Climate change commitment – politicians sign up for actionWelsh rural affairs Minister Elin Jones AM has joined political leaders across Europe in a seven nation agreement to work together to tackle climate change.
The document was signed at a climate change conference in Barcelona hosted by FUTUREforest, the INTERREG IVC European project looking at how forests can adapt to climate change and provide opportunities for mitigation.Welsh rural affairs Minister Elin Jones AM has joined political leaders across Europe in a seven nation agreement to work together to tackle climate change.
The document was signed at a climate change conference in Barcelona hosted by FUTUREforest, the INTERREG IVC European project looking at how forests can adapt to climate change and provide opportunities for mitigation.
FUTUREforest is run in Wales by Forestry Commission Wales – whose focus is on forests and water management issues.
“Collaborative work such as FUTUREforest helps reduce the time and cost of finding vital solutions to our shared problems,” the Minister told conference.
“We in Wales are one of only a few countries in the world to have sustainability enshrined in our legislation – and work towards a sustainable forestry sector is highly important to our future.
“To continue planning for the future we must ensure that our forests are best placed to thrive despite the expected changes in the climate.
“Through working with our European partners together we can achieve more than if were to tackle common issued independently – none of us can afford to waste scarce time or resources.
“And that is why we at the Welsh Assembly Government will continue to back this excellent programme of knowledge gathering and information dissemination which I am convinced will guide our policy towards multipurpose forestry in the future,” she said.
As well as the formal signing, agreeing to bring together best forestry practice and policy proposals across Europe in a common document, more than 140 climate change experts met to look at and identify some of the major problems facing forestry.
Working together in cross border teams they began putting together a work programme which will guide project work over the next two years.
“We believe that by pooling all the knowledge and initiatives from each of the seven regions we can bring together an authoritative document which can influence policy makers as they take their decisions on forestry policy.” said Ff manager for Wales,” Dr Helen Cariss.
Already the team has seen how plastic – or mixed – woodlands are thought to be the way forward from the Auvergne in southern France to Brandenburg in Germany.
They have visited each region as part of the first ‘Seeing is Believing’ phase of the programme, identifying common problems and beginning to share solutions.
Now they will be bringing together all the knowledge collated on water management, soil erosion, carbon management, biodiversity, timber production and natural risks at the conference which marks the second phase of the programme ‘Developing together’.
“We believe that all this shared valuable information can be used to find ways in which the forests of Europe can do even more to help mitigate against the effects of climate change – helping to reduce flooding, locking away more carbon, reducing soil erosion and potentially keeping more water in the land for those countries already experiencing shortages,” said Helen.
The task now is for teams of specialists in each area to work together to develop a more holistic approach to forest management, working on transferable good practice guides, policy recommendations, strategic guidelines and forest programmes.
Once completed the FUTUREforest Framework will then move into the third and final phase of the programme – selling the experiences, good practice and policy ideas to European policy-makers, politicians and key stakeholders.
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