Grenzüberschreitend/multilateral

The European Life Forest CO2 project aims to promote carbon compensation projects in forests as a tool to mitigate the carbon footprint of companies or public authorities.
A company wishing to compensate its CO2 emissions can finance a project to improve carbon sequestration in the forest through 3 types of operation: planting in an area under agricultural decline, restoring a dying or damaged stand or improving an existing stand by thinning.
The CNPF connects forest owners who wish to carry out forest operation with companies wishing to finance forestry projects. CNPF calculates the accumulated carbon gain over a certain project period.

The owners are the only ones to bear the extra costs of forestry operations that improve atmospheric carbon sequestration and thus limit global warming.
To develop this new means of helping reforestation or afforestation, it is essential to make companies aware of the role of the forest.

The company subsidises part of the work, the rest being borne by the owner. In Nouvelle Aquitaine, as part of Life Forest CO2, a project was carried out in Dordogne on an area of 1 ha between a private forest owner and a public hospital establishment.
Europe gives grants to the CNPF for the work of establishing contacts and drafting carbon contracts in France.

IDWOOD aims to promote and foster innovation and competitiveness of SMEs in the wood sector in the SEE area by sharing and transferring technical and organizational know-how to enable local support organizations to address structural deficits of SMEs and enhance innovation potentials.

Inclusion of both, stakeholders and policy makers, is of great importance and beneficial for both. Stakeholders are given the opportunity to strengthen their organizational and technical capacities, to develop new functions, to participate to working groups and to be actively involved in networking activities. Policy makers receive guidelines and advice on support policies to foster sector’s development.

Results of the project are improved capacities of support organisations; transnational cooperation between support organisations, knowledge poles and productive sector; increased information flow towards SMEs; innovation, design and knowledge transferred to SMEs; sustainability of the transnational network/support system and SMEs cooperation after project end; increased knowledge of market opportunities.

The European Forestry and Environmental Skills Council (EFESC) is a membership organization of industry representatives and organisations which manage and monitor the skills and competence certification processes on national level.

Chainsaws are potentially dangerous, so it is important to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to use it. First checking if your training was set up to meet the European Chainsaw Standards, then next level is European Chainsaw Certificates that ensure skills and competences through detailed description of the required qualification for each level. ECC enhance operator mobility and employability throughout Europe, independent of language and country. ECC guarantee traceability of the licensed certificate holder through registration at the National Agency and in the EFESC database.

European minimum standards (ECS) have been developed for different competence levels of chainsaw use.Currently standards are available for the following competence levels:
ECS 1 : chainsaw maintenance and crosscutting
ECS (Tension) : wood under tension (simulated situations)
ECS 2 : basic tree felling
ECS 3 : advanced tree felling
ECS 4 : windblown and damaged trees
ECS (Height): chainsaw use at height (currently being developed)
Based on each of the above ECS competence levels, a formal assessment procedure has been agreed upon. By taking an assessment in an accredited assessment centre, chainsaw users can acquire a European Chainsaw Certificate. Only EFESC accredited assessment centres can issue European Chainsaw Certificates. From 2012 to 31/12/2018, 12.532 certificates were issued at European level.

MOTTI is a stand-level analysis tool and decision support software by Luke. It contains the key results of the growth and yield research carried out by Luke, which can be used to predict the growth of forests managed using different techniques. The software also enables making comparisons between different silvicultural methods. MOTTI can also be used to investigate the effects of forest management or non-management, selection of tree species, regeneration chains or individual silvicultural measures, for example, on forest growth, harvesting volumes, profitability of forestry or the amount of carbon sequestered by forests.

MOTTI is widely used among professional foresters, forest owners, teachers, researchers, authorities and companies in Finland. It has been updated regularly with the newest growth models. It has also been tailored for special purposes, e.g. for teaching and for calculating economic effects of forest protection. It has been published in several languages (Finnish, Swedish, English, Russian) and it has also been piloted in other countries and tree species.

The core of MOTTI is a stand-level simulator, which includes growth and yield models for e.g. natural regeneration, growth and mortality. It is designed to simulate stand development under alternative management regimes and growth conditions in Finland.
MOTTI predicts the development of the user-defined initial stand until the end of the rotation. The user can define various management schedules including management practices, such as precommercial and commercial thinnings, fertilization, and ditch network maintenance in peatland forests. The user can adjust parameters such as timing and intensity of thinning and proportions of tree species, and define the timing of final cut. Timber assortments include logs, pulpwood and energy wood compartments. If the user do not define management practices, MOTTI simulates a default management program for the stand based on the current recommendations for forestry practice in Finland.
For the economic analysis (net present value and bare land value), the user can enter stumpage prices by tree species and timber assortments, costs (e.g. costs of first commercial thinnings, fertilisation and ditch network maintenance) and interest rate. The results will be presented in the form tables, graphs and files exportable to Excel.