Apply participatory forest planning for sustainability: Robinwood Plus
Rural areas still need to bridge the gap that differentiate their growth to that of urban areas, by finding their own route to sustainable development through natural resources exploitation. Main project theme is FORESTRY as key resource for rural development, environment protection and quality of life, as it  is addressed not only by EU policies (eg. EU Forestry Action Plan) but also by the regional policies of all the partners involved, mostly in their rural development plans or structural funds plans.
The project idea was born out of previous successful Interreg III C  projects (Robinwood, RURAL Innova, etc) devoted to sustainable rural development. Whilst the previous projects have allowed the project partners to increase their knowledge on this issue and have allowed the local stakeholders to start activating locally, there is now a need  to keep momentum, to promote a more systematic approach (in terms of policy and governance) to the revitalization of rural areas and
to pave the way for future investments. 

The partnership, built around the former "Robinwood" leader Regione Liguria -centrally positioned-, comprises representatives from each EU area:  Kainuu (North), Hargita (East), Limousin (West) and Calabria (South). They share the same high forestry potential, as well as the same problems  and aims, though they have gained different experiences and practices. 

The lack of entrepreneurship in rural areas and the presence of  forest-products-related SMEs with little market power are important issues for all, therefore this proposal focuses on  priority 1, sub-theme  "Entrepreneurship and SMEs". In order to foster forestry role for rural development we need to improve regional and local governance and policies especially in the field of information to and involvement of private stakeholders (such as land owners or forest businesses, mainly SMEs), of development of entrepreneurship in many sectors (industry, tourism, craftsmanship, energy),  of
technical and management innovation of existing businesses, of funding.
PARTICIPATORY FORESTRY PLANNING is considered by alla project partners (though at different levels of application) as a global public governance tool for sustainable land management addressing all those issues at a time with the involvement of local stakeholders.
The project will therefore focus on the identification of best practices -and of their exchange- about the methodology for the application of quality participatory forest planning, that is, able to take into account local needs and global competitiveness. This exchange will take place at partners level as well as at subprojects level.
Final main outputs will be common guidelines for application of quality participatory forest planning to improve governance and common policy recommendations for forestry economy development targeted at  both regional (eg. in view of the new programming period 2014-2020) and EU policies.