FS Newsletter 1/2018: Herb gathering, Forestry workshop, Eucan study tours, Environmental Dialogue...

3rd Forestry Workshop will be organised on October 2018 in Estonia
From 18 - 21st October 2018, the 3rd workshop in a series of four will be held in Alutaguse Parish, Estonia. Co-organising partners will be the Estonian Fund for Nature and EuCAN UK.
The main objectives will be to build on the findings of the first workshops which established and tested Four Key Principles of Sustainability. This workshop will examine how far these principles are delivered by forestry practices in a northern European context. It will also raise awareness of the wider benefits of sustainable forestry management and the services it provides by promoting discussion and exchange of good and/ or innovative practices. A draft programme will be published in June and registrations will open in August. For more information about our goals and the outputs from the previous two workshops please check our website.

2nd European Herb Gathering in April 2018: “Let’s talk about “Common Goods", "Traditional knowledge" and "Legislative Framework"

The draft programme and background information are available on our website! Registration is still open until the 6th of April 2018 (Waiting list!).
The evaluation of the online questionnaire shows that there is a big interest esp. in the topic of "Common Goods", "Traditional knowledge" and "Legislative Framework". We will focus our preparation work on these topics!
New initiatives and success stories are also presented on our website. E.g. from Austria the TEH (Traditional European Medicine) Network and a scientific research related to guided wild plant tours and their contributions to the cultural transmission of knowledge, in the city of Vienna. We will learn more from them during the Market of Initiatives!

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Study tours organised by EUCAN.
· Study tour to Serbia, Vojvodina, April 23rd-28th 2018.
Participants will look at look at the problems of managing nature and farmland in an accession country against the complications of climate change. More information here.
· 10th International Scything and Haymaking Festival, RO. EuCAN will be taking a group to the Festival in the eastern area of Transylvania by Attila Sarig and the Pogany-Havas Association in conjunction with the Barbara Knowles Fund. We will be attending the first week 15th - 22nd July. There will be a second week from 28th July to 5th August.

Western Balkans' potential for sustainable rural development as a driver to EU integration" - Conference at the European Parliament 22 May 2018. Slow Food Balkans will organise Terra Madre Balkans 2018 in Brussels on 22 and 23 May as a forum for policy debates, food tastings and networking with local producers of artisan food from the Western alkan in order to raise the awareness of the rich biodiversity and potential of this region. On 22 May, a conference will be hosted at the European Parliament on the topic "Western Balkans' potential for sustainable rural development as a driver to EU integration".

The minutes of COMEDIE “National meeting on water and food: what is the role of territorial dialogue in the management of these commons? are available (in French). This gathering included theoretical inputs on « Common Goods » and their collective management, with references to Elinor Ostrom's work. One of the observations highlighted that the increase of consensus-building processes and participative approaches in the environmental domain in France – specially related to water management - has led to more professionalisation, development of training and reflections on methods but there is still space improvement to fill the gap between consultation and involvement in decision aspects. The need of combination between official procedures and more informal moments was also stressed.
Participants were involved to share « useful elements based on their own experience to feed the reflection on methods, which is one of COMEDIE’s purpose : « How to build dialogue between experts and laypersons’knowledge”; How to involve citizens in the participative processes ?; What is farmers ‘role in these processes ; Do these approaches help taking better decisions to preserve common goods? were some questions among others.
The experiences presented showed inspiring examples where these approaches helped to preserve the common goods, to manage conflicts or to implement coordinated and effective actions related to agriculture and food in the territories.

EU Consultation on CAP and rural policies : Public consultation on rural development programmes 2007-2013. The Commission (DG AGRI) launched a public consultation on rural development programmes (Jan 22) to feed into ongoing preparatory work on the design of EU farm policy post-2020. The main objective of the survey is to obtain an overview from beneficiaries on the strengths & weaknesses of measures implemented under the CAP’s 2nd Pillar for the period 2007-2013. EU citizens, farm/business organisations, public authorities, stakeholders, NGOs & interested parties have until April 20, 2018 to submit their responses.

Videos on traditional irrigation systems. Watch these 2 short videos to know "What are traditional irrigation systems?" and "Why are traditional irrigation systems important?"from MEMOLA project (Mediterranean Mountainous Landscapes), which involves local people, farmers and researchers, some of whom we visited in Sierra Nevada (Spain) last year.