The 26th IUFRO World Congress, the largest gathering to date with 4,271 delegates from 102 countries and 3,500 presentations, has concluded, leaving a profound impact on the global forestry community. This year’s Congress provided a dynamic platform for industry experts to address key issues in the forest sector. Under the overarching theme “FORESTS AND SOCIETY TOWARDS 2050”, the event offered visitors the opportunity to explore the many exhibitions stands, as well as a wide variety of presentations, posters, studies, roundtables and innovative solutions from around the world. The members of the task force (including Christophe Orazio, Director of the IEFC) helped to organise a number of sessions at the Congress, and the group is working on a new TF entitled: Stand complexity in planted forests. Testing for resilience in commercial plantations

Two IEFC team members had the opportunity to participate in this event by presenting in different sessions. Christophe Orazio presented “AM Role of plantation forest in hydrology : A short review” at the sessions “Forest tree breeding in the context of climate change and bioeconomy development” and “Contribution of the IUFRO Task Force” Resilient Planted Forests Serving Society & Bioeconomy” to societal debate and science frontiers” at the session “Fast growing trees in support of a sustainable bioeconomy”, while Lucas Moreews presented “Designing fire-resilient landscapes in south-west France” to highlight the Living Lab FIRE-RES at the session “Implementing fire-resilient landscapes”.

In addition, I had the opportunity to engage with key thought leaders, who chaired sessions alongside Christophe Orazio (Director, IEFC) in a number of technical sessions. Our discussions focused on two key questions: What are the challenges and opportunities for planted forests in light of this event, and how do the discussions and sessions held throughout the week impact the future of planted forests? Their insights provide a comprehensive understanding of the current landscape and future trajectory of planted forests, informed by the dialogues and innovations presented at the Congress.

Nelson Thiffault, IUFRO Task Force on planted forests

What are your views on the challenges and opportunities for planted forests in light of this event, the discussions and sessions held during the week?

From the presentations and various technical sessions, I attended at the congress, along with discussions with colleagues from various organizations during both formal and informal meetings, it is clear that plantation forests will increasingly contribute to decarbonizing the global economy. This should help mitigate climate change and allow ecosystems to adapt to these changes.

Planted forests, managed with varying intensities, were highlighted as a means to boost wood production, sequester carbon in wood-based building materials to support the bioeconomy, adapt forests to future conditions through trait selection and assisted gene flow, and restore and sustain natural species, closed-forest landscapes, and ecosystem functions.

However, several challenges were identified during these discussions and presentations. Issues concerning the scale, location, and spatial arrangement of plantations, the critical attributes and resilience of natural forests, social acceptability, workforce availability, Indigenous perspectives on planted ecosystems, and the productivity and profitability of plantations were raised. While plantation forestry is viewed favourably in some contexts, it is often linked with industrial practices, monocultures, chemical use, water quality degradation, negative impacts on biodiversity, fragmentation of the forest matrix, and other landscape-scale effects.

How do you assess the impact of this event on planted forests?

I’d say that the congress might have an impact on the discourse surrounding planted forests. The event facilitated comprehensive exchanges of knowledge and experiences, which is certainly crucial for advancing the field. The diverse technical sessions and informal discussions highlighted the increasing importance of planted forests in addressing global environmental challenges, such as climate change mitigation and ecosystem adaptation.

Overall, the event emphasized a balanced approach to plantation forestry, advocating for sustainable practices that maximize environmental benefits while minimizing negative impacts on biodiversity, water quality, and landscape integrity. The insights and collaborative spirit from the congress are likely to drive future research, policy-making, and practical applications in planted forest management, ultimately enhancing their role in global environmental sustainability and providing the world with a climate-smart solution for building a new generation of cities.

Thais Linhares Juvenal, FAO

What are your views on the challenges and opportunities for planted forests in light of this event, the discussions and sessions held during the week?

Planted forests are extremely important to enhance forest and trees environmental services and support ecosystems. The event showed that science and knowledge are critical to guide the choice of species and planted forests management regimes according to the final objectives and local conditions. There is still the need to invest more in fast-growing species research and deployment to demystify their use and contribute to sustainable ecosystems. In particular, the panel identified the need of connecting research with policy-makers and end-users to ensure it will respond to the needs.

It should be highlighted the importance noted by the scientists to build on traditional knowledge when expanding research on fast-growing trees. There is an opportunity to have more collaboration in research and dissemination of results through the scientific networks such as the IPC, the IUFRO task-force on planted forests, and the Tree-Div-Net.

How do you assess the impact of this event on planted forests?

This event showed how important planted forests are to achieve the global developmental objectives and support the bioeconomy. It provided the audience with concrete examples and lessons learned to be taken into consideration by practitioners and researchers. It also provided information on different networks and the possibilities to engage.

Overall, the session presented information that will certainly increase exchange and collaboration to advance science and knowledge on fast-growing trees and accelerate land restauration, agroforestry, and sustainable reforestation/afforestation, to support the SDGs and the bioeconomy.

Elena Gorriz, CTFC

What are your views on the challenges and opportunities for planted forests in light of this event, the discussions and sessions held during the week?

Wildfires are an increasing threat and forested territories need to prepare to handle this risk. The session on “implementing fire-resilient landscapes” included some insights on the role of planted forests. Planted forests represent an opportunity for restoring degraded soils post fire, particularly when the spontaneous regeneration is not thriving. Besides, planted forests may require a patchy design at the landscape level to reduce the aggregated risk by modulating the accumulated biomass and its horizontal continuity. Some policy or economic instruments (land use planning, monetary incentives, value mapping…) were suggested – yet further research is needed in this realm.

Interestingly, several presentations revolved around how available Earth Observation System data jointly with fire spread modelling can help in finetuning the planning to develop specific indications for the individual forester.

Complementarly, insights from social sciences remain relevant yet largely understudied: how do private forest owners (particularly those with plantations, who have incurred in a relevant investment) perceive, self-prepare and behave in case of wildfire, the related economic consequences, and relevant policies to stimulate.

Christophe Orazio, IEFC

What are your views on the challenges and opportunities for planted forests in light of this event, the discussions and sessions held during the week?

So many sessions were running in parallel that it was difficult to see all the points. The session on genetic showed a trend to try to reduce the breeding programme cycle using only genomic tool, but it sounds difficult to skip totally the phenological assessment on the field. So it will still be time demanding to improve material for plantation. And work such as done in REINFFORCE to validate adaptation capacity of planted material is essential.

We also had many presentations related to fertilization showing that there are strong interactions between nutrients and C richness. It has been demonstrated for many planted species that models and DSS can help to select best genetic resources associated to best site weather and management option including fertilization. This is even more relevant in a context were C sequestration in above and below ground is more and more considered all type of forests and specially in planted forests, unmanaged forest appearing to be C source under atmospheric N fertilisation we observe in Europe.

From a risk and biodiversity perspective, more studies show that the relevant scale is the landscape level (see Lucas’ talk in FIRE-RES project session ), and that planted forest can play an important role as part of the mosaic. The quick review I did on watershed impact of plantations shows that more work is needed on that field but that plantation can have quite positive impact on watershed, and justify tree planting with restoration for hydrological purposes.

The field trip was extremely interesting proposing an interesting solution with silicate to protect seedlings from hylobius attacks as studied in LUTHYL project, and was also an opportunity to discuss evolution of planted forest perception over stand age in comparison with continuous cover management, the stand having the highest social value being the old mature regular stand with very large trees. The booth with commercial companies provided many solutions, including LIDAR tools on harvesters allowing instant forest inventories and supporting decision making for drivers, very useful for first thinning in planted forests. The most innovative tools was probably the harvesting drone able to pick one tree in a stand that could be very valuable for pine wood nematode  control in infested areas.

There are many challenges ahead for all forests as the demand of raw material increases and the threats and damages affecting forest also. So, more knowledge exchange will be needed not only in relation to commercial plantations, but also for all action needed in restoration for C sequestration or biodiversity  as listed by the SUPERB project session.  As one of the conclusions of the sub-plenary is that scientists must work closer to  practitioners, it supports all efforts done by IEFC as institute but also through the task force Resilient Planted Forests Serving Society & Bioeconomy that has been extremely successful as reminded during the session on future of forest organised by FAO. It was also an unique opportunity for the TF participants to meet and exchange on the future application on a task force dedicated to planted forest but with a strong scope on complexity and mixtures in plantations taking advantage of the tree mixture survey and FORMIX network. As the deadline for application is September, it is still time to join this enthusiastic group!

As a conclusion this event was extremely successful and confirms that science is working to tackle most of the challenges ahead for forest and forestry. Planted forests are considered of interest in relation to many topics, but research on controversial issues is still needed. IUFRO World Congress remains a strategic place for scientific networking; Next edition is planned in Nairobi, Kenya in 2029.