EDINBURGH AND AE VENUES FOR EUROPEAN FORESTRY CONFERENCE (11/05/06)

Scientists, foresters and researchers from 18 countries across Europe will meet in Edinburgh and Ae next week (w/b 8 May).

They will start work on developing a system for measuring the impact on the sustainability of activities involved in forestry and forest-related industries.
In a European Union-backed project called EFORWOOD, they plan over the next four years to design and produce computer software that will be capable of measuring the impact of all the activities along the wood chain, from preparing ground for tree planting to transporting logs and processing them into products for the market.
The software will be able to quantify the environmental, economic and social impacts of all the activities involved in growing and managing forests and transporting and processing forest products.

The conference at Heriot-Watt University, including a field trip to Dumfries & Galloway, is being hosted by Forest Research, the Forestry Commission's research agency, which is one of two British partners in the project.
Bill Mason, Forest Research's Head of Forest Management, explained,

"The need for development to be sustainable in the widest possible sense is increasingly being recognised in all sectors of human activity, but it's not enough just to believe that what we are doing is sustainable. We need scientific evidence. We need to be able to measure the impacts of our activities in an ordered, logical and scientifically sound way so that we know exactly what the impacts are and just how sustainable our activities are. We also need to have benchmarks against which to measure any improvements we need to make.

"EFORWOOD will produce a tool for doing this which will be understood and usable by scientists, foresters, government and industry right across Europe. It will use a common 'language' that will enable us all to have a common framework in international discussions, negotiations and comparisons. It will be a highly useful and important tool for sustainable forest management.

"To give an example, the software will provide a tool for measuring the various impacts of transporting logs from forests to processing facilities such as sawmills. The social impact might involve, for example, the impact on the health, well-being and quality of life of people living in small towns and villages through which timber is transported; the environmental impact might involve air quality, and effects on wildlife habitats caused by the movement of trucks; and the economic impact might involve the costs incurred by local authorities and government to build, repair and maintain roads suitable for timber transport."

As part of their meeting, the conference delegates will visit Dumfries & Galloway on Wednesday 10th May to learn about Forestry Commission Scotland's management of Ae Forest and to see a modern sawmill in action at Lockerbie.

The project has a budget of £13.8 million (EUR20 million), to which the EU has committed about £8.9 million (EUR13 million), and it will be co-ordinated by Professor Kaj Rosén of the Swedish Forest Research Institute (Skogforsk). Further information is available by:
* visiting www.eforwood.com.