Spain has hosted a series of international meetings on how to strengthen the link between research and practice.
Cesefor has coordinated this week the celebration of the I Forum of Forest Bioeconomy of the Southwest of Europe, which has gathered in Valladolid nearly 100 agents of the value chain of natural resins to work around new innovation projects that turn this product into a competitive and future input.
During the three days of the event (with nearly forty conferences held and several working sessions), professionals related to the sector from Spain, France and Portugal have also known some of the initiatives aimed at promoting the use and mobilization in the wood markets.
With regard to natural resins, there has been a boost in activity in recent years supported by the research activity of Cesefor, which since 2010 has promoted the Sudoe Sust-Forest INTERREG project, and which in the Forest Bioeconomy Forum has presented an extension of the same, Sust-Forest Plus, to be developed between 2018 and 2021 and capitalise on a large part of the results obtained in the first stage. It should be noted that the European market demand for resinous products for the chemical industry has allowed the recovery of resination in Spain since 2011, which has resulted in the installation of three new factories in Castilla y León (in the towns of Cuellar, Almazán and Navas de Oro) and the modernization of the one already operating in Coca.
This has allowed the creation since then of more than 700 jobs of resin workers in the Community. The most recent production data is estimated at 12,000 tonnes of resin extracted from the more than 3.2 million resinous pines in the nearly 30,000 hectares of pine groves in production.
Under this scenario, the Sust-Forest Plus project aims, among other things, to contribute to the generation of stable and quality in rural areas, with the initial premise that resin workers are the most necessary and fragile link in the sector, who need to be supported and protected as a source of rural employment. This initiative, financed with funds from the INTERREG Sudoe programme, will tackle an action plan which includes a study of the socio-economic needs of the group; the application of innovation techniques with the participation of the resin producers from the bottom up; the implementation of actions for the training and transfer of good practices; the modernisation and improvement of extraction techniques and complementarity with other sources of income.
As for the forecasts for the current season, the first impressions of how it is developing will not be known until the beginning of June, although it will depend on several factors. Among others, the fact that spring rains have made it difficult for resin growers to prepare the bushes, although these same rainfalls provide the conditions for a good season in terms of production, as long as temperatures rise from this month of May and summer storms periodically replenish the soil humidity of the pine forest.
Resin activity as a generator of other services
During the First Forest Bioeconomy Forum of Southwest Europe, the need arose in numerous interventions to visualize the socio-economic and conservation value generated by the harvesting activity in the mountains, and the demand for payment for environmental services and the benefits that these activities generate with their sustainable management of resources.
In addition to the research and innovation activity carried out by entities such as the Cesefor Foundation, it is worth highlighting the work carried out in the region by the Castilla y León Resin Table, as a meeting point for all the agents in the sector, in which forest owners and managers, resin producers and industrialists are represented, and which carries out important work for the sector and for the administration, helping to identify barriers and to propose solutions.
Among the latter at the end of last year, the Resin Table promoted a legislative adaptation in the area of resin harvesting, which concluded with the approval of an amendment to the Law of Forests of Castilla y León, which will improve the recruitment of public pine forests catalogued to local resin growers, resolving previous imbalances that professionals had identified. An example of actions undertaken under the Forest Resource Mobilization Program of the Junta de Castilla y León, which has been achieved by the collaboration achieved within the Bureau and with administrations and political groups.
Meeting points with social agents
The Bioeconomy Forum also served to put on the table the proposals of the unions, which include doubling forest investment; a legislative development against the abandonment of forest ownership; a registry of sole and public property and other public uses; the management of forests (public and private property); and educate society in responsible consumption, in which the forest resource and its workers are recognized, among other approaches. Many of them, shared by the rest of agents that intervene in the resin value chain, and that with the implementation of projects such as Sust-Forest Plus are intended to address.
For this reason, the meeting these days in Valladolid has brought together representatives of state, regional, provincial and local administrations, as well as researchers, associations of owners, technological innovation and research companies, technology centres and universities with the aim of seeking agreements for the model that will condition production processes and consumption habits in the coming decades.
Networking is considered essential to achieve the viability of innovation projects, one of the premises on which the INCREDIBLE project is based, also presented at the Forum, and in which Cesefor participates coordinating the resin innovation network. "We have to value ecosystem services and seek new business models and new ways to link what forest offers with the forest economy," said in the presentation of INCREDIBLE the director of the Mediterranean Office of the European Forestry Institute (EFIMED), Ignacio Martinez de Arano, who along these lines stressed the need to "value non-breeding forest products to generate wealth and welfare in both rural and urban society. In this context, the European project INCREDIBLE (acronym for Innovation Networks of Cork, Resins and Edibles) is incubated, an initiative in which 13 entities from eight countries of the Mediterranean basin participate, and which with the financial support of the European Horizon 2020 programme aims to establish in its area of action a series of innovation networks (iNets) that work and contribute to the transfer of knowledge in non-timber forest products, breaking the division between knowledge and innovation, between science and practice. The aim is to mobilise knowledge and action "in both directions".
Each of the iNets will be presented over the next few weeks, with the resin being the first to convene its launching seminar, with the participation of agents from the French, Portuguese and Spanish sectors to collaboratively draw up the roadmap for this network, developing innovative business models and improving experience in rural regions to develop inclusive economic strategies.
On the other hand, INCREDIBLE will also address society in general with the message that forests managed sustainably by rural inhabitants are a great source of wealth that provide us with cork, resins, aromatic and medicinal plants and edible products such as wild nuts, berries or mushrooms and truffles. Not forgetting that socio-economic activity in our forests also contributes to the prevention of forest fires.
In the work groups carried out in this first meeting of the INCREDIBLE resin iNet, some of the expectations of the interested actors were put on the table, such as consolidating employment and labour improvements, recognition of resin activity in rural development policies, compatibility of resin with other uses of the mountain, or the creation of an interprofessional table of European scope, among others.
These workshops also studied the value chain of the resin, specifying among other things that the product certification adds value, and that from the industry is deepened in the possibilities of developing more products derived from the resin activity, such as bioplastics and new materials derived from natural resins, which also contribute to meeting the demands of the new consumer profile, more aware of the origin and destination of the products it acquires. The fiscal and corporate regulation of resin producers in Spain, France and Portugal was also shared in this sectoral analysis, as well as the state of forest ownership in each of these regions, and a review of the factors that imply competition, such as producers in non-EU countries, or substitute or petroleum products.
The Resin iNet also highlighted in this long-term scenario planning the opportunities of this resource (renewable, biological, ecofriendly) or its importance as a dynamizer of local economies and preserver of socio-cultural traditions (adding value to the community in which it is based).
This first seminar of the resin innovation network will be followed by other sectoral meetings within the INCREDIBLE project such as workshops; knowledge transfer meetings between science and practice; more transversal content seminars (on business models, application of ICTs); a forestry policy forum, as well as various general assemblies in which the rest of the other
INCREDIBLE innovation networks participate (mushrooms and truffles; aromatic and medicinal plants; fruits and berries; and cork).
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
