LIFE PROGNOSES - PRotection of Old Growth Forests in Europe: Natural heritage, Outline, Synthesis and Ecosystem Services

Associated persons Anna Kovarovics, Hanns Kirchmeir, Gerhard Gruber, Vanessa Berger, Anneliese Fuchs
Clients European Union, LIFE Preparatory
Regions Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Ukraine
Year 2020

The EU LIFE Preparatory Project LIFE PROGNOSES - PRotection of Old Growth Forests in Europe: Natural heritage, Outline, Synthesis and Ecosystem Services deals with the definition of old-growth forests, their ecosystem services and ways how to evaluate, quantify and communicate them.

On the agenda are a shared classification of old-growth and primeval forests and an inventory of the currently available data. After that, indicators and threshold values are defined to objectively document and assess beech forests across regional and national boarders.

Then, quality criteria shall be established which consider the different European beech forest types. Also, different remote sensing methods are evaluated and tested at various test sites. The test sites are in the Kalkalpen National Park (AT), Sonian Forest (BE), Snežnik-Ždrocle (SI), Beech Forest Grumsin in the Biosphere Reserve Schorfheide-Chorin (DE), Hainich National Park (DE), Kellerwald-Edersee National Park (DE), Central Balkan National Park (BG), Abruzzo National Park (IT) and Biosphere Reserve Carpathia (UA). In this project, E.C.O. obtains different roles: we are a project partner for individual tasks such as coordinating the local public relations and communication. For the working package ‘Ecosystem Services’ we have the lead position. The project results are meant to reach as many people as possible, locally as well as EU-wide.

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