2nd ForestNavigator GA Meeting – September 2023

On September 26-27, 2023, the ForestNavigator consortium met in Laxenburg, Austria for a General Assembly meeting to discuss the achievements of the first  year and upcoming tasks. The meeting was opened by ForestNavigator Co-PIs Petr Havlík and Fulvio Di Fulvio with an overview of major achievements:

• Successful engagement of the Stakeholder Board: during the first workshop we received constructive feedback for various modelling efforts.
• The Policy Steering Committee convened twice, providing valuable input on the Forest4model Datacube and other work.
• ForestNavigator modelling partners and external stakeholders convened for a preparatory Forest Policy Modeling Forum meeting in which the commitments to the concept and first year FPMF work was agreed upon.
• The ForestNavigator Portal has been conceptualized in Deliverable 9.1. This publicly accessible webtool will visualize ForestNavigator data and models.

The program continued with dedicated sessions to present and discuss further work on upcoming deliverables starting with the first version of the open  access Forest4model Datacube, which is an EU wide forest database. This 2000-2020 multi-layered forest geodatabase covers current and recent past forest status and trends. The first version and upcoming next data steps are described in the Deliverable 2.1 report.

The forest management database was another focal point (Deliverable 3.1). This database captures parameters for modelling existing management systems  and alternatives for adaptation of forest management under climate change, sustain wood production, increase multifunctionality, conserve and restore biodiversity for EU-27 countries. Partners provided input and resources for filling data gaps. As next steps, input from silviculture experts is being  gathered, the data will be housed in an open access repository, and its accompanying reports will be made available on the www.ForestNavigator.eu site.

Alternative forest management storylines were presented and further discussed with the consortium partners and the PSC. These storylines are alternative  societal developments to achieve the same policy targets but emphasize alternative nature-oriented, multifunctional, bio-based economy goals andmeasures. As a next step, feedback will be consolidated and incorporated, and the resulting storylines will be discussed with the Stakeholder Board  efore being converted into model scenarios. 

A special highlight was a joint session with the ForestPaths and Pathfinder sister projects, during which topics to collaborate were discussed. Furthermore, members of the Policy Steering Committee gave presentations on recent EU and national policy updates and gave feedback on ForestNavigator project advancements.