The NEWFORESTS exchange program brings together researchers from 5 research institutions: two from public research centres in Spain, Forest Sciences Centre of Catalonia (CTFC) and Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), one French institution, Bio-Archaeology and Ecology Centre (CBAE), and two Canadian Universities (University of Quebec in Montreal, UQAM, and Abitibi-Témiscamingue, UQAT) hosting two of the main hubs of the Centre for Forest Research (CEF). During three years, a total of 36 senior researchers will participate in the program with a total of 328 man-months including experienced and early stage researcher, technical and management staff from the different centres.
The aim of this project is to create a competitive platform at the international level to analyse the responses of forest ecosystems to global changes and integrate current knowledge in sound and innovative forest management and planning approaches. The general objective of the program is to determine how to effectively integrate woodland Management (including non-management options) into strategies aimed to adjust and mitigate global change. The program is organized in 5 thematic work packages ranging from the basic understanding of forests dynamics, biodiversity and functioning (WP 1 and 2) to research on interactions between global change drivers determining disturbances regimes (WP 3) and the integration of the gathered knowledge into advanced modelling tools (WP 4) and sound management guidelines at different spatial scales (WP 5). Finally, a project management (WP 6) depicts the practical organisation and management of the project. A fundamental aspect of the program is that it stresses not only the responsibility of human society as a major driver of global change, but also recognizes that we have an opportunity to mitigate this change through informed, proper management.
Lluís Brotons
Project Coordinator
