COOPTREE

Within the framework of the territorial cooperation programme for the South-West Europe (Interreg Sudoe 2021-2027), the COOPTREE project is born. This is a cross-border collaboration project that will create a knowledge and experience exchange base for the adaptation of forests to climate change and droughts. To do this, forest diversity, adaptive forestry and the valorisation of forest products will be integrated.

The adaptive potential of forests to climate change must integrate the diversity and ecosystem functions of the forest, nature-friendly forestry and the generation of products in the commercial value chain, within a framework of economic and environmental sustainability. This is not a challenge, but an obligation in order to adapt forests to global change.

Forest ecosystems are increasingly threatened by global warming. This is especially true for forests in south-western Europe, where the level of uncertainty about the effects of global warming and droughts on forests is high. In this context, managers, foresters and politicians will need basic information to be able to predict and adapt the forest to the new context of uncertainty.

This project is working on improving forest resilience through the genetic diversity of forest species, by carrying out various experiments, and also by collecting information for the conservation of genetic resources in South Western Europe. The experiments will be aimed at assessing some of the natural hybridisations of forest species, based on a common transnational method. They will also serve to improve the state of knowledge of the resistance to drought of some tree species, such as the red pine.

Finally, pilot experiments in nature-friendly adaptive forestry will be carried out to exploit the extreme resources of the forest by integrating them into the short-circuit value chain and improving forest resilience. One of these pilot experiments will be carried out in Andorra, in one of the forests that is suffering most from the effects of drought.

During the execution of the project, courses and workshops will be held to disseminate knowledge and results, and to exchange experiences between the different territories involved.

This project is carried out with the collaboration of the Comú de la Massana.