RiForMa

Project objective and activities:

The project objective is to develop the ecosystem service evaluation tool with integration into the forest management platform LVM GEO - an easy-to-use tool for riparian forest owners, where they can model future scenarios on their property, offering different management alternatives.

The tool is necessary for all owners of riparian lands in LV and EE. It is expected that 20 000 of 300 000 forest owners in both countries will be bound by such a solution in the management of their riparian forests.

The project activities include preparatory work for evaluation of ecosystem services, elaboration of the set of indicators and methods for quantification of the service supply, collection of the data on current situation for the modeling tool, the modeling tool development, the testing of scenarios and 
integration of the ecosystem service evaluation tool into forest management planning system LVM GEO. Various forest management works will be implemented in the demonstration areas to model their impact on various ecosystem services. The partners will disseminate the results at practical and theoretical levels for different stakeholders (forest owners, ministries, general public, etc.). Seminars and workshops will be conducted for forest owners in Estonia and Latvia to introduce the use of the IT solutions in forest management. Estonian forest owners will visit Latvian demonstration areas and vice versa. The owners of both countries will have the opportunity to meet and discuss newly developed technologies and their possibilities, as well as do networking on forest management.

Links to partners’ websites: 

• http://www.silava.lv
• https://www.emu.ee/
• www.lvm.lv
• https://mezaipasnieki.lv
• https://www.loodushoiufond.ee/