The overall objective of the project is to improve the prevention and management of fire risk in the forests of the SUDOE space, consolidating the viability of prevention plans through the valorisation of extracted biomass and helping to develop the resilience of forests without compromising their ecosystem, economic and social services. The main challenges addressed by the project are forest fire prevention; forest resilience and biodiversity prevention; the generation of employment and economic activity in rural areas for the maintenance of the population; decarbonisation and use of biomass as a renewable energy source. Biomass reduction is one of the priority actions in fire prevention plans, but the lack of personnel and resources sometimes renders their extraction from forests unfeasible. The project promotes the extraction of this biomass, ensuring to minimise the impact on biodiversity and facilitating an economic viability of the endogenous resource as a source of renewable energy with a positive impact on the economic development of rural areas and maintaining the population. The main achievements will be: A joint biomass recovery strategy that improves the viability of fire risk prevention plans. Exemplary solutions: 1.System of Biodiversity Indicators for Measuring the Impact of Biomass Extraction on Forests 2.New Mechanical Methods of Biomass Extraction 3.Integrated Forest Management Model and Short Circuit Local Biomass Use 4.Training Plans in Forest Works These achievements will be jointly developed by a transnational and multidisciplinary consortium and will be made available to forest owners, local and regional authorities, biomass processing companies and their value chain and other actors from SUDOE territories with forest areas thus contributing to the resilience of forests and rural environments.
