France

Private foresters had a lot of quantitative data thanks to the data accumulated by the National Forest Inventory for more than 20 years, as well as information on the structure of the private forest thanks to the Ministry of Agriculture's survey in 1999. But they did not take into account the behaviour of forest owners. In 2009, the network for observing the behaviour of forest owners was launched by the CNPF and Fransylva, with the financial support of France Bois Forêt. The objective is to collect new information on the behaviour of forest owners, particularly regarding the management of their forests according to their forest area and the region where they live. In the surveys, the same behavioural trends of forest owners appear: sentimental attachment to their wood, environmental responsibility, heritage to be valued and source of economic income.

The main outcomes include so far:

• Surveys carried out by telephone to owners of more than 4ha of wood cadastral land with a duration of 15min
• 2500 people interviewed throughout France during the surveys
• Other surveys for specific studies at a more regional level (risk perception, climate change,...).  
• The results of the surveys make it possible to create new management tools for forest owners and new distribution media. They are also used to improve the advice of technicians in order to better take into account the expectations of forest owners and encourage them to mobilize their wood.

The objective of the OPTIM'indus action is to provide tailored support to develop the performance and competitiveness of companies by providing keys to meet the challenges facing the industry. It is financed by Europe, the Fund for Innovation in Industry, the New Aquitaine region and the OPCAIM (Joint Organisation for the Authorised Collection of Metallurgy Industries).
3 development axes are proposed to companies:
1) Project support
2) Skills development
3) Development of professional networks

The support of the company's projects is divided into several stages:
- expertise in skills and vocational training needs and an industrial diagnosis to define new technical orientations,
- assistance in improving processes, tools and product development, for example by carrying out a feasibility study or by putting partners, consultants or experts in contact with each other.
- proposal for financial assistance
OPTIM'indus offers Master Classes, training days or courses for executives, managers or technicians to develop skills.
It runs "Industry of the Future" clubs where companies meet and exchange ideas.

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 project consists of creating a shared tool in the form of an online platform to facilitate the evaluation of supply plans and to limit conflicts of use from forest resources.
The tool integrates data related to the availability of the wood resource, taking into account harvests and past forest removals as well as the potential for additional wood energy and industrial wood harvesting. It thus provides an up-to-date view of the wood energy and wood industry resource at the departmental level.
In addition, the consumption of recent and planned biomass boiler is indicated in order to calculate the supply and demand balance for a territory.

Currently, the platform is tested and revised after feedback from users and experts associated with the project. It appears necessary to consolidate data on resource availability, biomass boiler consumption and other wood uses.

Data related to wood resources come from IGN inventories (National Institute for Geographic and Forestry Information), AGRESTE surveys (service of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food) and ADEME studies (Environment and Energy Management Agency).
With a single tool, it is possible to :
- monitor harvests and wood consumption at the departmental level,
- estimate the additional resource,
- use indicators of the capacity to mobilize the resource.
The platform provides summary tables on resource availability and a boiler consumption database. It allows users to monitor the evolution over time of biomass boiler and wood resource consumption.  
It also provides related indicators to estimate the strain on the resource. Users can simulate the impact of a new boiler installation on their territory.
This type of tool appears necessary and useful both for public bodies for the implementation of their policy, and for industrialists who wish to develop their activities.

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.