INFORMA
Science-Based Integrated Forest Mitigation Management Made Operational for Europe
Context
Forests have a major role to play in mitigating climate change, through their ability to capture and store carbon throughout their lifetime. But this mitigation potential is highly dependent on forest management practices and could be doubled if best management practices become the norm. Still, crucial questions on how to manage existing forests for enhanced carbon capture, where and how to grow new forests and how to adapt to more frequent disturbances remain partially unanswered by science, unaddressed by policies and unexplored by carbon offsetting schemes.
Objectives
Therefore, INFORMA aims to enhance and share the latest science-based knowledge on multi-purpose sustainable forest management under climate change.
More particularly, it will address the trade-offs and synergies between different management objectives (e.g. timber production, nature conservation, recreational use) considering the environmental integrity, social acceptability and economic feasibility of future European forest management practices. This will be done while aiming to maintain carbon sinks in the short, medium and long term, support genetic diversity, biodiversity conservation, and preserve soil and water resources in different European regions.
The project is structured into 7 work packages (WP):
- “Information and knowledge transfer”, led by the European Forest Institute (EFI);
- “Ecosystem functions of managed versus unmanaged forests”, led by KU Leuven (KUL);
- “Socio-institutional patterns of innovative forest-based mitigation and adaptation strategies”, led by the University Ştefan cel Mare de Suceava (USV);
- “Development and impact of sustainable forest management alternatives”, led by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU);
- “Carbon certification improvements: contribution from research and practitioners”, led by I4CE;
- “Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation”, led by the Technical University of Valencia (UPV);
- Project management, by the Technical University of Valencia.
I4CE is involved in this project in two ways: as the lead of the WP on carbon certification, and as a participant of WP3, for which I4CE shares its expertise on the uses of wood.
Socio-institutional patterns of innovative forest-based mitigation and adaptation strategies (WP3)
WP3 will develop a comprehensive vision of forest dynamics and of adaptive management by considering interactions between societal actors, their perceptions of reality and of social-ecological systems. I4CE is contributing by investigating ways of increasing the proportion of wood used in long-life products, and thus maximizing the climate change mitigation potential of forests.
I4CE‘s objectives:
- to assess the level of funding for the use of wood as a material or energy source, both in the EU and in France;
- to define the economic obstacles to increasing the proportion of wood allocated to long-life uses, and the factors likely to promote the redirection of this resource towards such uses, including the investments needed to develop the wood industry.
Carbon certification improvements: contribution from research and practitioners (WP5)
The overall aim of WP5 is to contribute to the improvement of forest carbon certification in Europe by exploring technical options for robust forest monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) as well as creating the market conditions for a wider acceptance and use of such instruments by private project developers, public institutions, and potential buyers.
Objectives:
- to identify improvements needed in forest carbon certifications ;
- to assess the economic consequences of the different solutions with a focus on the balance between costs and accuracy;
- to assess the attractiveness of carbon certification frameworks for project developers and buyers, and explore synergies and complementarities with the broad portfolio of resources and instruments supporting climate-smart forest practices ;
- to provide comprehensive recommendations on forest carbon certification including technical, economic and practical implications, and share them with project developers and funders, regulators in charge of carbon certification schemes, and the European Commission.
Period
July 2022 – June 2026
Partners
INFORMA involves 14 partners from 8 European countries, representing the academic and research fields, the private sector and an international organization.
