Munich – Europe has more than 117 million hectares of forest, but the sustainable utilisation especially in privately owned woods falls short of its potential. The ever-increasing demand for wood for material and energy applications is becoming more and more difficult to meet. In response, the EU project SIMWOOD (Sustainable Innovative Mobilisation of Wood) was recently launched with the aim of promoting a more efficient use of the available supply of wood and bolster Europe's forestry and wood industry.
The project consortium comprises 28 partners from Germany, Belgium, Finland, France, Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Slovenia and Spain. They will investigate the optimum forest use in 14 model regions in the EU.
There are also two project partners from Slovenia. Slovenian forestry institute – Department of Forest technique and Economics will cover research topics, contribute to the information system development and good practice examples implementation. The Slovenia Forest Service will take the key role for good practice examples implementation and establish info point for private forest owners in Slovenia.
