FIRE-RES participates in the 26th IUFRO World Congress

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The 26th IUFRO World Congress, a landmark event in the global forestry community, has concluded, marking a significant gathering with over 4.300 delegates and 3.500 presentations.

Courtesy of CTFC

This year’s congress, the largest to date, provided a vibrant forum for scientists, policymakers, and industry experts to discuss pressing issues in forest-related research, policy-making, and management. Amidst the diverse sub-plenary and technical sessions under the main theme “FORESTS AND SOCIETY TOWARDS 2050”, wildfires appeared as a central theme, as demonstrated by a wide selection of studies from all over the world. The FIRE-RES project made a notable contribution, showcasing its innovative approaches and findings in wildfire resilience.

FIRE-RES in the Spotlight

The FIRE-RES project was featured in the IUFRO news article titled “Protecting people and societies from the threat of wildfires” with an interview of the key researchers Marta Serra from the Forest Science & Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC) in Spain and Marc-André Parisien from Natural Resources Canada, actively part of the discussion in the session “Implementing fire-resilient landscapes” which underscored the importance of creating landscapes able to withstand and recover from wildfires, a core focus of the FIRE-RES initiative.

Plus, the FIRE-RES partner CoLab ForestWISE appeared in the IUFRO TV Episode 1 – Forests for Sustainable Societies, with contributions from both Carlos Fonseca and Alexandra Marques.

Moreover, the congress saw a series of impactful presentations and posters from the FIRE-RES team, including “Economic resilience to wildfires” by Elena Gorriz (CTFC), “Use of near real-time satellite data applications for wildfire purposes” by Marius Hauglin (NIBIO), “Updating Biomass maps at European scale using remote sensing and machine learning ensembles” by Francesco Pirotti (UniPD), Erico Kuttchart (CTFC), Juan Guerra Hernandez (CEF/ISA) and Brigite Botequim (CoLab ForestWISE), while the presentation “Innovative technologies & socio-ecological-economic solutions for fire resilient territories in Europe (FIRE-RES project)” by Pau Brunet (CTFC) directly introduced the project’s scope and objectives.

Courtesy of CTFC

The Congress provided a chance to the Living Labs to illustrate the latest updates to a larger, international audience when Lucas Moreews (IEFC) presented “Designing fire-resilient landscapes in south-west France”, and through Susete Marques’ (CEF/ISA) poster presentation “How prevention, suppression and restoration actions may help to design resistant and resilient forested landscapes? The Portuguese Living Lab example”.  Illustrating outcomes from the project’s focus on governance, Marta Serra (CTFC) showcased a poster on “Addressing policy coherence towards integrated wildfire risk management in the EU”, while Marc Rovellada (CTFC) presented, during the small-scale forestry poster session, the results from the project’s interviews on how current economic instruments affect joint forest management for landscape-scale fire risk mitigation. José Borges (ISA) presented “Addressing wildfire risk. A review of approaches to design decision and criteria spaces and support adaptive forest management planning”.

IUFRO was an occasion to showcase the project’s Innovation Actions too: for instance, Brigite Botequim (CoLab ForestWISE) introduced the Fire Education Platform, developed by the CEABN-InBIO team at Instituto Superior de Agronomia. This platform aims to compile and share critical knowledge and practices across all phases of the extreme fire cycle, with contributions from partners such as the Centre de Ciència i Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya, CPT Wageningen University, and CoLAB ForestWISE.

Looking Ahead

While the 26th IUFRO World Congress has concluded, the quest for a sustainable future for forests continues. The FIRE-RES project remains committed to advancing wildfire resilience through research, policy advocacy, and community engagement. All presentations, posters, livestreams, and interviews from the congress will be available until the next IUFRO World Congress in Kenya in 2029, providing ongoing access to the wealth of knowledge shared during this pivotal event.

Author: Beatrice Bellavia (Euromontana).