either to an individual question, to several or to all of the questions raised in the Green Paper.

Globally, water and its quality and availability are of highest importance. Forests play an important role in this, as they protect the quality of water reserves, and regulate the water flow, preventing other areas from flooding. However, forests also use water and change its quality by intercepting rainfall, and by taking it up from the soil, and bringing it into the air. This was the topic of the Joensuu Forestry Networking week organised for the second time in Joensuu, Finland last week. The event gathered scientists, professionals and stakeholders in forestry from various regions in Europe to discuss the issues regarding forests and water in Europe.

The European Union (EU) and the Government of Cameroon today announced a trade agreement in which Africa’s biggest exporter of tropical hardwood to Europe has agreed to ensure wood traded within the country and shipped from Cameroon to the EU and other destinations worldwide contains no illegal timber. Cameroon has committed itself to implement a comprehensive programme to press ahead the country’s reform process, including further strengthening its control of the forest sector and community rights. The EU has committed to excluding unlicensed timber from the whole EU market while providing assistance to Cameroon for enforcement and auditing systems.

Dr. Bernhard Wolfslehner, PhD (Forestry) has been appointed Head of Office of the Central-East European Regional Office - EFICEEC of the European Forest Institute (EFI). Dr. Wolfslehner will start his term on 1 May, 2010. EFICEEC launched its activities a week ago at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna where EFICEEC will have its premises.

The development of EFI Regional Offices continues. The latest office to open its doors is the Central-East European Regional Office – EFICEEC in Vienna, Austria. The EFICEEC will strengthen implementation of the EFI‘s strategy 2022; and it is foreseen as a catalyst to foster networking, research, information, advocacy, and capacity building on a regional scale in the Central-East Europe. The launch of the EFICEEC was held on 12 April at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Sciences, Vienna (BOKU). More than 60 distinguished guests joined the opening ceremony.

Foundation for European Forest Research - FEFR - has launched its new website at www.fefr.org. The new site gives full information on the FEFR activities, including awards and grants. "The site contents will be developed during the year to include also information on the research carried out with the grants", says Dr Kalle Eerikäinen, the Executive Secretary of FEFR.