MySustainableForest

This project has received funding from the European Union's innovation and research program Horizon 2020 under grant agreement No. 776045.

Forests, a key component of the EU economy (42% of the EU surface area) and source of multiple social benefits, must be managed in accordance with the sustainability principles outlined in the EU Forest Strategy. However, forest managers lack precise or updated data to do so. Traditional forest inventories provide detailed ecological and forestry information, but they come at a high cost and are normally provided every 10 years. This frequency far below what is needed to plan commercial or recreational activities based on these data. The rate of change in forests requires tools that are capable of annual tracking of the forest surface area, the characteristics of the available wood, and the different ecosystem services.

Pre-commercial platforms and forest use

The goal of the MySustainableForest project was to develop a pre-commercial service and platform, compatible with standard and open interfaces integrating Earth Observation data, for stakeholders involved in forest management and use. The project was based on GMV’s prototype, eoForest, and drew on its expertise in forest data modeling. Participants in the project included major European public and private integrated forest management organizations: RAIZ (R&D branch of The Navigator Company), the Croatian Institute of Forest Research, the Mendel University in Brno, the Forest Owners Association of Navarra, the Forest Owners Association of Lithuania, the Syndicat des Sylviculteurs du Sud-Ouest, the European Forest Institute, and two innovative SMEs (MADERA+ and Föra).

The added value of the developments was tested in 6 different bioclimatic zones in Europe: Portugal, Spain, France, Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Lithuania, applying various management protocols for different forest uses. The economic viability of the service was evaluated and the associated business model was validated. As a result of the project, forestry end users will be able to improve their management operations by 10%, participating SMEs increased their workforce by 20%, and GMV’s market share in the sustainable management sector grew by 10%.