PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Forests in Europe are expanding, and they play a major role in absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2) to mitigate climate change, while also providing other important services to human beings. At the same time, forests are increasingly exposed to climate change driven events such as wildfires, pest outbreaks and droughts. These risks are exacerbated in the Mediterranean region, where the lack of economic profitability results in land abandonment with big repercussions for forest ecosystems. Despite such trends, the sector could drive the transition to a low-carbon and circular economy by fostering the use of wood-based materials in long-lasting products, ensuring long-term carbon storage.
3 main obstacles to this transition in the project areas in Spain and Italy include:
- High land fragmentation, and rural depopulation and abandonment, which limit the sustainable and profitable management of forests to foster resilience and maintain or enhance their capacities to sequester carbon and provide other ecosystem services (ES).
- Existing wood-based value chains are not equipped to store carbon over the long-term. For example, Spain’s Castilla-La Mancha hosts some well-preserved examples of (south-)Mediterranean pine forests of endemic Pinus nigra (habitat 9530, in Annex 1 of Habitats Directive). While black pine and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) can provide good quality timber for use in construction, across the region their primary existing use is in the production of low-value products such as pallets, boards and pellets.
- Some tools and mechanisms for the economic valorisation of ES, which can compensate for losses from conventional forest management, do exist, but they need to be improved.
OBJECTIVES
The overarching objective of LIFE WOOD4LIFE is to propose tools and business models that will support the forest sector in strengthening its pivotal role in mitigating climate change both by enhancing its carbon sequestration capacities and providing less greenhouse gas (GHG) emission-intense materials and by valuing and remunerating ES.
The specific objectives, which address the 3 main challenges identified above, are to:
- Improve forms of association to enhance sustainable forest management with impacts across landscapes. Through a dedicated helpdesk, the project will develop and promote innovative governance models involving forest owners, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification groups and consortia, as well as other solutions to reverse land fragmentation and abandonment.
- Improve the climate change mitigation performance of forest-wood value chains through the engagement of different actors. This will foster the value chain for products with a lifespan of more than 20 years both by promoting the production of wood with added value and by increasing the value of final products, often used in the construction sector.
- Reinforce existing systems and to develop a market for ES. To fulfill this objective, the project will verify the impact on ES of sustainable forest management and develop a tool to improve the capacity to quantify and track the climate change mitigation potential of a given forest and of harvested wood products. Such results will be delivered to companies in the forest-wood sector through a protocol, allowing them to understand the impacts of wood products, and to prove and quantify the positive impacts on ES, in compliance with European Commission (EC) regulations and FSC standards.
The project will be implemented in Castilla-La Mancha (Spain), and the Appennino Tosco-Emiliano National Park (PNATE) in Tuscany and the Emilia Romagna regions (Italy).
RESULTS
The project’s expected results are:
- Sustainable and certified close-to-nature forest management – which also increases carbon sequestration capacities, the conservation of biodiversity, and the provision of good quality timber for long-lasting products as well as non-wood products – will be carried out on 96 hectares (ha) of public-owned pine forests in Castilla-la Mancha. As a result, CO2 sequestration could amount to 700 tonnes of CO2 per year.
- Governance arrangements will be promoted to overcome forest fragmentation across at least 33 134 ha, involving at least 178 forest owners in both countries. Additional management plans will be developed in the 2 areas, covering at least 164 193 ha, a large part of which will be certified by FSC.
- At least 10 value chain agreements (5 in Spain and 5 in Italy) will be signed between forest owners and industries to strengthen partnerships, secure supply chains and reduce carbon emissions. At least 10% of the timber processed within these agreements will go into the production of long-lasting wood-based products with a lifespan of at least 20 years.
- 2 business models to ensure a fair remuneration to the actors of the forest-wood value chain for climate positive impacts will be developed and put in place in each of the sites. This will be done with the help of a tool and protocol for accounting biogenic carbon stored in harvested wood product that will foster remuneration for:
- forest management activities that ensure carbon sequestration and the production of high-quality timber
- avoided carbon emissions as the extracted wood would not be used for energy purposes but rather for long-term construction products, and as a substitute for of GHG-intensive materials.
- forest management activities that ensure carbon sequestration and the production of high-quality timber
The protocol will be tested in at least 3 different wood-based product value chains. Embedded into the Alliance for Ecosystem Services in Castilla-La Mancha and in the Sustainability Credits system of the PNATE, it will contribute to the mobilisation of €230 000 in investments, expanding the existing market for ES.
At least 50 companies will participate in the pilot and assess their impacts following the GHG Protocol ‘Land Sector and Removals Guidance’. Additionally, the newly developed FSC ES PRO standard will ensure the consistency of the claims made on verified forest ES.