The Slovenian Forestry Institute is a public research institute of national importance, which conducts basic and applied research on forests and forest landscapes, forest ecosystems, wildlife ecology, hunting, forest management, and other uses of the resources and services forests provide. The scientific knowledge from these fields helps further the research on forest biodiversity and its management in relation to climate change.

As part of its research programme and related studies, the Institute also provides forestry and environmental services in the public interest.

Another of the Institute’s functions is to provide scientific knowledge on all aspects of sustainable development, with the purpose of increasing knowledge and awareness of the importance of forests within the environment and the importance of forest management. In short, the Institute is a scientific, professional, and cultural storehouse for Slovenia’s relationship with its forests and the resources and services they provide.

Research Program

The Institute’s research programme is organized into six departments, all of which study forests from the standpoint of the sustainable development of society, in balance with the environment:

• Department of Forest Ecology
• Department of Forest Physiology and Genetics
• Department for Forest Technique and Economics
• Department of Forest and Landscape Planning and Monitoring
• Department of Forest Yield and Silviculture
• Department of Forest Protection

Public Forestry Service

The Slovenian Forestry Institute intensively monitors forests as part of the public forestry service. This includes surveying and recording forest degradation and damage, providing a diagnostic reporting service, developing an information system for research purposes, and monitoring forestry seeding and nursery activities.

The Institute is also committed to sustainable forest management and the conservation of its biological diversity, as well as to the further development and organization of the Slovenian forestry system and forestry policy.

Public Environmental Service

The Slovenian Forestry Institute’s public environmental service monitors emissions and sinks of greenhouse gases resulting from land use, land use change, and forestry. As a signatory of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Slovenia is required to submit an annual report on greenhouse gas emissions and sinks. Slovenia is also a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol, which requires countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels (for Slovenia to 1986 levels). The Kyoto Protocol allows for flexibility in the manner of cutting emissions. Countries may, for example, partially offset their greenhouse gas emissions with their forests, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Responsibilities Stipulated by the Forest Act (ZG-NPB2)

• forest protection,
• directing the management of forests, forest land, individual forest trees, and groups of forest trees outside settlements,
• managing forestry records and databases,
• professional consulting and training for forest owners,
• seed management, including production of seeds for forest tree varieties in seed orchards, storing reserve quantities of forest tree and shrub seeds, and the establishment and operation of a seed bank,
• provision of seedlings for forest tree and shrub varieties,
• monitoring and recording the level of forest degradation and damage,
• professionally directing a service of diagnostic and prognostic reporting on forests,
• professionally directing forest seed and nursery activities,
• developing and professionally directing an information system for forests,
• preparing a framework and proposals for standards for working in forests, and
• conducting a program of statistical surveys for forests, as well as other tasks provided for by the charter and its articles of association.

Powers Conferred by Public Law under the Forest Act (ZG-NPB2)

• issuing certificates for forest seed and seedlings in accordance with regulations on seed and seedlings
• performing expert and health supervision of forest seed and seedling activities

Publishing

The Slovenian Forestry Institute publishes literature through the Silva Slovenica publishing house. In partnership with the Biotechnical Faculty’s Department of Forestry and Department of Wood Science and Technology, SFI publishes the collection Studia Forestalia Slovenica and the Zbornik gozdarstva in lesarstva (Journal of Forestry and Wood Science).

The Slovenian Forestry Institute successfully collaborates with Slovenian forestry, timber, and nature conservation organizations, as well as with other educational and research organizations both in Slovenia and abroad.