"The project ""Network of knowledge for efficient private forests - Net4Forest (2018 -2021)"" aimed to develop and promote the vocational education and training for private forest owners. Behind the delivery of the many services that forests provide are people - forest owners with a wide range of skills. The increasing multifunctional role of forests in the transition to a sustainable future requires more skills. Information on the marketing of forest products and valuation of forest services is widely available in the participating countries and in the EU, but there is a lack of information, guidelines and training materials suitable for practical application by forest owners. Therefore, the main long-term objective of Net4Forest was to develop training materials and practical tools for forest owners to increase income from their forests.Experts from 5 European countries (Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia, Sweden and Spain) participated in the Net4Forest project. They all have different knowledge and traditions in managing private forests. The exchange of knowledge, experience and examples of good practice between the project partners gave us the opportunity to develop innovative training and information materials.The main target groups involved in this project were: trainers (they served as a tool to reach the large groups of private forest owners), forest owners (they were directly involved through local seminars), different stakeholders from the forest sector (especially educational and training organizations) and young people just entering the forest sector (students, young practitioners were involved through the presentation of tools through different social media platforms).Developed intellectual outputs represent a collection of existing knowledge and newly developed tools. They were presented and discussed in different events. Organized events provided an opportunity to raise awareness among all the target groups involved and beyond. A knowledge network was established by PP through events for the training of staff (Training of trainers - LTT). A total of 4 pieces of training were organized with 112 participants. During the trainings, trainers had the opportunity to learn from each other, share experiences and existing knowledge. Local seminars in each country (we organized 11 seminars in total) were organized to test and promote the project results and outcomes among the project target groups. We directly involved 360 participants in these seminars. At the end of the project, an international final conference was organized where we presented the project results and outcomes with 83 participants. Throughout the project, we used promotional and informational materials to share useful knowledge and information with our target groups. We published 21 articles and more than 60 posts and news on different internet platforms and social media, together reaching more than 60,000 people."

Forest policy and decision makers are challenged by the need to balance the increasing demand for forest-based services (e.g. recreation, protection, conservation) and wood-based products (e.g. timber, fuelwood) with the foreseen scarcity of supply in different situations as for example disturbances (e.g. wildfires, droughts). Under these circumstances research on the impacts of different disturbances on the supply of services and goods is needed. To achieve these multipurpose forest managements and to integrate risk and uncertainty, New tools and models are needed. Furthermore, these tools and models may help to develop new policies that target the achievement of certain level of services while sustaining a certain level of goods supply. This project will take advantage of the knowledge on these topics in European and American organizations. It will further serve to exchange and generate knowledge on multipurpose forests, addressing risk and uncertainty as well as to strengthen research collaboration through active networking, staff exchange and dissemination activities between the participants.

In the Mediterranean area there are plenty of small-scale farms due to the land distribution by legacy and to geographical aspects characterized by mountainous areas. Many entrepreneurs have seen medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs), known as well as herbs, as an alternative crop to be implemented in these areas where traditional ones (cereal, vineyard, olive trees…) have no place because they are not profitable. Also people escaping from urban areas due the economic crisis see an opportunity in this.But then they face to the reality: the small productions are not enough to bulk-selling to wholesalers, and decide to elaborate products made of herbs to sell directly to consumer. So they have to deal with different aspects (processing, safety aspects, norms and procedures, marketing, etc.) that go far beyond those simply producing herbs (cultivating and raw material transformation). Even more, most of them have not the capacity to invest in expensive industrial equipments, so they focus in producing in a high quality and traditional way, becoming herbal craftsmen.But there no exists specific legal regulation for this profession, so no specialised training is addressed for this craftsmanship.The main objective of HERBARTIS project is to achieve the professional development of adult learners by developing useful tools and methods, improving the offer of high quality learning opportunities, and validating the non-formal learning and career guidance. For this reason its specific objective is to provide educators with all the competences and skills needed to deliver high quality services and to develop training tools addressed to adult learners from the primary agricultural production to achieve professional skills’ recognition of craft processing of aromatic and medicinal plants for obtaining high quality products.A partnership of different Mediterranean organisations dealing with education, research, rural development and business assessment within the medicinal and aromatic plants’ production, industrial processing, quality and marketing will work together with this aim: Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya and Institut de Recerca i Tecnologies Agroalimentàries (Spain), Université Européenne des Senteurs & Saveurs (France), Associação para o Desenvolvimento do Concelho de Moura (Portugal), Associazione Terre dei Savoia and Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricultura e l'Analisi dell'Economia Agraria (Italy).To reach the objectives the methodology is based in knowing deeply the herbs craft’s production sector needs, the existing training, designing a new curricula and the syllabus of a blended course (virtual/face-to-face), developing a high quality learning material according to technical and legal requirements and implementing a useful, practical and reachable training to adult learners using ICT tools and transnational mobilities, to enhance the peer-learning and the contact with existing businesses.So, 4 blended courses on herbal craft’s production will be implemented, one per country. Each course will have an on-line course, face-to-face practical workshops and virtual networking activities. These courses will be complemented with transnational training activities (one per country) where a technical seminar, networking workshops and professional visits to sector’s companies will take place. 4 intellectual outputs are previewed:- Guidelines of training methodologies and policy recommendations for qualification recognition of herbal craft’s production (book and reports).- E-learning platform on herbal craft’s production (Moodle).- Syllabus of a blended course on herbal craft’s production (brochure)- Training materials on herbal craft’s production (course texts, training videos, seminars’ proceedings, herbal companies’ reports, networking conclusions).This project will allow participating partners’ staff improving their teaching skills on MAPs processing and find a common workspace to strengthen their collaboration, enhancing the knowledge chain, technology transfer and networking with MAPs sector stakeholders. Adult learners participating in blended courses will have the opportunity to improve multilingualism, technical, digital and social skills, and to interact with other learners and realities in the blended transnational mobilities. Other MAPs sector stakeholders (producers, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, companies, students) and education providers will be able to access to open educational resources that will improve their knowledge and training opportunities. Finally, the guidelines provided by the project will be useful to influence education, agriculture, industry and business' decision makers about the sector requirements and training needs, and strengthen the network with MAPs sector stakeholders and professional associations from other countries, in order to address to similar problems and jointly find solutions and driving specifications proposals to policy makers.