Celebrating 25 Years of Action for Biodiversity

Works of the initial 2016 campaign to reduce CO 2 emissions while supporting multi- functional forest management have covered 374 ha [ ] 107 Bugey Territorial Forestry Project supported by the Sylv’ACCTES programme Seven pilot projects have now sub- mitted a land-based forestry plan to the Sylv’ACCTES scientific and technical committee. Eligible projects must have a sustainable management document and be engaged in a forest management certification scheme. Within that initiative, the Bugey and Haut-Bugey local authori- ties have led a reflection about the space and the role of forests in their territories. These territories have around 90,000ha of forests, half of which are mountain mixed stands and half lowland hardwood cop- pice-with-standards. The objective of the local authorities (expressed in their forest charters) is to work for the production and mobilization of timber through sustainable and climate-smart forest management. Furthermore, other important considerations come into play with regard to local forests, such as bio- diversity, landscape, and protection against natural risks. The approach proposed by Sylv’ACCTES allows prioritizing issues and identifying where the forestry emergencies are from an investment point of view that integrates the multiple functions at stake. Through a series of meetings with all forest stakeholders — tim- ber industry, environmental NGOs, local authorities — forest managers were able to propose adapted forest management pathways. Then, the Sylv’ACCTES analysis tools were able to quantify and assess the effective- ness of the proposed management pathways in addressing the chal- lenges of climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and also economic valorization. The main accomplishments can be summarized as follows: The work has led to a proposed for- estry management pathway for Bugey, for which the potential mitigation benefit — capacity of the forest to store atmospheric CO 2 and avoid CO 2 emission from the use of its products — and the potential biodiversity ben- efit — impact of the forestry objective on biodiversity — have been assessed as positive with regard to the initial situation. Works of the initial 2016 campaign have covered 374ha. Controls of the proper execution of the forestry works and of the management pathways described in the submitted file are conduct- ed on a random basis. Carbon and biodiversity benefits are assessed by the scientific and technical com- mittee of Sylv’ACCTES on the basis of proposed scenarios. Acceptance of submitted files is conditional on fulfilment of several best practice criteria such as no clearcutting and the presence of dead trees. The prospects for improvement are to make private forest owners benefit from the programme, in order to en- gage them in a sustainable long-term management approach. So far, most submitted files concern forests owned by municipalities. Blennie France S ylv’ACCTES is a programme for supporting sustainable forest management in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. It constitutes a fundraising tool from public and private regional actors engaged in a climate-related economic, environmental and societal approach with the goal of reducing CO 2 emissions while supporting multifunctional forest management that conserves biodiversity. Sydney Gelle, Instagram contest