EU Agri Interview: How can we make sure forestry research has an impact on the ground?
At the 2023 EU AgriResearch Conference, INFORMA researchers Celia Yagüe (Polytechnic University of Valencia) and Jonas Simons (KU Leuven) shared their take on impactful sustainable forest management research and practices during an interview with the EU Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (EU Agri). Read the interview transcript or watch the video below to hear their views!
What does your research project do?
Celia Yagüe: The project is integrated by 14 partners from 8 countries all across Europe and the main objective is to increase the science-based knowledge of sustainable forest management practices for climate change mitigation and adaptation.
How can #AgriResearch help farmers, foresters and rural communities?
Jonas Simons: It’s mainly about making sure that knowledge is shared, that forest managers actually know what the consequences are of the actions they are taking and which options there are in management.
How can we make sure research has an impact on the ground?
Celia Yagüe: In INFORMA, one of the main pillars is to involve all stakeholders, not only during the proposal phase but also during the research phase. So we will do many workshops for gathering their perceptions and organise training sites in our five study areas. We will also develop practical guidelines for sustainable forest management adapted to the five regions that we are studying.
In a sentence: what do we need to make agriculture more resilient and sustainable?
Jonas Simons: In our case it’s about forestry. Knowledge sharing is extremely important, and more research is extremely important as it is a very complex issue. But besides this, communication is also very important to get information to the foresters, where it is most useful.
Celia Yagüe: Last but not least, I think it is important we receive funding and public investment for forest managers and owners to put into practice all the research that we have been doing during the life cycle of the project.