(EU COST Action) The ability of forests to continue mitigating climate change depends on their ability to cope and adapt to global change drivers, such as more frequent climate extreme events and changes in atmospheric pollutants (namely carbon dioxide, reactive nitrogen and sulphur compounds). Different global change drivers could play a synergistic, antagonistic or predisposing role in affecting forest ecosystem functioning and health. All these drivers, however, are generally considered in isolation, and their effects on key processes (at tree, soil and ecosystem levels) are investigated separately in natural, periurban and urban forests, thus leading to uneven, un-coordinated and scattered information among different research communities. Without taking a holistic view on forest’s responses to global change, the future trajectory of Europe’s forests and their climate change mitigation potential can be fundamentally mis-assessed. CLEANFOREST will establish an inclusive and multidisciplinary pan-European network, which capitalizes on existing expertise and infrastructures (monitoring networks, manipulation experiments) to i) coordinate research efforts (e.g. data collection), ii) compare approaches and define common protocols to standardize measurements and methods used in global change studies, and iii) foster collaboration among different research groups to exchange and synthesize data, thus contributing to advancing scientific knowledge, identifying research gaps and providing suggestions for the next generation manipulation experiments and monitoring networks. Finally, CLEANFORST will benefit from the participation of key stakeholders (policymakers, small companies developing low-cost and effective instruments for environmental monitoring, citizen associations), by promoting mutual synergies to fulfil the urgent need of evidence-based solutions to policy, societal and technological challenges.

Action keywords

Forest functioning - Tree mortality - Manipulation experiments - Monitoring network - Global change driver interactions

(EU COST Action) In vitro culture of woody plants is leaving the academic laboratories and is now being developed in a range of commercial applications in horticulture and forestry that respond to the challenges of climate change and changing global food and wood consumption habits. It is therefore urgent that the research challenges, public acceptance, risk assessment and commercial application are confronted now in order to establish a well informed scientific community, policy makers and market place. This proposal concerns the following challenges, whose solution will have a significant scientific, social and economic impact: How can we overcome recalcitrance in a lot of woody plants? What are the best tools for diagnosis,  sanitation and storing clean stocks? How can the production of elite clones be scaled up at a acceptable price? What are the real risks of this technology and how can the public be informed so that they appreciate and accept the applications ? How can foresters and landowners be persuaded to invest in planting poly-clonal forests? Taking these aspects into account, it seems more than urgent to us to set up a European network to connect the researchers involved from various domains, so that they can share innovations and develop new research strategies, assess the risks of the technology and improve communication with stakeholders and the general public.

FEM Activities: Contribution to WG2 (Diagnosis, sanitation and conservation) and WG5 (Communication, dissemination and technology transfer)

(COST OPEN CALL 2021) Mountainous areas are characterized by disparity, poorer territorial cohesion, unbalanced use and conservation of ecosystem services, rich and exploited natural resources, and marginalization.

MARGISTAR forum reflects collaboratively on natural, environmental, social and economic inter-relationships and
interactions in mountainous areas, and identifies a range of environmental, social, economic, and political
challenges.

It enables innovation through a range of physical and virtual meetings to co-design innovative
pathways for the transformation of marginalized mountainous areas towards their green, digital and healthy
futures.