The IUFRO (International Union of Forest Research Organisations) World Congress, one of the most prestigious global forestry events, has been held every five years since 1893, from 23 to 29 June 2024 in Stockholm, Sweden. This year, the event was organised by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in close collaboration with Nordic and Baltic partners, under the theme “Forests and Society Towards 2050”. This congress provides a unique platform to bring together scientists and world leaders with the aim of contributing to and co-creating a sustainable future in the forestry, climate and social fields, in line with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
CoLAB ForestWISE participated in the 26th edition of this congress and was represented by Working Lines 2 (LT2), Risk Management, and LT3, Circular Economy and Value Chains. During the event, the CoLAB team took an active part in various sessions and presented several papers, aligned with the mission of cogeneration and transfer of knowledge and technologies on integrated forest and fire management. The Agenda transForm and the European projects FIRE-RES and RESIST were the projects highlighted at the congress.
Agenda transForm
On the first day of the congress, Pedro Britto, senior researcher at CoLAB ForestWISE, presented a poster on the OPTIVEG project, one of the transForm Agenda initiatives, in session T5.10 entitled “Digitalisation for sustainable forest management”.
The second day of the congress continued with sessions focused on digitalisation and sustainability. Alexandra Marques, senior researcher at CoLAB ForestWISE, together with Dag Field, professor of Forest Technology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), moderated the session “Developing digital drivers for risk mitigation in forest supply chains”. During this session, Alexandra Marques highlighted the implementation of advanced technologies and digital solutions to improve the efficiency, sustainability and resilience of forest supply chains. Pedro Britto presented the work developed as part of the transForm Agenda, in this case to improve the control of timber supply chains through digital applications for measuring timber stacks.
On the fourth day of the congress, participants had the opportunity to visit a variety of fields and learn about some of the best practices and innovations in forest management, offering an insight into new technologies and methods for sustainable forest management.
The next day, CoLAB ForestWISE project manager Mariana Amaro took part in the session “Forest without borders: National Forest Inventory Networks and their potential for large scale monitoring and reporting”. In this session, she presented a paper on the creation of a Network of Permanent Forest Plots in Portugal, developed under the transForm Agenda, which aims to monitor the effects of climate change on the country’s different forest ecosystems.
FIRE-RES
As part of the FIRE-RES project, Brigite Botequim presented a poster on the Fire Education Platform being developed by the CEABN-InBIO team at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia, with the aim of compiling and sharing relevant knowledge and practices for all types of public in fire management in the three phases of the extreme fire cycle. Also contributing to the collaborative design and inputs of this international platform are the partners Centre de Ciència i Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya, CPT Wageningen University and our CoLAB.
Brigite Botequim was also co-author of a poster presented by Erico Kutchartt, from the Centre de Ciència i Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya (CTFC), entitled “Updating biomass maps at European scale using remote sensing and machine learning ensembles”, which highlighted the use of advanced technologies to update biomass maps at European scale.
RESIST
Finally, Jorge Cunha gave a presentation in the session “Small-scale, Community, and Indigenous Forestry: Global Challenges and Opportunities” on the integration of forest management at landscape level in Portugal, a project developed in the European RESIST project.
With more than 4,000 participants, the IUFRO 2024 World Congress was a real platform for sharing knowledge and innovation in forestry. CoLAB ForestWISE’s active participation in the various sessions and presentations reinforced our CoLAB’s commitment to sustainability and innovation in forest management, and our work was highlighted on IUFRO TV screens throughout the week, impacting all congress participants.