SolClimatForêt®: A forest diagnosis solution

CFBL is a French forest cooperative regrouping more than 16.000 adherents/forest owners. Our mission is to support our adherents in managing their forests, from planting to harvesting and timber marketing. The main concern of our adherents is to produce quality wood while ensuring that healthy and productive forests are passed on to future generations. In a context of climate change, it has become essential to analyse each forest more precisely before taking action. This is why the SolClimatForêt® project was created.

SolClimatForêt® is a decision support tool that combines soil and station surveys (carried out by our forest technicians) with local climate data (past data and future projections based on the 6th IPCC report with a precision of 1km) to suggest a list of tree species supposedly suitable today and in the future. SolClimatForêt® can be used for all forest regeneration projects, but also to assess whether an existing forest stand still has long-term viability. It is an Android application designed for mobile use, functioning both online and offline.

Currently, SolClimatForêt® is an internal tool, but our ambition is to make it available to other French forest cooperatives and forestry stakeholders, and why not to European forestry stakeholders. We are also eager to collaborate with other organizations — especially scientific institutions — that could help us enrich the database and enhance the overall efficiency of SolClimatForêt®.

Potential future developments

SolClimatForêt® is a new decision support tool that is still evolving and can be further improved. Opening it up to other French and European forestry stakeholders and collaborating with external partners — especially scientific institutions — would contribute to its development. Integrating new parameters could enhance its effectiveness, and the growing database of past diagnoses will allow for more precise recommendations through statistical analysis.

A SolClimatForêt® diagnosis helps ensure that the right species is planted in the right place. A species planted on a well-adapted site will grow better, produce more wood and capture more carbon. Moreover, if the wood is of high quality, it can be used in long-lasting product, allowing the carbon to remain stored throughout the product’s entire lifespan.

Wood is a key material in the ecological transition and offers a sustainable solution to limit our environmental impact. SolClimatForêt® supports foresters in making the right decisions today to

secure tomorrow’s wood supply. Thanks to innovations like this, the European timber industry will continue to have access to a reliable and sustainable wood resource.

Current contribution

SolClimatForêt® is a decision support tool designed to help foresters address the challenges of climate change. In some regions, forests will inevitably evolve: certain tree species may disappear and others will need to be introduced to replace them — this is the principle of assisted tree migration. Foresters carry a great responsibility today when selecting these species: they must be well-adapted to local conditions, cause minimal disruption to existing ecosystems, and provide the wood resources essential to the European timber industry. SolClimatForêt® is here to support foresters in that mission.

Furthermore, a SolClimatForêt® diagnosis can help avoid costly planting failures and can encourage reforestation of plots that are sometimes left abandoned. This could stimulate tree planting activity and the employment it generates. Moreover, the introduction of “new species”, often Mediterranean species, will require collaboration between European countries on the tree seeds market and the sharing of knowledge based on local field experience.

SolClimatForêt® is a “Made in Europe” innovation, built upon European research and databases. It reflects the commitment of European stakeholders to take climate change seriously and to actively try to mitigate its impact on our forests.