2024 Key solutions towards environmental sustainability: forest biomass, biodiversity and degradation

Co-organised by ForumforAg founding partner the European Landowners’ Organization (ELO) and the Future Forest Initiative (FFI) this event was part of the Forum for the Future of Agriculture Annual Conference week.

The Future Forest Initiative (FFI) is a platform created in 2022 to foster the development of innovative and sustainable solutions for the forest in times of climate change. It is Europe’s first Sustainable Innovation Hub for Forests and Climate. Based in Blankenburg (Harz), it combines the innovative power of startups, scientific knowhow and empirical values of the established economy. It also offers all necessary help to put practical solutions on the market. International participative events like the Future Forest Forum and the first startup accelerator for forests in Europe are two key elements of the support the FFI provides.

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2024 Key solutions towards environmental sustainability: forest biomass, biodiversity and degradation – part 1

2024 Key solutions towards environmental sustainability: forest biomass, biodiversity and degradation – part 2

2024 Annual Conference – Interview with Christoph zu Stolberg

Christoph zu Stolberg, Alex Turk

Confirmed speakers (in alphabetical order)

Sauli Brander

Vice President, UPM Global forest affairs, UPM-Kymmene Oyj

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Sauli Brander

Vice President, UPM Global forest affairs, UPM-Kymmene Oyj

Sauli is a Vice president, Global forest affairs in UPM-Kymmene Oyj, responsible for international forestry issues. Sauli's job is to promote and develop the sustainable use of forests in UPM's different operating environments.  He has worked for 27 years in various senior management positions in UPM's wood supply and land use activities in Finland, the Baltic countries and the UK. He holds a bachelor's degree in forestry and an eMBA from the University of Tampere. Sauli is passionate about forest management and sustainable forest growth. Most of his hobbies is based in forests and on his home farm in Finland, Sauli practices organic farming according to regenerative farming methods.

Joséphine de Chazournes

Private landowner in Italy and CEO, Semper Silva

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Joséphine de Chazournes

Private landowner in Italy and CEO, Semper Silva

Joséphine de Chazournes is founder and CEO of Semper Silva, a forestry and agroecology consultancy that restores degraded land across Europe. Together with her husband she bought eroded cereal conventional land in Tuscany twenty years ago and successfully transitioned it to a sustainable organic regenerative agroforestry ecosystem. She is vice-chairman of the board of the Tuscany Environment Foundation, part of the British group of non-profits Conservation Collective. She worked for 20 years in Strategy and Finance for the leading institutions, holds a masters in economics and strategy from ESSEC in Paris, and has attended Singularity University’s exponential technologies, MIT’s sustainable business and Cambridge’s sustainability leadership courses.

Lukas Von Hoyos

Referent, Innovation & Strategy, Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank

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Lukas Von Hoyos

Referent, Innovation & Strategy, Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank

Lukas Von Hoyos is referent Innovation & Strategy at Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank. He studied agricultural economics, specialising in rural development. After working at StartUp Kiebitz, where he focussed on private investments in nature, he moved to Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank to take care of the start-up ecosystem.

Elina Kalela

CEO, Aari Forest GmbH

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Elina Kalela

CEO, Aari Forest GmbH

Elina Kalela is CEO of Aari Forest GmbH. She holds a D.Sc. (eng) and M.Sc (eng) in Bioproduct chemistry & technology from Aalto University. Over the last 20 years she has worked in various positions in the European forest industry: in production, product management, sourcing and sales. Shortly before starting up Aari Forest GmbH Elina Kalela was working as freelancer consultant in Forest industry (Vision Hunters 2011-2021) and in UPM as Director in global sales (2007-2011). Since 2022 Elina Kalela has been, together with her team, steering and developing AARI Forest GmbH: a leading provider of holistic and innovative digitalized solutions for forest asset management. We build renewable raw material streams for industrial use aiming thus to promote the reduced the input of fossil Carbon into the ecosystem and thereby accelerating the transition to circular economy in Europe.

Benjamin Kowalski

Head of Science, Future Forest Initiative

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Benjamin Kowalski

Head of Science, Future Forest Initiative

Dr. Benjamin Kowalski holds a degree in Forest Sciences and a PhD in Agricultural Economics. As Head of Science at Future Forest Initiative he is responsible for building an European innovation ecosystem for forestry and climate tech. His main tasks include initiating innovation projects between startups, forest actors and science as well as the organization of the annual Future Forest Forum, Germany's leading event for innovation in forestry.

Cynthia Lanor

Chief of Staff, 44.moles

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Cynthia Lanor

Chief of Staff, 44.moles

As Chief of Staff for 44.moles, Cynthia Lanor supports the fast growth of the company through strategic planning, operational oversight, and project management. Drawing on their background in Economics and Global Management, they utilize their diverse experience to find innovative and pragmatic solutions for contemporary global issues.

Theresa Luber

Senior Project Manager and Consultant, blue!

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Theresa Luber

Senior Project Manager and Consultant, blue!

Theresa Luber is a certified IAPM project manager with a background of "Human Geography and Sustainability" (M.Sc., LMU Munich, thesis: “Acceptance of urban agriculture in La Paz, Bolivia”). Working at blue! advancing European projects as senior project manager and consultant for EU projects since 2016, she mainly manage INTERREG B and LIFE projects. For LIFE Future Forest, she supports the project team around Ludwig Pertl in Landsberg am Lech, Germany, to implement sustainable forest management focusing on healthy and living soils. A main output is the easy-to-apply handbook on climate-resilient forest reconstructing for forest owners and municipalities. The project resulted from the INTERREG Alpine Space project “Links4Soils” in which the Alpine Soil Partnership was established. The development of both projects was guided by blue!, as is the current application for another INTERREG project (SOIL:OurInvisibleAlly).

Harald Mauser

Liaison Officer, European Forest Institute in Brussels

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Harald Mauser

Liaison Officer, European Forest Institute in Brussels

Harald Mauser represents the European Forest Institute in Brussels as Liaison Officer. He holds a Master and PhD degrees in forestry from the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna. He was successively CEO of the private company Umwelt data Ltd., dealing with aerial photo interpretation and remote Sensing, senior researcher in remote sensing at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Director of the Austrian Federal Research and Training Centre for Forests, Natural Hazards and Landscape, and EU Affairs officer of the Austrian Forest-based Sector Cooperation Platform.

Dominik Petzold

Project Manager, Seeding & Reforestation, Skyseed

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Dominik Petzold

Project Manager, Seeding & Reforestation, Skyseed

Dominik holds a BSc in Earth Sciences from TU Graz, Austria, and completed an MSc in "Forestry System Transformation" at the University of Sustainable Development in Eberswalde, Germany. His master's degree included a specialization in the ecosystem service provision of forests. At Skyseed, he is part of the sales team and serves as a project manager overseeing seeding and reforestation measures.

Lukas Reininger

Project Manager and Head of the Internal Timber Expert Group, Werner Sobek AG

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Lukas Reininger

Project Manager and Head of the Internal Timber Expert Group, Werner Sobek AG

Lukas Reininger is a Project Manager and head of the internal timber expert group
at Werner Sobek AG in Stuttgart, Germany. He holds a M.Sc. in Civil Engineering
from the University of Stuttgart with a focus on Structural Engineering. Previously
he has been a Project Engineer at the mass timber specialist Eurban Ltd. in London,
United Kingdom (2015-2018). Between his bachelor and master studies he has
been a Freelance Structural Engineer at str.ucture GmbH in Stuttgart, Germany
(2013-2014).

Jacob P. Rohn

Founder & CEO, SeedForward

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Jacob P. Rohn

Founder & CEO, SeedForward

As co-founder and CEO of SeedForward, Jacob is passionate about facilitating regenerative agriculture and creating positive environmental and social impact. SeedForward is a company that develops and distributes innovative seed coatings that enhance crop performance, soil health, and biodiversity.

María J. Rodríguez de Sancho

Director General of Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification, Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic...

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María J. Rodríguez de Sancho

Director General of Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification, Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Spain

María Jesús Rodríguez de Sancho is the Director General of Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification in the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge in Spain. She holds a MSc. in Forest Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid and a Law degree from the National Distance Education University. She has been Director of the National Parks Agency (2020-2022), Director of the Center for Studies and Applied Techniques at the Center for Studies and Experimentation of Public Works (CEDEX) (2018-2020), General Director of Environmental Quality and Environmental Impac Assesment of the Ministry of the Environment (2008-2010) and Deputy Director General of Forest Policy and Desertification of the Ministry of Environment (2004- 2008). In 2008 she was elected Vice President of the Management Board of the European Environment Agency (2008-2010).

Michelle Spitzer

Co-Founder, CMO and Corporate Sustainability, eco:fibr

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Michelle Spitzer

Co-Founder, CMO and Corporate Sustainability, eco:fibr

Michelle Spitzer is the Co-Founder, CMO and Corporate Sustainability at eco:fibr. She studied civil engineering with focus on waste- and recycling management and environmental engineering. At eco:fibr, she is responsible for the sustainability report and the resulting communication of our sustainable and social goals.

Antonin Vergez

Senior expert for natural resources economics, IUCN

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Antonin Vergez

Senior expert for natural resources economics, IUCN

Antonin Vergez is an Agronomist, an Environment and Natural Resources Economist and holds a PhD in Social Sciences (AgroParisTech). He has been working for 12 years for the French Ministry in charge of the Environment, Energy and Climate change. He joined IUCN in July 2021 and works in the Chief Economist and Economics Team on different project related to natural capital accounting, mainstreaming biodiversity into priority economic sectors, and other IUCN key initiatives.

Nicolas Verschuere

Co-founder and Chief Agronomist, Soil Capital

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Nicolas Verschuere

Co-founder and Chief Agronomist, Soil Capital

Nicolas Verschuere is Co-founder and Chief Agronomist at Soil Capital. He is an agronomist from UCL (Belgium), he is passionate about regenerative agriculture and has practiced it in different crops and geographies for the last 30 years. He is a Co-founder and chief agronomist at Soil Capital, an advisory firm specialised in the carbon measure, certification and payment to farmers. He is also a Co-founder of Cultivae Coop, a cooperative dedicated to create and scale value chains in Regenerative Agriculture and a board member at Ingleby Farms & Forests, an international farming group in transition to Regenerative Agriculture.

Alexander Watson

CEO, OpenForests

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Alexander Watson

CEO, OpenForests

Alexander is a forester and environmental entrepreneur. He is CEO of OpenForests, a company he founded in 2011 that runs the explorer.land platform, connecting nature-based projects with funders through an interactive, map-based interface. With a focus on geolocated narratives, photos, and videos, alongside advanced remote sensing applications, his mission has been to enhance geographic transparency, trust, and engagement in environmental projects over the last 13 years.

Agenda

Mar 25, 2024

14:00 - 18:00 (CET)

14:00 - 14:30 (CET)

Registration open

Room: Salle Polak
Residence Palace
Wetstraat 155
1040 Brussels
Belgium

14:30 - 15:30 (CET)

Panel 1 - Forests: Diversification of the use of biomass

• Sauli Brander, Vice President, UPM Global forest affairs, UPM-Kymmene Oyj
• Lukas Reininger, Project Manager and Head of the Internal Timber Expert Group, Werner Sobek AG
• Elina Kalela, CEO, Aari Forest GmbH

15:30 - 16:30 (CET)

Panel 2 - Biodiversity: Monitoring biodiversity to strengthen it

• Dr. Benjamin Kowalski, Head of Science, Future Forest Initiative
• Antonin Vergez, Senior Expert for Natural Resources Economics, IUCN
• Lukas Von Hoyos, Referent, Innovation & Strategy, Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank
• Alexander Watson, CEO, OpenForests

17:00 - 18:00 (CET)

Panel 3 - Desertification: How to anticipate/avoid land degradation

• Nicolas Verschuere, Co-founder and Chief agronomist at Soil Capital
• Dr. Pieter Beck, Joint Research Center, European Commission
• María Jesús Rodríguez de Sancho, Director General of Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification, Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Spain
• Joséphine de Chazournes, Private Landowner in Italy and CEO, Semper Silva
• Theresa Luber, Senior Project Manager and consultant at blue!

18:00 - 18:30 (CET)

The FFI-Startups pitch the practical solutions they develop

• Dominik Petzold, Project Manager Seeding & Reforestation, Skyseed
• Cynthia Lanor – Chief of Staff, 44.Moles
• Michelle Spitzer, Co-Founder, CMO and Corporate Sustainability, eco:fibr
• Jacob P. Rohn, Founder and CEO, SeedForward

18:30 - 20:00 (CET)

Drinks

Co-organising partners

Part of the ForumforAg Annual Conference week

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