Forest

PANA Ltd. was founded in 2002 as a subsidiary company from Međimurjeplet and continued a long tradition of one of the oldest wood processing plants, established in 1911 in Turopolje region. The company developed own production of parquet as a base activity. Adhering the roots of the wood industry, power and industrial sustainability PANA production is reflected in the industrial complex on 14 650 m², which applies modern technology and innovation. It employs 140 workers. In processing and production, the most commonly used wood is oak.

The excellence of the work and the competitiveness of the company PANA Ltd. have been recognized in the domestic and the international market. The dominant part of production, 90 percent, is related to foreign equity, while the responsibility for nature and the environment is confirmed by the prestigious FSC certification (the Forest Stewardship Council; The FSC), which guarantees the respect of high ecological, social and economic standards of forest management.

Wood waste, generated during the production process through a modern and ecologically set up boiler room, is used as a fuel for heating of the working space and 1500 m³ drying capacities. To maximize advantages of these precious raw materials, in 2015 we installed and put into operation a plant for the production of wood briquettes and a modern cogeneration plant for electricity production with a capacity of 1MW, by which we fully complete the biological cycle.

The strength grading of timber is mandatory for structural uses. Most of the sawmills in the area are small or medium-sized enterprises that cannot acquire an automatic classification line because of the very high costs. For this reason it was decided to develop a new portable machine, with significantly reduced costs, which could be shared between the sawmill of the territory. The new grading machine was design starting from the technology ViSCAN of Microtec With these results, it becomes possible to introduce the machine strength grading among small/medium sawmills. Thanks to this new opportunity the companies can enjoy advantages both in terms of quantitative yields and efficiency in the classification. On the other hand, the portability of the machine is an interesting stimulus to its possible spread: neighboring sawmill could share the purchase or lease the equipment, reducing the amount of initial investment and operating costs. This sharing mode is well suited also to a non-continuous production of lumber. The machine was then set on the timber species present in the FMMF territory already used or potentially suitable for construction: ViSCAN-portable was officially certified as strength grading machine on March 2014. At the same date the settings for Douglas fir and black pine were approved, while for fir and chestnut they were approved on October 2014. Some local sawmills have already used the machine to grade their sawnwood for structural uses, but the VISCAN-portable has also been requested by other Italian regions, especially to grade chestnut timber.

iBioNet (Intelligent Bioenergy Network) is a spin-off of the University of Florence, established in 2015.
iBioNet supports the local communities through the development of renewable energies and guarantees the environmental and social sustainability. Furthermore, iBioNet promotes wood-energy supply chains, assists the enterprises and the local communities. iBioNet supports the energy production togheter with the maintenance strategy into the local framework. iBioNet promotes the biomass energy to reduce the GHG emissions and as drive force for the rural economy and forest management.

iBioNet pays particular attention to the growth of a sustainable economic model, compatible with the economic and ethical development of local companies, thanks to the coherence between the core business of "renewable companies", based on principles of environmental sustainability and efficient use of resources.

iBioNet’s services are:
•       Planning and design of biomass supply chains, through specific analyses and the development of web applications that allow an assessment of the sustainability of the new energy plants.
•      Biofuel Certification Service and emissions analyses aimed at certifying the quality of solid fuels (wood chips). In particular, iBioNet issues quality certification of solid biomass samples, according to the UNI EN ISO standard.
• iBioNet also produces and installs SensorWebEnergy (SWE) and Air Quality (AIRQ) remote monitoring systems and able to determine: the first the quantity and quality of biomass supplied to the plants; the energy eventually produced; the overall performance of the plant, weighed against climatic and electricity consumption data; whereas the second, weather data and emission value data of CO2; CO; NO2; VOC; PM10; PM2.5 . SWE and AIRQ data are sent in real time to the web platform (www.ibionet.eu) to be processed and made immediately available to the users.

The project aims to use new technologies to make the wood sales system economical and dynamic, and to fluidize information to increase wood mobilization and get forest owners involved in management.
Two tools have been developed:
- a computerized wood auction sale system coupled with an online sales platform: SYLVATRADE system
- a digital GIS data sharing platform for optimized management accessible to all stakeholders (owners, managers, buyers) called NEOSYLVAQ.

In the long term, the expert firm Coudert wishes to organise wood sales exclusively online.

The computer sales tool (SYLVATRADE tool) is a platform created from a database to generate standardized batch records and edit contracts. It is associated with the NEOSYLVAQ cartographic platform to give the buyer an overview of the lots, the location and outline of each lot on cartography, access and itineraries and finally facilitates the organization of lot visits.  
At the time of the sale the buyer has several information on the lot on his digital tablet: geographical situation, cadastre, surface, species,... A quasi immediate computer processing makes it possible to display the best offer and its amount to the whole room. The computerized management makes it possible to treat approximately 90 000 m3 of wood in 2 hours. Sales balances can be carried out by computer and quickly by species, volume class, and geographical unit.  The group sales can be followed either remotely on the Internet, or in a room on digital tablets. The results of the offers appear in real time and the contractual documents are published during the sale and are signed electronically at the exit of sale.

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.

Easily assess the sensitivity of forest soil to increased biomass harvesting. The owner or manager must enter soil characteristics into the digital or paper application, which indicates the sensitivity level for several mineral elements.

This tool allows more intensive forest management to be applied in areas where the risk of soil depletion is low. It is necessary to train forest owners to describe soil horizons.

This tool is complementary to the ADEME's guide "sustainable forest slash harvesting" of 2006 which indicates how to describe the soil (type of humus, soil texture, pH,...) and gives management recommendations according to the different types of sensitivity.
This application takes into account the pedoclimatic zone, humus type, pH, soil texture and prospective depth. The soil is described 25 cm deep. The result of the analysis gives 3 sensitivity levels: low, medium or high applied generally to the soil or for each mineral element (calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen).

FORETDATA is an operational collaborative platform for all stakeholders in the forest-wood-paper sector. It aims to improve knowledge of their activities by exchanging data. The platform makes it possible to obtain summaries at the level of the territory on the forest activity and to follow for each company their activities in relation to their data entry.
The mayors of municipalities can monitor the number of logging sites and their execution periods thanks to the platform.

The platform is developed only in New Aquitaine but it is possible to extend it to other regions. To function, it was necessary to establish a relationship of trust for rights management and application security.
The syntheses resulting from the platform are used as a means of communication with elected representatives in order to show the reality of forestry and to clarify the obstacles and their stakes.

Each forestry contractor fills in data related to the logging site (type of work, surface area, date of intervention, estimated volume, characteristics of the land) in order to fill out the online site opening declaration forms and safety data sheets. These are then sent directly to the services concerned (municipalities, DDT).
The sites are all mapped under GIS and the data referenced.
The users of the platform benefit:
- an online mapping tool that allows you to consult the cartographic bottoms and regulatory zoning
- of a drawing tool,
- of a shared directory,
- the production of standardised documents
- a platform for information exchange between companies.
In 2017, 182,000 ha were recorded on the platform, equivalent to 5,000 ha / month.
Currently, about twenty companies use the platform. The tool makes it possible to divide by 3 the time for a company to produce administrative documents.

WoodsApp is a map based forest information system, where user can utilize search engine that enables finding ideal forest compartment according to user-specific requirements. All Finnish-wide open forest stand data by Finnish Forest Centre is available in the system. Service works effortlessly on both mobile device or tablet, when you are searching suitable wood trade and silvicultural work units. WoodsApp brings significant benefits for timber buyers, forest service providers and forest owners associations. The service is an effective tool for searching timber trade or silviculture targets, the new customer acquisition of the forest service business and the purchase of forest property. You can see area, main tree species, development class, cutting potential, action proposals and other information related to the forest stand. In addition to open forest stand data, useful background and theme maps are available. These maps help in finding important natural habitats or evaluate cutting potential.

The Best Practice is addressing the challenge of soft terrains in harvesting.

It eases planning of harvesting locations and anticipating of harvesting of different forested areas. It considers only the static features of forest, not daily weather for example. However, bearing capacity in three different summer moisture condition classes is considered in the maps.

The material of the mainland Finland harvesting maps contains rasterized harvesting maps describing the terrain's bearing capacity. The capacity is classified in six categories. The maps tell when it is possible to go into the forest with the harvester. The material is free to use.

Forest information is standardised so that actors engaged in the forest sector could develop and use harmonised information systems. Although basic concepts and measurement units have been defined for decades, almost every actor has implemented them differently in their information systems. Converting and transferring information is difficult or almost impossible between systems. Forest information standards facilitate the use of open materials and data transfer between actors. This improves operational efficiency and international competitiveness of forest sector.

The development of information exchange interfaces is not finished. The goal is a situation where all forest industry systems would read, write and send forest information standard.

Standard defines the structure, data types and codes used in different schemes. Forest information standards are based on XML-format (geometry: GML).
Data to be exchanged with standards is: special feature data, forest compartment data, forest use declaration, timber trade, harvesting and operations. The projects outcome is: documentation, schemas, guidelines, practises. The outcome will be written XML files which are transferred between different systems. XML is used as it is international data standard, a method to structure electronic documents. XML-documents (=files) are readable and alloes to import data into all systems capable of reading such documents. The structure of XML-documents can be validated automatically so it follows its definitions (=schema).
The information standard is already used by metsään.fi, puumarkkinat.fi, kuutio.fi (will be used), organizations such as Tornator, Stora Enso, UPM, Metsä Group.