INESC TEC attended seminar dedicated to the Forest Bioeconomy

Promoting the debate and reflection on advanced technologies, emerging markets, and national and European policies that contribute to the valorisation and efficient and sustainable use of forest resources; this was the theme of the seminar organised by FORESTIS – Associação Florestal de Portugal, which brought together stakeholders from Portugal and Spain, with INESC TEC participation.

The BIOTECFOR+ seminar “Forest Bioeconomy in challenging times: Technologies, Markets, and Policies” welcomed Portuguese and Spanish entities and close to 100 participants from various organisations in the forestry, environment, and technology sectors. The event promoted a discussion on Forest Bioeconomy as a transformative development area, leveraging advanced technologies and adopting sustainable practices.

José Correia, researcher at INESC TEC Human-Centered Computing and Information Science (HumanISE), moderated the panel “Advanced technologies, application strategies for efficient forest planning, and management.” The panel featured Alejandro Cantero (HAZI Foundation), Jorge Cunha (Forestwise Colab), César Pérez (University of Santiago de Compostela), and Carlos Marques (Nova SBE), where different technological solutions designed for forest planning and management were presented.

“The use of (almost) continuous monitoring systems, incorporating sensors, remote sensing, satellite images, etc., was one of the main topics discussed in this session, focusing on the importance of the increasing quality and updating of collected data”, explained José Correia. Moreover, the researcher also mentioned that one of the issues discussed was the fact that “a forest monitoring system is never an end in itself, and as new information is needed, it should evolve and adapt, lest it becomes obsolete”.

In addition to this panel, the Seminar also included two more round-tables dedicated to “Bioeconomy in national and European policies for forests” and “Emerging markets: carbon sequestration, ecosystem services, and forest management”:

The Seminar took place on June 20 at the Cupertino de Miranda Foundation (city of Porto), and it featured the President of AGIF, Tiago Oliveira, and the President of FORESTIS, Carlos Duarte.