Forum Synergies NewsletterÂ 3/2017

ERSG 2017 Greece : Proceedings and videos available
ERSG 2017 was a strong moment of coming together and exchanging, of ideas and potential projects… The proceedings gather most of the ideas that were exchanged. It is now time to work on the follow-up. Meanwhile, you can watch videos that show different aspects of the gathering: 1/Discovering Rural Greece, 2/Skills to promote exchange between European participants, 3/Local and European solutions to tackle the crisis. Besides, a series of interviews presents participants’ experience, vision or proposals to build a sustainable rural and European future. Enjoy them!

SAVE THE DATE - 2nd European Herb Gathering, April 2018, Romania

The 2nd European Herb Gathering will take place from 27-29 April 2018 in Transylvania, Romania. We will visit local and regional projects like the Transylvanian Herb Garden. We will focus on the contribution of herbal projects to sustainable rural development, the legal framework and seeds. You can let us know the topics you are most interested in by filling in our online questionnaire! We're looking forward to your feedback!

European Rural Parliament 2017: call for a new European fund for community led local development. The ERP 2017 took place a few days ago (October 18th-22th) in Venhorst (The Netherlands). ERP2017 brought to a climax the activities from national and European partners as well as from work on key themes identified in ERP2015. One of the proposals that came out has been a call for a new European fund for community led local development. (see press release , Venhorst declaration and ERP Manifesto)
Forum Synergies has been participating in the ERP and facilitating the Market of Initiatives during the event ; we will soon upload on our Resource Centre the presentations of the initiatives.
Let’s mention that we were inspired by the involvement of local volunteers from Venhorst and surroundings, as well as the experiences we visited as proof of the vitality of Dutch local communities.

First Agroecology Europe Forum : Geyser presents its activities on Farmers Ecological Knowledge. Our colleagues from Geyser have presented a poster on Farmers Ecological knowledge in the frame of the 1st Agroecology Europe Forum. We will share soon with you this information that compiles the results of their work realised with Regional Natural Parks in Provence.

Meeting on Territorial dialogue, water and food in France.
COMEDIE organizes a “National meeting on water and food: what is the role of territorial dialogue in the management of these commons? COMEDIE is a French programme on Territorial Dialogue, Environmental Mediation and Citizen’s participation. This gathering will try to answer to questions such as “Is the dialogue between actors of the territory favourable to the environment? Does more concertation produce more biodiversity, more beautiful landscapes, and better preserved natural resources?
The experiences presented will show that the consensus-building processes and participative approaches are essential to preserve the common goods, to manage conflicts of use or to implement coordinated and effective actions in the territories.
It will be organised in partnership with L’Institut de la Concertation et de la Participation Citoyenne and CIVAM.
A book on “Concertation and environnement: lessons learnt from local experiences” has also been published – in French only.

International Civil Society Programme " On y va". The Robert Bosch Foundation is running the International Civil Society Programme "On y va" . The German-French Program for Socially Committed Citizens is supporting charitable projects . Project teams must have one German, one French partner and a third partner from any other EU country. The range of themes receiving funds is very broad. It is a kind of ideas competition, the selection will be done by online voting. The next round for applications is not yet published. For further information please visit their website!
Seminar for interested persons: 1-3 December 2017 in Berlin.

Anders Wall Award 2017/18: Celebrating rural entrepreneurs - open for applications! Anders Wall Award grants a prize to private individuals who have made a special contribution to the rural environment within the European Union. Eligibility criteria: only private enterprises can enter the competition, their actions must be of importance at multiple levels: local, national and/or European, the actions must be based on the use of quality instruments and management practices which contribute to the improvement of the quality of the environment. Deadline to submit project : December 31, 2017 . Form and detailed information available here.