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Tag: training

Springtime in flames

Springtime in flames

Published May 23, 2019 by Laura Nikinmaa

and Alexander Held

What had already been predicted in 2018, became true.

Spring is too warm and too dry, again. The year 2019 had a hot start: during the first four months, more areas have been burned than during the entire 2018 across Europe. The Joint Research Centre’s European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) of the EU Science Hub recorded 1233 fires corresponding to a burned area of more than 250 000 ha by the end of April. In comparison, there were 1192 fires burning 181 000 ha during the whole 2018.

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Irish Marteloscopes: exploring new cooperation opportunities

Irish Marteloscopes: exploring new cooperation opportunities

Published October 24, 2018 by Alexander Held

by Ted Wilson
The Annual Pro Silva Ireland forestry tour 2018 was heading towards Obernai, France where the French National Forest Office’s (ONF) silviculture trainer Marc-Etienne Wilhelm hosted the “Irish forestry invasion” for 3 days. A total of 27 members of Pro Silva Ireland participated in the tour, indicating the strength of interest in continuous cover forestry (CCF) among Irish foresters, forest ecologists and woodland owners at the present time.
As a participant in the tour, I (Ted Wilson) took the opportunity to extend my travels and visit the Martelscope training sites at Mooswald and Rosskopf, near Freiburg, Black Forest, Germany. My work is based at the Teagasc Forestry Development Department, Ashtown Research Centre, and at the School of Agriculture and Food Science (Forestry Section), University College Dublin, both in Dublin, Ireland. My current research focuses on CCF, and my main project is called TranSSFor. This deals with the transformation of Sitka spruce plantations to continuous cover forestry. Related to silvicultural and production objectives of the research project is the issue of training, which was the focus of a highly productive meeting with Alex Held and Andreas Schuck, who are with the European Forest Institute.

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SURE Projekt "on tour": Waldbrand-Reise nach Brandenburg

SURE Projekt "on tour": Waldbrand-Reise nach Brandenburg

Published October 17, 2018 by Alexander Held

von Martin Schmitt, Andreas Schuck und Alexander Held
Zwei der zahlreichen Brände in der Saison 2018 erfuhren besondere Aufmerksamkeit: Treuenbrietzen und Fichtenwalde bei Beelitz in Südbrandenburg. In Treuenbrietzen mussten drei Ortschaften geräumt. In Fichtenwalde wurde es notwendig, zwei Autobahnen (A9/A10) zu sperren. Die Situation wurde zusätzlich dadurch erschwert, dass beide Waldbrandflächen munitionsbelastet waren.
Im Rahmen einer Schulung für die “Berliner Feuerwehr Einsatzbereitschaft 4” waren wir (Andreas Schuck und Alexander Held vom EFI) in Berlin-Brandenburg unterwegs.

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Germany dried up and on fire

Germany dried up and on fire

Published July 4, 2018 by Alexander Held

A very sunny June 2018 was also a very dry June! And I mean dry:
The sunshine duration in June with about 215 hours of sunshine reached 108 percent of the target of 198 hours. Persistent drought in the northeast, severe thunderstorms in the southwest:
At around 50 l / m², June reached only 57 percent of its target nationwide (85 l / m²). The month was very poor in Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, which had already been part of the drought affected areas in May. In Wittenberg for instance, from April 27 to June 20,  only 0.9 l / m² were recorded. The drought had a catastrophic effect, because in addition to numerous wildfires, agriculture and forestry is already suffering enormous drought related damage.

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Out of office: marteloscope training in Bonn

Out of office: marteloscope training in Bonn

Published April 20, 2018 by Jakob Derks

The network of marteloscopes, which was started during the Integrate+ project, is continuously expanding in terms of sites and users. On April 12th, Andreas Schuck from European Forest Institute led a marteloscope exercise in the Jägerhäuschen marteloscope in Kottenforst near Bonn, assisted by me. The training session was organised in cooperation with the local forest district Rhein-Sieg-Erft. Most of the twelve participants work for the BfN, the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, but there were also two representatives of the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

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Reducing wildfires in the countryside: Workshop in Ireland

Reducing wildfires in the countryside: Workshop in Ireland

Published April 15, 2018 by Alexander Held

Workshop meeting to collect input for the Northern Irish Vegetation Fire Strategy

45 participants from across Ireland, all of them highly interested in vegetation fire, held a workshop meeting on 20-21 March 2018 in Belfast. The event was also attended by a number of international fire experts and specialists from the UK, Spain, Germany and the US: Chuck Bushey, former president of IAWF; Michael Bruce, Vice Chair of Scottish Wildfire Forum; Rob Gazzard, UK Forestry Commission Fire Adviser; Craig Hope, Lead Wildfire Officer South Wales Fire Service; Simon Thorp, UK Heather Trust; Jordi Vendrell, fire weather and behavior analyst of the Pau Costa Foundation; Alexander Held, European Forest Risk Facility (hosted by European Forest Institute’s Bonn office).

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In the forest classroom

In the forest classroom

Published March 23, 2018 by Jakob Derks

Foresters exploring the Rosskopf Marteloscope in cooperation with ConFoBi researchers
by Bettina Joa
ConFoBi (Conservation of Forest Biodiversity in Multiple-Use Landscapes of Central Europe) is a research project of the University of Freiburg and the Forest Research Institute Baden-Württemberg (FVA) that focuses on the effectiveness of structural retention measures for biodiversity conservation in multi-functional forests. Researchers work in a common pool of 135 study plots located in the Black Forest. In the course of ConFoBi’s yearly information event for foresters managing those forest areas that contain one of the 135 plots, a Marteloscope training exercise was conducted with 10 foresters from Forst-BW.
Frank Krumm (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL) and Andreas Schuck (European Forest Institute) introduced the Marteloscope concept as a training tool for thinning exercises revealing common challenges and trade-offs in integrative forest management. Marteloscopes are one hectare forest sites where all trees have been numbered, mapped and measured. With the help of the “I+”software that runs on mobile devices, trees can be virtually harvested and retained. Thereby the results of the individual tree selection, namely the ecological and economic consequences, can be immediately displayed, initiating discussions as well as learning processes.

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Forest extension and cooperation – EFI Bonn as facilitator

Forest extension and cooperation – EFI Bonn as facilitator

Published January 31, 2018 by Johanna Strieck

Johanna Strieck & Andreas Schuck & Nataša Lovrić
During the past week, EFI Bonn had once again the opportunity to present its new premises and to host the networking event entitled –“Forest Extension Workshop”. It was initiated jointly by the European Forest Institute and the Finnish Forest Centre (FFC). The two-day workshop started on 22nd of January 2018 and was organized by Marko Lovrić from EFI Headquarters in Joensuu. The event aimed at creating a platform of interchange of expertise, concepts and ideas. It brought together more than thirty participants from 16 countries representing different fields of forest advisory and extension.

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Investigating wildfires: Northern Ireland develops a vegetation fire strategy together with EFI experts

Investigating wildfires: Northern Ireland develops a vegetation fire strategy together with EFI experts

Published January 22, 2018 by Johanna Strieck

After hundreds of wildfire incidents in Norther Ireland’s countryside, the government decided to take action mid 2017 and operation WildFire was initiated. The operation, lead by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service (NIFRS) had the core task to investigate in more depth a number of wildfires. Fires could spread rapidly through dry ground conditions, putting property, public, habitat and species at risk.

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