LIFEGENMON Workshops for Forest Managers in April 2016

In April 2016, the LIFEGENMON team took part in two educational workshops for foresters and forest managers from the Slovenia Forest Service in cooperation with the LIFE ManFor CB.D project. The workshops happened on 4^th and 12^th of April in Trnovo (Southwestern Slovenia) and Snežnik (Central-southern Slovenia) at the ManFor CB.D research plots. The workshops were organized by the Slovenia Forest Service as a part of their educational activities.

The first part of the workshops consisted of the visits of the ManFor experimental plots, where the foresters learned about the consequences of different management styles for different aspects of Eurpean beech (Fagus sylvatica) – Sliver fir (Abies alba) forests. Scientists from the Slovenian Forestry Institute presented their research findings to forestry practitioners. There was a lively discussion at each plot on forest management measures and their impacts on different aspects of forests (carbon, biodiversity, …). More information about the project can be found here.

The second part of the workshop was dedicated to the LIFEGENMON project in its entirety. It began with a lecture of Prof. Dr. Hojka Kraigher on the topics of forest genetics, forest seed stands, forest genetic monitoring, LIFEGENMON indicators and verifiers and genetic databases. After a discussion and questions, Mag. Andrej Breznikar and Boris Rantaša conducted LIFEGENMON portal establishing workshops, where they found out what content would the foresters find useful on the LIFEGENMON portal, which is due to be released summer 2017, through the use of facilitation techniques.