MENFRI

The Mediterranean Region will become one of the most vulnerable areas in Europe to global change. Climate in the region shows great sensitivity to global atmospheric changes and socioeconomic assumptions have an affect on land use. While in European Mediterranean countries land abandonment is promoting new unmanaged forest cover, increasing fire and pest risks, in the south of the basin forest intensification results in desertification as the principal threat.

On the one hand, local owners from the south could learn from northern forestry associations to manage in a landscape scale and therefore combine larger benefits with regional conservation. On the other hand, alternative forest goods obtained by traditional techniques still maintained in the south may convince north forests’ owners to manage (that also means take care of) abandoned forests in order to obtain economical benefit.

The main goal of the project is therefore to create a favourable environment for the development of an organized, innovative and job creating business sector in the Mediterranean while facing global change by:

1) evaluating the available resources on the analysis of the spatial distribution of forest goods and services;

2) compiling the different forest management traditional strategies and actions in the face of global change;

3) obtaining an overview of the current situation of the forestry sector in the region;

4) establishing a network of forestry related research centres, cooperatives, public-private partnerships and SMEs;

5) promoting cross-border Mediterranean cooperation through training and sharing of knowledge;

6) providing indicators and policies to monitor progress towards forestry innovation.