Forest Life - Building cooperation, developing skills and sharing knowledge for Natura 2000 forests in Greece

1st Newsletter, January 2016

Editorial

LIFE ForestLife: The Greek Forest community of Natura 2000 sites is going “online”

The newsletter at hand is the first of the LIFE project ForestLife, which comes as a response to a number of needs of scientists and other professionals working in Greek forests within the Natura 2000 network. These needs regard forest policy, exchange of experience and know-how, access to state-of-the-art research findings and the development of cooperation on resolving common issues. The project will implement some of the proposals facing the above-mentioned needs, as they have been identified during the Biogeographical Seminar for the Mediterranean region (Thessaloniki, 26-28, May 2014). Specifically, ForestLife’s actions include the development of a web portal for the forests in Natura 2000 sites, the collection and exchange of best practices along with the drafting and dissemination of guidelines for the management of Mediterranean forest ecosystems.

The project is implemented by The Goulandris Natural History Museum / Greek Wetland-Biotope Centre (EKBY) in collaboration with the Directorate General for the Development and Protection of Forests and the Rural Environment of the Ministry of Environment and Energy. It will be finalized in 2019 and its budget amounts to nearly 1 million €, 60% of which is EU’ s contribution through the LIFE financial instrument.

In this issue:

Besides ForestLife’s news, in this issue we present, some important international forest policy developments which recognize the importance of forests in the mitigation of climate change, the results of the 17th conference of the Hellenic Forestry Society, the contribution of the project LIFE+ AdaptFor to the adaptation of Greek forest management to climate change and the new Information Centre of Mount Olympus National Park, which will soon open its gates.

We welcome you again to project ForestLife and its newsletters.

Petros Kakouros,
ForestLife Project Coordinator

ForestLife project News

The Actions of Project ForestLife

The project’s actions can be divided in preparatory actions, core actions and actions of evaluation and communication. Preparatory actions include all those actions that were deemed necessary for the assessment of the forest community’s needs.

ForestLife project starts its online presence

The website of the project ForestLife: Builidng cooperation, development of skills and exchange of knowledge in forests of the Natura 2000 network in Greece, commenced its presence in the web address forestlife.gr.

Forests in the spotlight

In Autumn 2015, two major events for the forest sector took place: The World Forestry Congress in Durban, South Africa and the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe. Both these event led to the synthesis of significant forest policy documents. More information on the two events you can find here here [in Greek ].

More >>

17th Conference of the Hellenic Forestry Society

The 17th Conference of the Hellenic Forestry Society with the title “The contribution of modern forestry and protected areas to sustainable development” was held on the island of Kephalonia, Greece between 4 and 7 of October 2015.

More >>

LIFE+ AdaptFor in the publication LIFE and climate change adaptation

The new thematic publication “LIFE and climate change adaptation” of the European Commission includes the article “LIFE helps Greek forests to cope in a changing climate”.

More >>

National Observatory of Forests: completion of first phase

The first phase of the National Observatory of Forests (NOF) was finalized at the end of 2015. The ambition of NOF is to establish an integrated web-based, open access forest data management system, which will hold the information contained in forest management plans.

More >>

The Information Centre of Mount Olympus opens its gates

Mt Olympus is internationally acclaimed for its nature, the wealth of plants and animals, for the presence of rare and endemic species and for its geological significance. It has been called the “Parthenon of Greek nature” and has been declared a National Forest, the first in the country, in 1938.

More >>