Building on the Bratislava Ministerial Resolution “Adapting pan-European forests to climate change” (2021), FOREST EUROPE is currently working towards the pan-European forest risk knowledge mechanism (FoRISK) to support forests adaptation to changing climatic and site conditions as well as to enhance the resilience and mitigation potential of forests at a pan-European level. The vision of the foreseen FoRISK is to provide relevant evidence-based forest risk and adaptation-related information to political decision-makers based on trustful cooperation with scientists, practitioners, and society.

Since September 2022, the pan-European forest risk knowledge mechanism (FoRISK) pilot has been focusing on wildfires with the objective of developing a policy brief on “Working towards a more wildfire resilient pan-European forest landscape building on sustainable forest management”. In addition, capacity building and knowledge exchange related to professional communication addressing wildfires, particularly the importance of sustainable forest management (SFM) and wildfire prevention, shall be strengthened in the context of the FoRISK Pilot implementation. In order to support the synergy-building in the context of decision-making support, the FoRISK pilot has closely implemented together the work of partner initiatives and organisations, such as the update of the position paper “Wildfire Prevention in the Mediterranean” by SilvaMed and EFIMED.

Therefore, the European Forest Institute (EFI), the Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC), and FOREST EUROPE jointly organize the workshop “Communicating the important role of sustainable forest management to prevent wildfires” from 7-9 February 2023 in Barcelona with the overall objective to raise the social as well as political awareness and to develop general recommendations to strengthen the communication related to wildfire prevention and the associated importance of sustainable forest management.