National Coordinators and Focal Persons from 30 countries participated in the fourth Steering Committee meeting of the European Forest Genetic Resources Programme (EUFORGEN), held in Židlochovice, Czech Republic on 26–29 May 2004. During a first-day seminar, representatives from the European Commission’s Directorate General for Agriculture, the Liaison Unit Warsaw of the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE), the European Forest Institute (EFI) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) addressed forest biological diversity and sustainable forest management in Europe. The meeting reviewed the progress made during Phase II and endorsed a continuation of the Programme to Phase III. Currently 32 countries participate in EUFORGEN, providing financial and technical support to the Programme. Through EUFORGEN, member countries have been implementing their commitment to conserve forest genetic resources (FGR) in Europe. The Programme has facilitated international collaboration and produced outputs such as gene conservation strategies and technical guidelines for genetic conservation and use (targeted at practical forest managers). Recently, the Programme has also initiated development of common action plans, which aim at sharing of responsibilities for conservation of forest genetic resources in Europe.

During the new Phase, EUFORGEN will continue to operate under the MCPFE framework and contribute to the implementation of relevant resolutions. The Programme will strengthen its efforts to promote practical implementation of gene conservation and appropriate use of genetic resources as an integral part of sustainable forest management. The Programme will also continue to facilitate further development of methods to conserve genetic diversity of European forests.

The Steering Committee opted for reorganization of the EUFORGEN structure, merging the current five species Networks into three for Phase III (conifers, broadleaved tree species with scattered occurrence and broadleaves with continuous occurrence). As a response to the outputs of the MCPFE process, it was agreed that new thematic structures should be established, in addition to the species Networks, namely Forest Management Network and Information Working Group. Through these thematic arrangements, EUFORGEN will promote implementation of recommendations presented in the technical guidelines and support integration of gene conservation issues into national forest programmes and policies. Furthermore, the Programme will focus on developing protocols to evaluate genetic consequences of different management practices and identify genetically appropriate management practices in collaboration with forest managers and policy makers.

The Steering Committee also discussed the new Council Regulation on genetic resources in agriculture (EC No. 870/2004) and a Community programme to support relevant work in the EU Member States based on this regulation (see p.4 in this issue). Actions on FGR have been identified as one of the eligible areas for new projects and the Steering Committee asked IPGRI to coordinate development of a joint project proposal benefiting all EUFORGEN Networks. The proposed project will establish a Web-based system for national inventories on gene conservation units of forest tree species in Europe and collect relevant information for a database. IPGRI was requested to explore ways to engage non-EU countries in the planned activities as distribution ranges and gene-ecological zones of forest trees do not respect national borders. The outputs of the Steering Committee meeting will be reported to the MCPFE process during an Expert Level meeting in Warsaw, Poland on 14-15 October 2004. The new Network structure for both thematic and species-oriented activities for Phase III will also be developed by the end of 2004.

Please click here to read the full report of the meeting, or here to download the full report in PDF format

Participants of the Steering Committee meeting