Resilient Forest 2023: a resounding success

The 3rd edition of the ‘Resilient Forest’ call for projects in Wallonia was a record success, with 380 projects selected for 253 owners covering a total area of 700 hectares.

Spearheaded by the Minister for Forestry, Céline Tellier, the aim of this programme is to offer assistance to Walloon forest owners to rebuild a more resilient forest, so that it can continue to provide its many ecosystem services: producing quality wood, maintaining biodiversity and landscapes, protecting the soil, regulating the climate, storing CO2, etc.

This year, 4 packages were available to private owners and supervised by Filière Bois Wallonie:

• Fixed price 1 (€500/ha) for the diversification of young stands
• Package 2 (€2,000/ha) as a basic package
• Flat rate 3 (€2,500/ha) for ‘biogenic species’.’
• Package 4 (€3,000/ha) focusing on ‘biodiversity’.

The ‘biogenic species’ and ‘biodiversity’ packages were the most popular, showing a positive trend since the 2021 pilot project. This success exceeded expectations, and the available budget did not allow all the projects to be funded, leading to some disappointment among participants, given that 472 projects were submitted and 380 selected.

In public forests, the 482 projects selected and supervised by the DNF represent some 691 ha of regenerated area for 128 owners.

In 3 years, 3,858 hectares of public and private forests have benefited from «Resilient Forest» support.

A fourth edition is planned and already in the pipeline for 2024. More information on foretresiliente.be