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From Forests to Framework on the Fall Front: Your Autumn Update from Pilot Projects
- Sarah Rivest
- Sep 13, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 7
Dear Pilot Projects partners and friends,
We’re excited to reconnect and share updates on our ongoing initiatives. This summer our team has been travelling, collaborating with many of you, and recharging for a busy fall. We hope our news brings you the same measure of inspiration and insight as you have brought to us. Everyday we feel stronger that collaboration is essential for everything we accomplish!
We’re excited to extend an invitation to participate in the Future of Forest Work and Communities. The initiative is seeking workshop coordinators and community leaders who want to make a significant impact on youth and local forest communities. In anticipation of the FLARE 2024 annual meeting in Rome, we’re delighted to unveil our newly redesigned Future of Forest Work and Communities website, which includes detailed information on how to submit your expression of interest. This relaunch represents a renewed commitment to deepening our connection and engagement with young people living in forest communities worldwide.
We are currently seeking expressions of interest from workshop coordinators and nominations for community participation.
What would change if the world’s leading practitioners, officials and entrepreneurs in sustainable bio-based buildings committed to working strategically as a global team? We imagine a world where systemic collaboration unlocks the full potential of low-carbon mass timber and bio-based buildings and answers the question of how to scale-up global systems change. Over the past year, Pilot Projects has started a global initiative to boost systemic collaboration and accelerate the forest-positive building sector. While deep systems change is fundamental, this must also be an incremental process that meets ongoing day-to-day needs. Systemic and incremental dimensions are key to our initiative; With a series of national pilots to support adaptive incremental change, and in parallel, the development of a permanent global infrastructure that will serve all collaborators on this shared mission.
The Systemic Collaboration Framework for Forest-positive buildings is being developed in collaboration with the FCLP, several national governments, and intergovernmental institutions such as the FAO and UNEP.
We are now seeking declarations of interest and investment from national governments, the private sector, and NGOs to support the first series of national-level pilots and platform infrastructure development.
Paris Conference on Forests
Pilot Projects has been working with the City of Paris over the past year to plan the 3ème Édition de la Conférence sur la Préservation des Forêts, which will be held in early October. The City of Paris has been an active leader within our Cities4Forests network since endorsing the Cities4Forests Call to Action on Forests and Climate in 2021. The conference will bring together global city and metropolis leaders, civil society actors, forestry professionals, urban planners, and climatologists to discuss the ways that cities can better support and work with global forests and communities looking towards next year’s landmark COP30 event and the 10-year anniversary of the Paris Declaration.
Join us at Upcoming Events
We’re excited to participate in these conferences in the coming months. Please reach out to us if you will also be attending as we would love to connect in person!
Forest Products Association of Canada Policy Conference (Ottawa, Canada; September 18)
New York Climate Week (September 23-27)
10th European Conference on Sustainable Cities & Towns (Aalborg, Denmark; October 1-3)
FLARE Annual Meeting (Rome, Italy; October 3-7)
3ème Édition de la Conférence sur la Préservation des Forêts (Paris, France; October 7)
Land Conservation Resources
Over the past six months our team has partnered with Ducks Unlimited Canada to innovate and pilot a new land conservation easement strategy for ecologically sensitive areas in Eastern Ontario. Amidst this research and development we have assembled an overview of land conservation mechanisms available to landowners interested in conserving their privately owned forest or wetlands for future generations.
WOOD for GLOBE and COFO in Rome:
A global convening on timber construction and forests
Global leaders and experts gathered to discuss the future of building with wood and its potential to drive sustainability and forest restoration.
We proudly contributed to Panel 1 regarding Advancing Sustainable Wood Pathways along with peers from the Canadian Forest Service, the European Wood Policy Platform, the International Sustainable Forestry Coalition, FSC, PEFC and Built by Nature. A key takeaway was the Wood for Globe Outcome Statement, which emphasized the need for collaborative efforts to adopt wood-based solutions across government.
Mass Timber Tipping Point Update
Our team, together with Architecture 2030, are set to conclude our Mass Timber Tipping Point Expertise Exchange Workshops with many of North America’s leading architectural and engineering firms this fall. These workshops have allowed us to better understand the full range of views, challenges, and visions of and for the use of mass timber in the current and future built environment. Information gathered during these sessions will be combined with findings from the project’s State of the System Survey to produce insightful reports and resources, which we plan to preview with workshop participants next year at the Portland Mass Timber Conference. Reach out to us if you’d like to hear more about the project or support a workshop series in your area!
Coming Soon
More on Conservation Timber and the Student Journey from Galway to Guatemala. Stay tuned for updates and in-depth stories in our next newsletter!
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