The forestry community is becoming increasingly aware that conservation and breeding efforts target only a limited fraction of the forest genetic resources (FGR) available across species ranges and ecological niches in Europe. The overall goal of GenTree is to provide the European forestry sector with better knowledge, methods and tools to improve the conservation and use of adapted and genetically diverse FGR in European forests in the context of global environmental change and evolving societal demands for a diversified range of forest products and services.
To reach its goal, GenTree will make scientific, technological and implementation breakthroughs in:
- The design of innovative strategies for conserving FGR in European forests
- Broadening the range of FGR used in European breeding programmes
- The integration of conservation and breeding strategies to provide a new framework for the development of adaptive forest management
EFI leads the Work package 5 on “Adapting management and policies to optimize the use of FGR”.The main goal of this work package is to develop recommendations for the integration of the GenTree conservation and breeding strategies into a framework of adaptive forest management and policy instruments, using analytical approaches and scenario assessments. The specific objectives of this work package are:
- Place all proposed FGR conservation and management techniques into context with existing and proposed management strategies and policy regimes
- Investigate through computer simulations the effects of forestry practices on evolutionary processes and connect these effects with FGR management in the context of climate change
- Analyze EU and national forest-related policy frameworks and their influence on FGR conservation and management to unravel implementation barriers from the political onto the practical level
- Compare micro-economic effects of different FGR and forest management scenarios (using genetically improved regeneration material, in contrast with the standard unimproved material).
Partners
- Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA), France (the coordinator of the project)
- Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain
- Uppsala Universitet (UU), Sweden
- Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), Greece
- European Forest Institute (EFI), Finland
- Bioversity International, Italy
- Philipps-Universität Marburg (PUM), Germany
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Italy
- Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA), Spain
- University of Oulu (UOULU), Finland
- IGA Technology Services (IGATS), Italy
- Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO), Norway
- Forestry Research Institute of Sweden (Skogforsk), Sweden
- Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute (THÜNEN), Germany
- Bavarian Office for Forest Seeding and Planting (ASP), Germany
- The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Great Britain
- Aleksandras Stulginskis University (ASU), Lithuania
- INRA Transfert (IT), France
- Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), Switzerland
- Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Russia
- Radiata Pine Breeding Co Ltd (RPBC), New Zealand
- LIECO Gmbh & Co KGH (LIECO), Austria
Follow the updates at www.gentree-h2020.eu and @GentreeProject
GenTree has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 676876.