Insights from the Rokwood close out and future initiatives
Brussels -- Short Rotation Plantations (SRP) have a high CO2 emissions reduction potential, they protect biodiversity in rural areas and increase the soil organic carbon content. In addition they can be used as an effective prevention method against soil erosion, as a defence against floods and as windbreak barriers.
Despite their proven benefits and viability, SRP account for less than 0.1% of EU crop land. Facilitating their uptake requires informing decision makers about their real benefits and their multifunctional role as well as educating farmers and creating links between the different stakeholders.
Rokwood, a 3 years project launched in 2012 within the FP7 programme “Regions of Knowledge”, contributed effectively to removing the non technological barriers preventing the full deployment of SRP. The project partners, organised in six research driven regional clusters, cooperated to produce the following key outputs:
- a database on SRP related projects and initiatives to give visibility to the achieved results and the available knowledge;
- a series of policy briefs for decision makers, to orientate the local policies towards a stronger support to green measures;
- a detailed Joint Action Plan focussing on solutions to the major problems and bottlenecks limiting the SRP diffusion;
- a best practice booklet including 40 examples from different countries, to be used as reference and guidelines document for newcomers in the SRP field;
- further valuable SRP publications by project partners;
- four project video clips to increase the awareness of the general public;
- a marketplaceon the project website where SRP developers and users can publish their profiles and find partners for their commercial or research projects.
The project findings were presented and discussed within a large public of different stakeholders. The workshops in the framework of the 23rd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition and the Biomass and Energy Crops V Conference raised the attention of the scientific community and the EU level policy makers. National stakeholders belonging to public authorities, private industries, associations and SMEs in the agricultural sector attended dedicated workshops organised in the partners countries. A staff exchange programme was set up to encourage knowledge transfer and territorial cohesion, especially concerning demonstration projects, technology and management approaches.
More than 1000 people were involved in ROKWOOD related activities and many more were reached by the dissemination campaign.
Nevertheless there is still a long way to go before SRPs can be fully deployed. To achieve this goal, the project partners will keep on influencing the European Agricultural Policy to give more support to SRPs, educating farmers and creating cross-sector synergies to set up viable and long lasting projects. For the environment, the economy and society.
About ROKWOOD
ROKWOOD “European regions fostering innovation for sustainable production and efficient use of woody biomass” is a project supported by the European Commission under call FP7-REGIONS-2012-2013-1 “Regions of Knowledge” of the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development”.
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