Regional/sub-national

A network of 42,000 km of DFCI tracks covers Aquitaine. In the Landes de Gascogne, the service network is the largest with 3.38 km per 100 ha of forest. These trails have a dual interest: fire fighting and access to forest sites for forestry equipment. They serve as firebreaks between forest plots and facilitate access to both fire and rescue services and logging operations. These forest tracks were created and are now maintained by DFCI's 241 ASAs (authorized syndical association) as well as private and public owners.

There are currently difficulties in renewing volunteers in these ASAs that lead to a loss of technical knowledge. The legislative and accounting context is becoming increasingly complex, which can become an obstacle to owners' involvement in the management of ASAs.
The regional Association of Aquitaine DFCI leads and accompanies the network of volunteers, particularly in the preparation of grant applications and public contracts.

DCFI’s ASAs are registered trade syndical associations of forest owners with the aim of maintaining infrastructure of collective and public interest at common expense. The ASAs are public establishments, under prefectural supervision, managed by the owners. They became compulsory throughout the Landes de Gascogne massif following the 1945 ordinance. An ASA has a delimited perimeter where all owners located inside become members. The ASA has work done to create and maintain tracks, ditches, water points and drilling. A contribution is required from members in order to finance the operation. The rules concerning the eligibility of owners for this contribution are laid down by the ASAs. Taxes average around 2.5 to 3 €/ha/year. Currently 2,500 volunteer forest owners are involved in the ASA, coordinated by the DFCI Aquitaine (association law 1901).

Futurobois is a registered association, operating by voluntary membership.
The objective of the interprofessional association is to unite professionals in the forest-wood-paper sector within an association to exchange and meet. Futurobois' main mission is to promote and inform professionals, local authorities and the general public about the use of wood products.
They help member companies to find solutions to enable their economic, technical, human and environmental development.
Futurobois' team consists of 5 people.

Futurobois operates mainly thanks to funding from the region, the State, Europe and the national interprofessional organisation (France Bois Forêt). The remainder comes from membership fees and services rendered. They are the 4th largest interprofessional association in France in terms of number of member companies and 8th in terms of budget.
They provide technical knowledge on wood materials to architects and try to better understand their needs in wood construction.
Assistance is offered to project managers to remove the blocking points concerning the use of wood in construction (fire risk, insect,...).

In June 2018, the interprofessional association had 237 members in 42 sectors, including forestry, primary processing, secondary processing and construction. The association's actions are the preparation and animation of:  
visits to sawmills, factories,
days of visits around wood processing: from the forest site to the secondary processing,
meetings dedicated to professionals by sector of activity (e.g. in 2018 meetings of furniture professionals),
steering committee for the development of poplar in New Aquitaine,
study trips abroad.
These visits allow companies to meet and give them better visibility with public or private project managers and elected officials.
The interprofessional organisation also helps companies to secure their supply and comply with regulatory frameworks for small companies. They offer them a catalogue of training courses on different themes (human resources, accounting, etc.)

Heat entrepreneurs produce heat for customers by using renewable solid bio-fuels. In recent decades this operational model has become more common in Finland. Different skill sectors have formed around heat entrepreneurship such as training, research, consultation and equipment production. A heat entrepreneurship knowledge cluster has been built in South Ostrobothnia Finland.

The HECSO development project has assembled the heat entrepreneurship knowledge cluster of South Ostrobothnia. The knowledge cluster has been made to utilise, in many different ways, the companies located in the region, other actors in the region and the internationalisation of the whole province.
A principal component of internationalisation is the knowledge cluster’s training package on heat entrepreneurship, which is on offer to interested foreign target groups. Vocational Adult Education Sedu is responsible for the training. The training package lasts for one week, and is compiled through co-operation with the Finnish Forest Centre and regional heat entrepreneurs and machine and equipment manufacturers.
Heat entrepreneurship is the production of local renewable energy, where an entrepreneur or company sells heat at an agreed price to a user. In the best scenarios there can be many heat purchasers. Heat is conveyed to the customer from the heating plant by a district heating network. Generally the fuel is the entrepreneur’s own forest or locally procured wood, but it can also be wood refining by-products, wood for re-cycling and peat.

The knowledge cluster consists of heat entrepreneurs, heat entrepreneurship units, research, training and the supply of machines and equipment for the whole production chain. The knowledge cluster can also be utilized internationally by offering knowledge and training opportunities to foreign target groups.

Transportation costs are the most costly part of wood mobilization especially in sparsely populated areas with long distances.  The distance between forest and factory can be over 500 kilometers. To reduce costs of long-distance transportation of wood, bigger lorries were innovated and are now tested in Finland in a research project. The environmental effects and traffic safety are also explored.

Full utilization of HCT vehicles requires maintenance of road networks including forest roads, main roads, and bridges.

The 33-metric vehicle combination is able to carry even 70 tons of wood. The vehicle consumes less fuel than the smaller one and therefore contributes to reducing the environmental effects of transportation. The vehicles will also contribute to traffic safety since fewer vehicles will be needed to wood transportation in the future.

The research project is participated by experienced research institutes: Aalto University, Oulu University, Metsäteho, and Tampere Technical University. In the research project, the impacts on the road as well as the features of the lorries are investigated: braking distances, passing capacity, oscillations of the vehicle, and curve driving. The consumption of fuel, emissions, and durability of tires are also focused on.

Cost efficiency is gained in long-distance transportation of wood. The HCT vehicles reduce transportation costs and carbon emissions.

The first combination to transport wood started shipping with a pilot permit in December 2020.

Strengthen the regional wood value chain incl. sales promotion thereby enhancing the regionally potential added value. Initiation and expansion of networks between industry and science along the value chain Forest-Wood-Paper. Initiation of expert rounds on particular topics, regional projects and cooperation’s. Enhancement of the political framework. Process optimization between different actors and within these. Monitoring of cluster activities Every player of the wood value chain from the forest owner to the end consumer is an important factor in the work flow and plays a crucial role for overall success and positive development. Actors in the wood value chain need to know as much as possible from the upstream and downstream actors (ex. stock, products, delivery times, facility possibilities). Close cooperation between partners is needed to facilitate interaction and enhance the efficiency of internal processes and the whole process chain Closer collaboration between the different actors in the wood value chain. Better knowledge of the mutual strenght, the products and the services provided by each other. Regional connection of the wood value chain and sales promotion thereby enhancing the regionally potential added value. Limit the increasing wood import. Competitiveness enhancement of all actors of the wood value chain. Positive effects on labor situations in the wood value chain in the region. Strengthening the wood sector as an important economic factor. Enhancement of sustainability through the exploitation of the potential annual wood increment. Fostering the climate change adaptation potential of forests by reducing rotation period

Forest management based on the latest available technical solutions and satellite data (Sentinel2 and caliper with georeferencing possibility). Determinization of rough wood according to tree-species for the entire forestry operation surface. Realtime wood stock management and silvicultural measure planning reviewed with silvicultural planning simulations. Rolling management approach on an annually basis for optimization of economic, ecological and social values. Management units of approx. 30 hectares defined to enhance efficiency of the entire process. Reduction of rotation periods according to tree-species

Advanced forest management and silvicultural planning on a good wood stock analysis with proximity in time is one key factor for optimization of forest management, silvicultural measures and wood production incl. better selling possibilities. New learning process possibilities. Enhanced reaction times on requests of all sorts and in the case of extreme events (storms etc.). The approach allows the better exploitation of the growing wood potential, reducing the rotation period and thereby fostering the climate change adaptation potential. Efficiency enhancement in economic, ecological and social dimension with the aid of modern techniques is possible and will become more prominent in the future

Efficiency enhancement in economic, ecological and social dimension. Increased yield and cost reduction resulting in enhanced profitability while providing stability for wood stocks. Reducing discards by adaptation to climate change and active monitoring of sustainability principles. Exploiting of new selling opportunities. Active learning possibilities through Realtime verification of work processes incl. field work (work plan -> validation -> assignment -> verification). Better integration possibilities of all actors in the field and active work support. Better communication possibilities with players of downstream markets

The proposal proposes to methodology for the evaluation of the economic and financial sustainability of the poplar plantations, incorporating to the most usual analysis of profitability, by means of the calculation of the IRR and NPV indicators, the perspective of annual revenue for the forest owners. The methodology seeks to lay down the principles of the economic aspects to bear in mind, overcoming the approach of the calculation based only on the costs and income for hectare and it was not possible to compare with other crops.

In progress

The analysis with this new perspective allows to evaluate the rentability of the activity and to compare it with those of other agrarian crops which can occupy the same surfaces. In addition, they have stable subsidies that increase their competitiveness in the agro-forestry areas. The proposal establishes for the first time the term "forest income" for consideration to the "agrarian income", with which shares many assailable aspects. The comparative one between the calculation of both incomes can be of great usefulness for the invest decisions on the part of the owners, managers and responsible administrations.

SAXMEL intends to become a novel highly systematized and protocol-based approach aimed as a solution to contribute improving current forest management practices acting at local scope. SAXMEL consists of a catalogue of services composed of identified key processes considered essential to solve major problems affecting forest resource development. Also it includes some inner processes and procedures aimed to steer the system itself functioning such as resource management, communication, financing & founding, ...SAXMEL has been conceptualized based on some key mainstays: participatory approach, transparency, self-sufficiency, selfgovernance, territorial persistency, technical criteria-based, local scope.

1- Providing solutions to and gaining interest from public administration is a failed task as their functioning are far from efficient, transparent and sound
2- There is a great need from private stakeholders towards integral solutions to forest resource problems, this has been checked on several territories
3- SAXMEL´s concept approach is valid preliminarily, although implementation needs to be broadly validated.

Currently the solution is under development, being piloted in the municipality of Gondomar (Pontevedra, Galicia) thanks to broad support from 80% of comunity-scope forest landowners. There is an approved regional operational group as well as a national operational group stilll both pending from funding.

Scots pine wood from the Region of Pinares (a region located between the provinces of Soria and Burgos) enjoyed great prestige in the Spanish market, despite the fact that it lacked a common standardised basis among the companies in the sector that would allow  to launch a regulated product on the market that would facilitate its commercialisation.
There was also a mismatch between the quality of the product and the quality of the service offered to the buyer by the industry.
In this context, the first guarantee mark was created in the wood sector, the Guarantee Mark Pino Soria Burgos.

The main lesson learned is that the wood sector requires common marketing standards that make it easier for users to buy their products, eliminating confusion and insecurities that lead to a rejection of the use of wood. They also allow generating a mercantile reference to compete with the rest of products, whether made of wood or other materials such as concrete, steel, pvc…
It also allows for closer ties between the business and technology sectors, which guarantees continuous improvement of the business sector through both training and innovation.

This guarantee mark is based on three basic pillars: Guarantee of origin, sustainability (all forests and their processors are certified under the PEFC system) and quality (common marketing bases are established).
More than 48 municipalities and the Community of the 150 villages of the Land of Soria, and a total of 15 companies of first transformation of the wood, have joined.
On the other hand, we have managed to join a sector that until the creation of the Guarantee Brand was completely dispersed. In addition, its close relationship with Cesefor (forestry and wood technological centre) has enabled it to carry out extensive certification of its products (CE marking, PEFC, carbon footprint), training courses (cost control, structural calculation, wood treatment, etc.), and innovation projects (structural characterisation, development of new building systems, etc.). Currently, the companies of the Guarantee Mark are references in the Spanish wood sector and in the construction sector.

1. Forest modeling and management diagrams 2. Development of tools to improve the quality of wood 2.1. Use of acoustic techniques for the valorization of wood 2.2. Establishment of quality standards 3. Update of volume equations (model trees) by laser 4. Incorporation of aerial laser in the valuation of forest use 5. Improvement and standardization of the techniques of signaling and characterization of the uses In progress (Expected results) The general objectives of this project are: - To analyze the factors that determine the quality of standing timber. -To obtain practical management standards that allow forest managers to manage their forest based on forest quality. - To create standardization tools validated by the industry in terms of performance and final product quality.