On Friday 1st June, around 100 participants gathered at the Borshette Center in Brussels on the initiative of the European Commission, about Climate Action in the Agricultural and Forestry Sectors – Intelligent Climate Policies and Innovation through LIFE and H2020. Among them, invited by the organizers of the event, members of the CNPF went on behalf of the project LIFE FOREST CO2.
After an introduction that highlighted the crucial role of agriculture and forestry facing climate change, the main points of the panorama (breakthroughs, gaps, prospects) were highlighted, 9 projects were presented in the workshop « Climate action in Agriculture », and 8 in the workshop « Climate action in forest ».
One of the inaugural conferences of the Workshop
From the modeling of carbon and water balances in northern European ecosystems, to alternative models for forest management, and management strategies to improve the mitigation potential of European forests, many tools, methodologies and field practices have been developed, at different stages and at different scales.
Presentation of Alterfor Project, an H2020 project about alternative forest management models
Some strong points emerged from the discussions, notably by Paul Brannen, Member of the European Parliament – and member of the Committee for the Environment, and Christiane Canenbley, from the Cabinet of the Commissioner Hogan of the European Commission:
- The significant mitigation potential of both sectors
- The key role of the Common Agricultural Policy
- The importance of R & D, but also of awareness-raising, co-learning, the exchange of knowledge, notably between practitioners, replicability – and thus missions undertaken by the consulting and development agencies
- The need for harmonization of methods, improved access to data
- The need not to underestimate the time factor for good practices to be accepted and integrated
- The need to motivate and inspire operators to carry on the relevant actions, in a “win-win” way
Conclusions with DG ENV
