The next edition of the Mediterranean Forest Week (MFW) will take place from 4 to 8 November 2024 and will focus on the restoration of forest ecosystems in the Mediterranean region.  

The MFW serves as a platform for cooperation among researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders, fostering dialogue on the challenges faced by Mediterranean forests. 

It is one of the highlights of the Mediterranean forest calendar, offering the opportunity for networking, brainstorming and solution sharing on the most crucial issues for Mediterranean forests. The MFW brings the Mediterranean forest community together for a deep dive into what is happening today and for the future in Mediterranean forests. 

Mediterranean forests are part of multifaceted landscapes strongly marked by centuries of human intervention, thus representing the most important ecological infrastructure of the region. They provide valuable ecosystem services (non-wood forest products, soil erosion control, water regulation, carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, and climate change mitigation), some of which go through robust value chains to reach the market. 

Despite an increase of 1.8 million hectares of forest between 2010 and 2015, the region has 80 million hectares of degraded land, including forests. More than 400 000 hectares of forests are burned annually, and at least 16 percent of animal and plant species in Mediterranean forests are threatened with extinction due to global threats such as climate change. Several studies identified the Mediterranean area as one of the two regions most affected by climate change, causing biotic and abiotic changes.  

Forest restoration has become a major tool for restoring degraded landscapes in many regions, including the Mediterranean area, where it is of increasing interest, and several successful projects have been initiated. As cultural landscapes and semi-natural habitats are also highly important for biodiversity conservation and provide particular ecosystem services, restoration projects, and nature conservation efforts should carefully balance the benefits of different habitat types for the eco-social development of the region.  

The challenge is to conserve the main cultural landscapes and to restore the most degraded or threatened ecosystems while embodying the Ten Restoration Principles of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. For this purpose, World Restoration Flagships of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration identify the best practices of large-scale and long-term ecosystem restoration. The Mediterranean region and the Restoring Mediterranean Forests Flagship, provide inspiration and bring examples of success.  

The 8MFW aims to highlight and propose efforts in the region that fall under the ongoing global commitments and initiatives on restoration, such as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and the Bonn Challenge, as well as on the promotion of biodiversity, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The 8MFW will focus on the strategic role of restoration in adapting Mediterranean forest ecosystems to climate change impacts. Long-term forest restoration strategies can increase the resilience of Mediterranean forests to the effects of global changes and unsustainable management practices.  

Building on the efforts of the past two MFWs, the role of younger generations in the forest sector of the region will also be key in the eighth edition. The week represents a space to explore the opportunities and challenges faced by Mediterranean forests to provide jobs and socio-economic opportunities to young people and forest-dependent communities. 

As the Youth Statement of the 7MFW presented, Mediterranean youth are essential in the forestry sector and in forest-based value chains. However, they still face several challenges, among which unemployment, lack of financial opportunities and lack of inclusion and participation in local and international decision-making. The 8MFW will offer an opportunity and platform to promote youth exchanges, facilitated through the newly launched Mediterranean Youth Task Force (MYTF), which represents the youth branch of Silva Mediterranea.