Awareness raising and dissemination of results are important activities of LIFE projects that should reach audiences not only in the benefiting countries but also across the borders. Thus the project LIFEGENMON, coordinated by the Slovenian Forestry Institute, has been on 30.8.2016 presented to the listeners of Croatian HRT radio.
The project LIFEGENMON – LIFE for European Forest Genetic Monitoring System is a “LIFE+ Environment Policy and Governance” project (LIFE + is the name of the fourth phase of LIFE Programme (2007-2013)), which main aim is to develope a system for forest genetic monitoring (FGM) to serve as an early-warning system to aid in the assessment of a species response to environmental change on a long-term temporal scale.
Changes in the environment and forest management affect the evolutionary forces, which leads to a change in patterns of genetic diversity along with the ability of forests to adjust to the future environmental conditions. Genetic monitoring is a system that allows the determination of temporal changes in the genetic data of populations. Its main objective is to answer the question whether the populations can ensure sustainable development of the existing forest.
International project, which runs from 7th January 2014 to 30th June 2020, performs Slovenian Forestry Institute with its partners: the Slovenian Forest Service, Centre for Information Service, Co-operation and Development of NGOs (CNVOS), Bayerisches Amt für forstliche Saat und Pflanzenzucht (Germany), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), Decentralized Administration of Macedonia – Thrace (Greece).
Part of the project is awareness raising and dissemination activities, since the European Union gives a strong emphasis on the sustainability of the project results and EU added value. Thus the project was presented last month at the Forest Communicators Meeting Portland (USA) and at the 81th Thessaloniki International Fair in Greece. At the end of August Boris Rantaša, project dissemination manager, presented the project itself and the experience of the Forestry Institute of Slovenia with obtaining grants of LIFE programme to the listeners of Croatian HRT radio in the talk show Evrominute, which was dedicated to the LIFE programme. Record of the show is available here.
