Forest cooperative workshop report

A SIMWOOD workshop on forest cooperatives in Europe was organised by EFI on 6 May in Waterford, Ireland, in collaboration with the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT).

>>Download the presentations from the event

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After a general introduction to the SIMWOOD project, representatives from different organisations for wood mobilisation of private forest owners presented the context of their region and their activities.

The first presenters came from Spain: Leire Salaberria from USSE (Union des Syndicats du Sud de l’Europe) and Alejandro Cantero from HAZI talked about the Basque Country context. The barriers encountered to mobilise wood increased since 1999 and the first storm which damaged France and had huge consequences on Spain with the shifting of some enterprises to France and the disappearance of others due to market disruption. Since then, the economic crisis and the 2009 storm prevented potential return of higher wood prices. However initiatives are currently ongoing to improve the situation: tests of wood exportation to open the market were done in partnership with USSE.  Initiatives are ongoing to avoid the accumulation of wood in forest stands, for example the MOVAPRO project (for wood mobilisation to the benefit of forest owners) which aimed at enhancing forest management tools for the revitalization of the wood-forest sectors in the Aquitaine and Basque regions was achieved by HAZI and its Aquitaine partners.

Ramón Reimunde, president of PROMAGAL, presented the Galician forests, forest ownership and timber production in Galicia, which is under a slow recovery since the worst of the economic crisis in 2010. He presented three levels of forest owner cooperation: information associations, market associations and management associations, with a special focus on PROMAGAL which is a market association. Its main role is the information and the specialised training of its members in order to help them get a fair sale of wood and the sustainable exploitation of the forest resources. As an example of the economic activity of this market association, PROMAGAL markets an average of 10% of the Galician eucalypt timber production every year, and this amount can reach up to 20%.

Then the presentations moved northward and came to France with two cooperatives. Cyrille Pupin, from Forêts et Bois de l’Est and Gaylord Doirat from Alliance, presented the context of forest cooperation in their country with a focus on cooperative groups which gather eight cooperatives to improve their competitiveness and exchange expertise. Cooperatives taking part in this association manage, altogether, around 12% of the French forest, and sell around 28% of the wood commercialized from French private forests. The main domains of these two cooperatives are forest management, silvicultural operations, wood exploitation and commercialisation.

The specific origins and roles of both cooperatives were detailed. Forêts et Bois de l’Est comes from the gathering of old local associations initiated by farmers organisations and forest administration. It gathers around 6,000 forest owners for 75 400ha managed. Forêts and Bois de l’Est are involved in the SIMWOOD project with two local projects. One of them, located in the Champagne crayeuse focuses on an area with poor soil, low forest cover and damage from the 1999 storm which led to reducing harvesting. On the other hand, new wood boilers are developing in the region and could be a way to make the most of forest that was not harvested before.

Alliance is a gathering of three forest cooperatives from South-West France which came together after the 2009 storm in Aquitaine. There are 44,000 forester members of this cooperative in five regions in the South-West of France. Alliance had to reorganize after the Klaus storm: it developed wet storage places, and the wood production evolved and relies more on contact points in local agencies rather than being all centralized.

Finally the last presentations were made by organisations from the session hosting country: Ireland. All presenters highlighted the atypical situation of the country in Europe, as it is in an important afforestation trend: the forest cover had dropped to 2% at the beginning of the last century. It is now around 11% and the Government wishes to reach 17%.

Marina Conway from the Western Forestry Co-operative Society, which was created in 1985 and proceeded to plant the first programme of afforestation on seven adjoining farms in 1987, presented the roles of the Society. They are various, from afforestation to harvesting, including silvicultural works, management plants and grouped forest insurances. The co-op aims at improving farm income thanks to wood production, to create employment in rural area while working with local community leadership to make the most of the Irish planned forestry programme.

Alex Kelly, from the Irish Wood Producers Ltd explained the wood mobilisation barriers in her area, and how her organization is involved in the SIMWOOD project through the following actions: clustering forest owners, doing knowledge transfer, grouping forest activities, promoting best practices and clustering wood mobilisation. Thanks to these actions of clustering wood mobilisation, they could harvest 12,744 m3 of wood which were forwarded roadside, with sales of boxwood, firewood and wood chip. Wood chip was delivered mainly to a big boiler (Danone Wexford) but new opportunities with a smaller boiler started in November 2014.

Michael Ryan from the Limerick and Tipperary Woodland Owners Ltd, explained that their main roles are to help reduce costs, to increase revenue and to improve productivity. To do that, the forest owners association has its own forester. This coop gathers 110 members plus around 100 more attendees. It works in an area of 30,290 ha of forest for around 2,337 forest owners.

These presentations were followed by a discussion on the possible evolutions of these different associations in Ireland: would they gather, as they are of relatively small size or would their number increase, due to government incentives.

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