23-05-2025
“Innovation in Forest Governance" was the title of the final conference of the European LIFE FOLIAGE (Forest Planning and Earth Observation for a Well-Grounded Governance) Project, which spanned five years.
The event was held in Rome at the headquarters of CREA Ricerca (Council for Agricultural Research and Analysis of Agricultural Economics), the project’s coordinating body. Attendees included the project’s partners as well as representatives of governmental and scientific institutions, such as MASAF, regional departments of Lazio and Umbria, Sapienza University of Rome, the National Research Council (CNR), ISTAT, and SISEF.
Following the opening remarks by Marco Bascietto (CREA), Project Coordinator, institutional greetings were delivered by Marco Marchetti (La Sapienza), Giorgio Matteucci (CNR and SISEF), and Silvia Ferlazzo (MASAF).
The project’s partners then presented their activities, with live demonstrations of the software tools that were developed.
The innovative solution introduced by the FOLIAGE system for regional forestry policy and national planning was given special focus, as well as its potential integration with other projects. One session was devoted to the topic of open-data as a resource and opportunity for the scientific community.
Almaviva, a technological partner of the project, developed the entire IT system, the SDF (Digital Forest System), to support PAs in the governance of forest assets.
The system, hosted on Almaviva infrastructure, was implemented in two separate instances, one for each of the project’s partner regions.
A web portal grants access to its subsystems:
- the PAF, for the region-wide computerization of the management of logging permit applications;
- the PSG, a reporting system that supports forest governance, integrated within the PAF;
- the PMF, a regional satellite-based monitoring system developed in collaboration with CREA researchers and based on satellite data (ESA Copernicus), capable of detecting instances of logging and wildfires.
In addition, a mobile application (PRIF) is available to conduct surveys directly in the forest.
The entire system can be tailored and replicated for implementation in other regions or by other organizations.
