THE PROJECT

"INTERWOOD - The lowland woodland owners network" is a transnational co-operation project promoted by GAL Venezia Orientale and financed through the Leader + Programme Action 2 . INTERWOOD will be realised with the partnership of LeaderOeste, the Portuguese GAL.
INTERWOOD has been specially designed to create an international network between lowland woodland owners (associations members or individuals).
The project aims to exchange and share different experiences on woodland preservation and management, by promoting the initiatives of each association, by developing the lowland woodland resource, by providing information, assistance, consulting, researching and technicians.
The INTERWOOD project, which started in 2004 and will last for 3 years (2004 to 2006), will progress in four phases:

1. logo construction and web design
2. definition of the web contents, and their organization in homepage, menu, submenu
3. website construction and translation into Italian and Portuguese, the partners languages, and English, to allow the access to a wide public. The website will be a focus for a rich range of promotion actions, in order to exchange information (also through forums, didactic video clips, e-learning, etc), to collect data and to inform of the latest news regarding woodland properties and the related forestry associations.
4. construction of an interactive database, to collect and analyse scientific and technical estimates of the woodlands related to the various lowland associations, regarding the forestry management, the conversion of agricultural land to woodland, the timber commerce, the eco- certification and the carbon emission credits trading. The data-base will contain photos, reports, cartography, tables, technical data and everything can be useful to illustrate the forestry associations initiatives, all classified under standard codes.
Each phase will be supported by the convenient communication actions regarding the project targets and objectives, as well as the contents to begin the discussion with on the forestry subject.

CRONOPROGRAMMA

2004:
a) arranging a first conference, at the launch of the project, to present it to the public
b) arranging a workshop, to share the experiences gained during the project progress

2005:
a) arranging a second workshop, to share the experiences gained during the first year of the project
b) arranging a second conference at a international level, to present the whole project, the achieved targets and the proposals for the prosecution of the network

2006:
a) arranging the third and last workshop, to share the project end result. Each event will be supported by the convenient informative products (brochures, conference folders, CD-ROMs containing the proceedings and other information).
Finally, regarding the specific promotional actions, we intend to exchange and share know-how through:
· discussion forums
· technical-scientific documents to be published into forestry magazines
· press releases, articles on newspapers/forestry magazines to promote the use of wood, the carbon emission credits trading, the eco-certification and the sustainable development
· participation at international events to spread the projects objectives and targets