Empowering small-holder private forest owners in Europe by innovative business opportunities in forest-based bioeconomy value chains: the SMURF Forest Owners project

Europe’s forests are owned by an estimated 20 million landowners, of which about half are privately owned and 65% are smaller than 100 ha. A large share are small-scale properties where management is inefficient or neglected because it is no longer economically viable. The rural exodus exacerbates declining land use and even land abandonment: a new generation of landowners with more urban lifestyles loses interest in forest and the knowledge to manage it. This leads to higher disturbance risks, a declining provision of ecosystem services, and lower resilience against climate change. On the other hand, the emerging bioeconomy creates new opportunities for value chains based on biomaterials and ecosystem services, which could translate into a source of income for landowners. The SMURF Forest Owners project WP3 Task 3.1 studies these opportunities by addressing the entire range of timber products, non-wood forest products (NWFP), ecosystem services, and cultural uses. The objectives are i) to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework for innovative forest uses and value chains, ii) to map a collection of good practice examples across the framework from European regions, and iii) to assess their potential for delivering higher value added to forest owners from a holistic sustainability point of view. By means of literature review and expert interviews, both traditional and innovative uses are studied. Abandoned traditional uses are of interest if they might be revived by enhancing their profitability, e.g. by improved technology. Innovative forest uses address novel products, services, markets, and business models, ranging from low tech to high tech solutions, e.g. with digital tools. The initial results highlight various interesting innovation fields such biochar, engineered wood products, NWFP markets, carbon certificates, biodiversity conservation and nature credits, and recreation. A series of 25 local demonstration projects was launched together with forest owner associations from different countries to further test and evaluate the solutions, which include as well cooperative models and progressive forest management approaches to overcome structural barriers. The results will inform the foundation of a European network of smallholder forest owner initiatives which aims to revitalize rural forest regions through knowledge exchange and joint policy advocacy. SMURF project has been funded by the European Commission under Horizon Europe grant no. 101135516 from 2024-2027.