Presentation by dr. Marjana Westergren on LIFEGENMON - LIFE for European Forest Genetic Monitoring System on 9.9.2015. at XIV World Forestry Congress in Durban, South Africa

1. EUFORINNO (RegPot No. 315982)
Marjana Westergren

2. EUFORINNO (RegPot No. 315982)
A LOT OF EXISTING MONITORING PROGRAMMES.
National forest inventories
ICOS
Forest health
Forest production
Nutrient fluxes
Forest management
Species
diversity

3. EUFORINNO (RegPot No. 315982)
FORESTS & BIODIVERSITY ARE COMMON CONCERNS OF
THE HUMANITY (Kovič-Dine 2015)

4. EUFORINNO (RegPot No. 315982)
© D. Finžgar
None of the current monitoring programmes includes
monitoring of genetic variation.
Genetic variation is the biodiversity component
ensuring species survival and adaptive potential in a
changing environment.

5. EUFORINNO (RegPot No. 315982)
Numerous and fast growing threats
to forest genetic resources, risking
the loss of species adaptive potential
and ecosystem sustainability The most vulnerable species and
populations will be those of limited
genetic variation, low dispersal
abilities and high fragmentation.
Genetic monitoring is an
integral part of any
sustainable forest
management and needs a
feasible and cost effective
approach in terms of field
and laboratory work.
With genetic monitoring,
temporal changes in population
genetic variation can be
measured and thereby form a
special part of biomonitoring
that contributes to biological
conservation
HALT OF SPECIES
EXTINCTION &
BIODIVERSITY LOSS Existing
Monitoring
Schemes
Genetic
Monitoring
Threats &
Climate
Change
Monitoring systems provide
temporal and spatial overview of
forest condition in relation to
stress factors and insight into
causes and effects of the
condition of forest ecosystems.

6. EUFORINNO (RegPot No. 315982)
SO, DO WE REALLY NEED ANOTHER
MONITORING PROGRAMME?
YES. We urgently need to monitor
genetic variation in addition to the
already established indicators.
1. Basis of biodiversty is genetic diversity
2. Ecological/economical/social services of forest ecosystems
3. Threats by climate change, air polltion, unsustainable
forest management

7. EUFORINNO (RegPot No. 315982)
Need (e.g. EUFORGEN, Koskela et al. 2012, Graudal
et al. 2014) and mandate (CBD, Article 7) to:
• develop methodology of FGM
• implement and test FGM in practice
Theoretical basis
• First proposed by experts from FAO, Group on forest genetic
resources in 1996 (Namkoong et al. 1996, Namkoong et al.
2002)
• Simplified for practical use by experts from EUFORGEN
working group on forest genetic monitoring (Aravanopoulos
et al. 2014) and German programme for conservation of
forest genetic resources (Konnert et al. 2011)

8. EUFORINNO (RegPot No. 315982)
• European Life project 2014-2020
• Six partners from three countries
• GOAL: Implementation of a forest genetic
monitoring system
• Delineating monitoring regions
• Installing monitoring plots
• Sampling & analysis
• Cost benefit analysis of indicators & verifiers
• Manual & Decision support system
• Education & dissemination
• Influencing policy makers
LIFEGENMON

9. EUFORINNO (RegPot No. 315982)
COMPLETED AND ONGOING ACTIVITIES
Plot establishment
Sampling
Laboratory workProtocols

10. LIFEGENMON Data
Duration: 01.07.2014 – 30.06.2020.
Total costs: 5,48 M €, from which EU 49,9% = 2,7 M€; 50,1% from partners‘ own (national) sources.
6 partners from 3 countries/states
• SFI: Slovenian Forestry Institute – leading partner; project coordinator Hojka Kraigher, Tjaša
Baloh, Gregor Božič, Domen Finžgar, Boris Rantaša, Marjana Westergren
• SFS: Slovenia Forest Service; Živan Veselič
• CNVOS: Centre for information service, co-operation and development of NGOs; Veronika
Vodlan
• ASP: Bavarian Office for Forest Seeding and Planting; Barbara Fussi, Monika Konnert, Roland
Baier, Darius Kavaliauskas
• FGL-AUTH: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; Filippos Aravanopoulos, Paraskevi Alizoti,
Evangelia Avramidou, Ermioni Malliarou
• GDDAY-DAMT: General Directorate of Forests and Agricultural Affairs - Decentralized
Administration of Macedonia – Thrace. Nikitas Fragiskakis, Fotis Kiourtsis, Paulos Hasilidis,
Iakovos Papadopoulos, Paulos Bekiaroglou
National Focal Points: Vlatko Andonovski, Dalibor Ballian, Davorin Kajba, Heino Konrad, Saša Orlović
Advisory Board members: Sandor Bordacs, Jason Hubert, Mari Rusanen, Ricardo Alia, Bruno Fady;
Ministries GR, D, SI
Homepage: www.lifegenmon.si
Funding: European Union's LIFE financial mechanism (LIFE13 ENV/SI/000148)