Categoría: News

By Rina Tsubaki

Satellite imagery, artificial intelligence (AI), and large-scale data analysis are opening new possibilities not only for research but also for journalism. These technologies can help investigate complex issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and landscape change. But data alone can never tell the full story. Understanding what these changes mean for people and nature requires both scientific expertise and journalistic investigation.

Green to Grey, a Europe-wide investigative journalism project recently awarded a Sigma Award, demonstrates how such collaboration can work in practice. Bringing together researchers from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) and more than 40 journalists across 11 European countries, the project used AI and satellite imagery to identify where natural and agricultural lands had been converted into housing, industry, and infrastructure and investigate what these changes meant for local communities.

«We found that every year Europe loses around 1,500 square km of natural and agricultural land to construction,» said Zeynep Şentek, one of the project’s coordinators. «Between 2018 and the end of 2023, Europe lost approximately 9,000 square km, roughly the size of Cyprus.«

This topline finding provided a starting point for newsrooms to zoom into their own countries. By combining large-scale analysis with local reporting, journalists uncovered links not only to overtourism and urban expansion, but also to the loss of protected landscapes, governance failures, and, in some cases, allegations of corruption.

How did the magic happen?

So, how did this collaboration between scientists and journalists actually work out?

Scientists played a proactive role by developing collaborative, AI-powered models to identify land-cover changes. Journalists then became part of the research process itself, manually reviewing and verifying the AI-generated results.

«We fact-checked around 10,000 data points to determine whether the model was right or wrong,» said Zeynep. «That took hundreds of hours.»

For Jelena Prtorić, another journalist involved in the project, this painstaking verification process was crucial. «We wanted to do more manual verification to get higher accuracy and better results. That was important because we could then build stories on top of it. We knew we could tie these findings to what was happening in places where nature and cropland were disappearing.«

The collaboration truly showed how scientists and journalists can complement each other. It ended up as ‘win-win’: journalists gained scientific methods to back their story-hunting processes, while researchers received valuable human validation of their models.

Not an easy task to bring two worlds together

While the final stories may appear seamless, the collaboration required significant effort to bridge two very different worlds.

«Scientists focus a lot on methodology and precision, while journalists want clarity and publishable results,» said Zeynep. «Combining these worlds is hard. You need people who can understand both sides and translate between them.«

With dozens of journalists involved, the team quickly realised that coordination was critical. To streamline communication and avoid overwhelming researchers with requests, they introduced data coordinators who acted as intermediaries between the scientific and journalistic teams.

According to both Zeynep and Jelena, a shared objective was one of the key ingredients for success.

«It’s really valuable if there is some sort of mutual goal between scientists and journalists working on the project,» said Jelena. «The timelines and outcomes can be very different, so it’s important to define expectations from the beginning.»

Open-mindedness and patience also played an important role, with scientists adapting to journalistic demands for clarity and timeliness, while journalists learned to navigate the complexity and uncertainty inherent in scientific research.

Desk research alone doesn’t do justice to local context

The importance of collaboration became even clearer when journalists moved from analysing satellite imagery to reporting on the ground.

Over the years, the European Forest Institute has brought journalists to restoration sites. Jelena joined one such field visit in Castilla y León, Spain.

There, she encountered the complex connections between depopulation, wildfire risk, and ecological restoration.

«I didn’t know much about the region before I got there,» she recalled. «What surprised me was how the fact that the region is now very sparsely populated connects to restoration efforts. As people leave, fewer people manage the landscape as they used to. That creates conditions where wildfires can spread more easily and become harder to stop.«

The experience reinforced an important lesson: satellite imagery may show where landscapes are changing, but it cannot explain the social, historical, economic, and political dynamics behind those changes.

«This is where complexity matters,» said Jelena. And nature restoration presents its own complexities.

«We shouldn’t see every new tree plantation as the best thing we can do for nature restoration,» she said. «There needs to be reflection about what is being planted, why it is being planted, whether those trees will survive under future climate conditions, and whether it is actually beneficial for biodiversity.«

Her conclusion offers a useful reminder for both scientists and journalists:

«Not all green is the same.«

What do journalists want from scientists?

Looking ahead, both Zeynep and Jelena hope to see more collaborations that move beyond the traditional “scientists as a source”.

«Scientists should be much more open to interacting with journalists, not just in an interviewee-interviewer way,» said Zeynep. «In the climate field, it’s not enough anymore to simply produce research.«

Jelena would like to see even deeper integration of scientific expertise within journalistic projects.

«I would really like to see more projects that have scientists embedded within journalistic teams,» she said. «As journalists, we inevitably simplify things because we want to tell a story. Sometimes nuances are lost along the way, and I know that can be frustrating for scientists.»

She believes closer collaboration can help preserve that nuance while also building trust between the two communities.

«When scientists become part of the process rather than simply sources, there is more trust. There is more opportunity to bring complexity into the story without losing the story itself.«

Building on this inspiring example

While Green to Grey used AI to identify landscape change, a new challenge is emerging: understanding how generative AI interprets and explains those changes. At the upcoming Digital Methods Summer School, the author will bring together journalists and researchers to explore how GenAI reads satellite imagery, what knowledge it privileges, and what it overlooks. In doing so, the sprint continues the spirit of Green to Grey, using collaboration between science and journalism to better understand the opportunities and limitations of emerging technologies.

This story is another result from the 2025 Climate Arena Conference, where INFORMA’s Jonas Simons from KU Leuven and Rina Tsubaki from EFI had the opportunity to exchange with 38 journalists from across Europe in the panel ‘Investigating Nature Restoration in Europe’. Moderated by Jelena Prtorić, they shared the work we have been carrying out under two Horizon Europe-funded projects, INFORMA and SUPERB. You can read their post about the experience here. You can also watch Jonas’ reflections in the video above.

By Yannick De Win

One of the main ambitions within the INFORMA project is to provide clear insights from science to develop Sustainable Forest Management practices that enhance carbon sequestration while also protecting biodiversity. Luckily, often we can rely on the work of other scientists and don’t have to invent new tools from scratch.

In 2008 two French scientists, Laurent Larrieu and Pierre Gonin, developed a tool to help forest managers to include biodiversity conservation into their daily work – the Index for Biodiversity Potential (IBP). Instead of a full field observation of all species in a forest stand, IBP relies on 10 factors that describe the potential of forest stands to offer sufficient habitats and resources. These factors include site-specific conditions that are more or less fixed, but also structural stand features which can be influenced by forest management decisions. What started in France gradually expanded and now the IBP is adopted in many countries in Europe. Given our goals in INFORMA, naturally IBP caught our attention.

INFORMA facilitating the introduction of the IBP

Already before the INFORMA project launched, there had been contact between the creators of the IBP and the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) in Flanders to develop an IBP version adapted to the local context. Thanks to the resources provided by the INFORMA project, in 2024, the plans finally became reality, and the first steps were taken.

It did not take long to realise that this new IBP version should not only fit Flanders but comprise forest conditions in the whole Benelux area consisting of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg. Soon discussions started between the creators, INBO, the University of Liège, Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and the Nature and Forest Agency of Luxemburg (ANF) to decide how the European level descriptions for use should be adapted to the forest conditions in the Benelux. In 2025 the IBP-Benelux was born.

INBO was not the only project partner in Belgium that showed interest in the IBP. Also in 2024, a master thesis started during which the IBP was applied for the first time in the Flemish context. Luckily, INBO and KU Leuven were able to jointly supervise the thesis work from an early stage, so new protocol developments could be included and immediately tested in the field. These IBP surveys were not performed randomly but made use of the patches from the INFORMA Management Platform at the Brabantse Wouden. This resulted in a very promising dataset and, even after the master thesis ended, INBO and KU Leuven decided to keep working together to further valorize this work. Thanks to the applied sampling design, we were able to look for differences in IBP-scores between managed and unmanaged forests, where many confounding factors could largely be neglected. This interesting work has been turned into a manuscript for a scientific publication which is currently under review at Annals of Forest Science.

Showcasing the tool

Our work also opened many doors and gave us the chance to introduce the IBP and the INFORMA project at multiple occasions. We were present at the Annual Meeting of the British Ecological Society in December 2025, where we presented a poster. We were invited to give a presentation for the International Committee of Experts on the IBP. Our findings were included in the INFORMA training events organized at the Brabantse Wouden. Most recently, we were invited to present during a meeting of the Forest Managers Platform in Flanders. Who knows what the future holds for the IBP in Belgium beyond INFORMA’s lifespan?

By Simon Martel, I4CE

At the European Carbon Farming Summit 2026, our INFORMA partners I4CE and Climate KIC organized a session on Improved Forest Management in Europe: project-based evidence on economics and MRV to incentivize resilient forests through the EU Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming Framework (CRCF).

As Europe’s forest carbon sink shows serious signs of decline, promoting resilient forest management practices will become essential. While the development of an improved forest management (IFM) methodology under the CRCF will begin in 2026, it would make sense to focus this methodology on practices that improve forest stands resilience. This session therefore aimed to highlight existing project initiatives including:

• an overview of the IFM methodologies developed under the INFORMA project;
• the French MELBAC methodology (enrichment planting of natural regenerations vulnerable to climate change), currently being finalised for the Label Bas-Carbone (LBC); and
• an Austrian methodology led by ECS Climate Solutions, which aims to adapt forests by promoting the more resilient and eco-rich, but often less profitable, species through successive thinning operations.

In addition to methodological feedback, the development of an economic study on the profitability of carbon credits in Italy was presented, along with an innovation in MRV using drone-based lidar developed in Finland.

From the session, three recommendations were put forward:

#1

Context: The decline of Europe’s forest carbon sink is now a reality, and projections suggest that this trend could accelerate. Therefore, IFM projects should incentivise practices that make forests more resilient compared to the business-as-usual situation (the baseline scenario). However, reviews of existing IFM methodologies highlight baselines as a weak point of this type of project, which could lead to significant over-crediting. Therefore, quantifying and projecting the dynamics of forest decline in a business-as-usual scenario poses a real challenge.

Recommendation: Baselines for CRCF IFM projects need a coherent narrative and robust scientific evidence to describe forest decline. To this end, they must incorporate the varying probabilities of dieback and decline in relation to different risks (drought, fire, storms, etc.), which mainly depend on tree species and local conditions. To account for the very high spatial heterogeneity of forest conditions in Europe, the tools provided by science and the available local and independent data must be used to design baselines. Similarly, baselines must consider the fact that forest managers are already incorporating adaptation measures into their management practices. The implementation of dynamic baselines in the EU has raised scepticism among some experts. Beyond technical considerations, the narrative of the CRCF EU baseline would only be robust if it were based on extensive consultation with various stakeholders.

Target audience: DG Clima, CRCF forestry expert

#2

Context: Monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) is more challenging for IFM projects since it should detect changes in already high carbon stock levels. Moreover, behind the term IFM, very diverse types of practices are implemented: extension of rotation age, set aside areas, thinning, enrichment plantations, conversion of coppices, natural regeneration, restoration of degraded forests, improved harvest planning, brush clearing, etc.

Recommendation: There is no one-size-fits-all approach to MRV for IFM projects in Europe. MRV tools must be adapted to the heterogeneous practices for IFM across Europe. It is important to ensure that transaction costs, particularly those associated with MRV, do not undermine the economic viability of projects and remain moderate in relation to the cost of implementing the practices. The potential of innovation must also be considered: although remote sensing and new technologies can be advantageous, they are not always sufficiently accurate. Where short measurement intervals would increase uncertainty, carbon extrapolation via high-quality, third-party verified data of carbon growth and loss, anchored between detailed inventories, is advised.

In the coming years, it will be important to share examples of transparent cost allocation business models to scale up the implementation of the CRCF.

Target audience: DG Clima, MRV providers.

#3

Context: Debates on the financing of carbon farming are finally gaining momentum. Whilst value chain financing is already established in agriculture, there are few examples of this in forestry. Furthermore, forestry initiatives are hampered by the time lag between the need for investment (today) and the realisation of climate benefits (often several decades later).

Recommendation: A forest-specific economic model within the CRCF must be found to enable projects to develop. The time lag can be taken into account by, for example, assigning a value to commitments to issue credits (e.g. ‘pending units’). It is also important to highlight the numerous co-benefits provided by carbon forest projects. Finally, a business case that combines various incentives will be crucial for scaling up projects.

Target audience: DG Clima, researchers, intermediaries.

The session was organised by Simon Marteland Corentin Khosrovaninejad (I4CE); Mohua Karim and George McLoughlin (Climate KIC)

Warm thanks to the speakers: Soisick Figueres(CNPF); Vincenz Fürstenberg (ECS Climate Solutions); Martina Agosta (CREA); Ville Hietalahti (Luke)

Join us in Valencia on 4 June 2026 for the INFORMA Final Conference at MUVIM, bringing together leading researchers, EU policy voices, and practitioners to explore how forestry can respond to the climate emergency.

Our final conference aims to:

1. Present the main results of the INFORMA project. Highlighting scientific findings on sustainable forest management, ecosystem functioning and carbon mitigation potential.

2. Provide practical guidance for forest practitioners. Sharing lessons learned and best practices from different European forest bioregions.

3. Deliver policy-relevant recommendations. Supporting decision-makers at regional, national and European levels in designing effective forest policies.

4. Discuss future research priorities. Identifying key knowledge gaps and research needs for sustainable forest management under climate change.

Our programme features keynote talks and expert panels on silvicultural models across Europe, the evolving forest carbon credit market and its future in the EU framework, and effective knowledge transfer and storytelling to reach decision-makers. Register now to connect with peers, exchange insights, and help shape the next steps for science-based forestry and climate action.

View our programme here (programme updated 15 May 2026).

Register for the conference here. Note that this conference is in-person only.

The EFI Mediterranean Network Forum 2026 took place in Valencia 23–27 March 2026. Our lead partner Universitat Politècnica de València – UPV was very much in the centre of the action as they provided support for the event organisation and the venue for days two and three.

Our congratulations to EFI and all collaborators for a successful event. More information about the forum can be found here.

Read more about the UPV and INFORMA contribution here.

^{Top photo by Gabriela Moscardini /EFI}

by Michael Kirchner

Decarbonisation is a key goal across many sectors. Independent scientific information can make a decisive contribution to achieve this goal. However, scientific information rarely reaches the most interested and powerful (political) actors.  In this post we want to take you behind the scenes of the recent webinar on Principles of Carbon Certification. INFORMA partners I4CE and the University of Göttingen organised the webinar using the Research-Integration-Utilisation (RIU) model as their guiding to close this gap and to enable targeted knowledge transfer. The RIU knowledge transfer model relies on empirical data that shows who, where and with which scientific solutions, and how actors should be addressed.

The actor selection was based on findings gained during a Key-actor and Network analysis, which was part of the INFORMA work, where stakeholders were identified and mapped, describing and analysing their interests. The relations among them were defined by the identification of integration forums in which they can take over the role as key-actor, participating actor or target actor. These three aspects of pre-analysis have been used to support knowledge transfer within the INFORMA project at large.

For this webinar, we focused on those actors at the Forest Management Unit (FMU) and EU levels who are not yet active in the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM) but have a strong potential interest in this market in general, and in the use of forests and Harvested Wood Products (HWPs) for decarbonisation in particular. FMU managers were asked to invite those actors who are taking their first steps in the field of carbon certification. At EU level, we mainly invited organised interest groups of the high-emission sectors that are not fully covered by the EU Emissions Trading System. The aim was to encourage these actors to reconsider their political role in shaping carbon crediting politics at EU level by providing them with sound and independent scientific input. Both actor groups represent untapped potential as possible allies. Two different invitations were developed. One for the target group of non-experts at the FMU level and another for actors at EU-level.

The webinar was designed for non-experts and aimed to clarify how the VCM can provide financing tools to sequester carbon emissions through nature-based solutions. Overall, we received 134 registrations, which not only reflects the high level of interest in the webinar, but also the necessity for independent scientific information, and the effectiveness in reaching stakeholders who require such information and are often overlooked. A total of 53 participants attended the webinar

Participants included representatives from FMU-level administrations, forestry stakeholders, and selected EU-level interest groups, reflecting a balanced mix of operational and policy-relevant actors. Post-event feedback revealed a clear demand for independent, science-based guidelines on standards of carbon certification. Several attendees expressed interest in continued dialogue and additional information exchange, suggesting that the webinar served as an initial platform for sustained science–practice engagement.

Late February 2026, researchers from the INFORMA project came together in Poblet, Spain, to reflect on three years of collaboration and explore how our findings can be translated into practical guidelines and policy recommendations to enhance climate mitigation, improve ecosystem services provisioning and secure resilience of the future forests in Europe.

Set against stunning mountain landscapes, the intensive exchange of ideas was made even more inspiring by the unique atmosphere of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Poblet and the warm hospitality of the Hostatgeria de Poblet.

We’re excited to move into the final phase of the project and look forward to sharing INFORMA’s key insights and results with you all!  

Hostatgeria de Poblet photo by Marie Haase and group photo by Cosofret Cosmin

By Silvester Boonen, with Jonas Simons, Yannick De Win and Raghav Sharma

In Belgium, we say, “meten is weten”, which translates to measuring is knowing.

That idea quietly guided us on a crisp January morning in the Sonian Forest, where local researchers, forest managers, and practitioners gathered for a training event organised within the context of the INFORMA project. The goal? To explore how new tools can help us to measure carbon stocks and biodiversity potential more accurately and efficiently, and perhaps more importantly, how these measurements can inform forest management decisions.

At 10:00 sharp, Kris Vandekerkhove (INBO) officially welcomed the participants, and I (Silvester Boonen, EFI) followed with a short introduction. Today, it was important to have a practice perspective on research results. INFORMA contains many packages of various research, but today Jonas came to talk about his work in WP2, which is on the comparison between managed and unmanaged forests. Many ecosystem services can be affected by forest management, the main focus for this day was on carbon storage and the Index for Biodiversity Potential. Jonas Simons (KULeuven) opened with a feedback loop which would help him to improve further analyses, help him to frame his results so they can be more useful for practice, and who knows, maybe spark further research ideas!

Kicking off with managed and unmanaged forests, Jonas throws out the philosophical question to the audience: Why do we manage our forests? Referring to wood extraction, biodiversity, climate change mitigation, avoiding disturbances, and recreation. If we want to optimise the delivery of one of these services, is management or non-management preferred? Based on a show of hands, there are mixed feelings in the room, but these votes already highlight the answer: it is, of course, “context-specific” (e.g., dependent on-site conditions), as Jonas implies.

So, thinking of the five services or functions, should we manage or not? Let’s see what science tells us! Well, for timber, an obvious starter, no management means no timber is extracted, and tree growth is not promoted. Regarding biodiversity, it is not surprising that unmanaged would serve better for biodiversity; however, this effect is taxon-dependent (Paillet et al., 2010), as Jonas tells us. But what about climate change mitigation, what about the carbon? Well, individual research does not provide sufficiently strong and comprehensive evidence to draw general conclusions. Therefore, Jonas and colleagues started a systematic review and a field campaign to delve deeper into this issue for INFORMA. Their field campaign consisted of installing the INFORMA Forest Management Platform to compare managed and unmanaged patches. These patches are linked in clusters (see this blog if you want to know more), so the effects of the site conditions will be reduced, and only the effects of management differences will be more apparent. Not only carbon but also the index for biodiversity potential was compared during the field campaign. This index is a diagnostic tool designed to help forest managers practice biodiversity-friendly forest management. Developed by Larrieu, Gonin and colleagues, this indicator is based on a rapid assessment of ten factors (e.g., standing deadwood) that influence the capacity of forest stands to support diverse communities. Each factor has a capped maximum score of 5, meaning that the maximum score for all ten factors would be 50. As this is originally a French index, it has been adapted and translated to the Benelux. A capped and an uncapped were applied, which we will learn about later. As the round of feedback was provided, it was time to get into the field! There, we would visit these patches and learn more, and most importantly, see the results of the research with our own eyes.

We walked to the Groenendaal marteloscope, i.e., a plot to perform (virtual) tree selection exercises as a tool for in-field training. I introduced them to the site, the stand’s Index for Biodiversity Potential score, the I+ software, and the task ahead: optimise timber production while maintaining ecological function.

Participants worked in small groups, each group responsible for one of the four quadrants of the marteloscope. The rules were clear: Harvest a maximum of 20 m³ per quadrant (i.e., one subplot of the marteloscope, 0.25 ha) and select at least 2-4 habitat trees. Stem volumes were hidden in the software as participants had to estimate them themselves.

As the participants started their virtual hammering, discussions quickly intensified.
“Is this one better as a habitat tree?” …. “If we remove this competitor, that will promote our future crop tree”. When everyone gathered back, the results were striking. Almost all groups had independently converged on harvest volumes close to the maximum, and that was pure on stem volume estimation! More importantly, each group had defined their management objective, highlighting a key lesson of the day: good management starts with clear objectives. Further in the discussion, one group looked beyond the canopy, noticing an exceptional mast year for oak and a lack of regeneration. They argued for opening the canopy to let light reach the forest floor. But oak needs large gaps. Would that mean exceeding the 20 m³ limit? Deadwood sparked another debate. Lying deadwood was already abundant (Index for Biodiversity Potential score: 5)¹ , but standing deadwood was completely absent (score: 0). Several groups decided to create standing deadwood, at least virtually, by girdling selected trees.

Measuring is knowing: carbon and biodiversity in the field
After lunch, we set off on an excursion through some of the INFORMA Forest Management Platform patches, guided by Jonas, Kris, and Yannick De Win (INBO). This time, the participants didn’t estimate; they observed results.

In the forest, Jonas presented the findings on carbon stocks. The message was clear: the aboveground carbon stocks are higher in unmanaged forests, the difference increases with time since cessation of management, and such differences can reach 50–60 tonnes of carbon per hectare. Soil carbon, however, responds more slowly. Detecting clear trends takes time. One surprising result emerged too, carbon in the pool of standing deadwood had the tendency to be higher in the managed stands, reminding us that forest dynamics are rarely straightforward.

Along the way, Jonas introduced the Arboreal App, which is a mobile tool using augmented reality and LiDAR to measure tree diameter, height, and even set up inventory plots (see this blog for more information and research results). Comparisons with classical field measurements showed remarkably good results, especially for diameter at breast height. One forester pulled out a measuring tape to double-check. Measuring is knowing, after all!

Exceeding the scale
Our final stop took us into one of the most special parts of the Sonian Forest: the UNESCO World Heritage beech forests, including the Zwaenepoel reserve. These forests are part of a network spanning 18 European countries. Here, the Index for Biodiversity Potential told an interesting story. In such old forests in both managed and unmanaged stands, capped score for factors such as standing and lying dead wood and very large trees is often exceeded. When using the uncapped version, differences become clearer; unmanaged forests consistently show a higher hosting capacity.

The takeaway?
The Index for Biodiversity Potential is highly suitable for managed forests, but forest reserves and old-growth forests in those exceptionally productive forests require adjusted scoring systems to fully capture their ecological value. As the light faded, we returned to the regional office for, as tradition goes, informal drinks and final conversations. The day had brought together theory and practice, data and experience.

Special thanks to Agentschap Natuur & Bos, the state forest enterprise and administration for hosting us!

And keep an eye on our INFORMA website as results will be wrapped by summer!

1. Curious to learn more in detail about how the Index for Biodiversity Potential and its score function? Consult the educational documents on: https://www.cnpf.fr/ibp-index-biodiversity-potential ↩︎