Copy of FME 2023 - Poland (for co-organisers)

The Forest Movement Europe (FME) is an open, informal network of European NGOs and individuals using social justice to protect and restore forests. We have an Annual Gathering once per year to share information and develop joint strategies, and maintain a mailing list to regularly share information and coordinate joint campaigning on forests. Since its creation in 1989, the FME has helped incubate numerous cross-organisational campaigns, and helped share information about key upcoming threats to forests. More information about the FME can be found here: https://forestmovementeurope.org/

This year’s FME Annual Gathering will be held from 13-15 June 2023 in Teremiski, Poland, on the edge of Białowieża forest– Europe’s very last remaining lowland primeval forest, which the Polish forest movement has been fighting hard in recent years to defend. We will be hosted by one of the NGOs who has been leading that fight, Workshop for All Beings (Pracownia na rzecz Wszystkich Istot). We will spend time in the forest and see some of the consequences of the damaging logging in recent years, and hear about the inspiring fight of the Polish forest movement to defend it. We will also enjoy spending time together and making new connections and campaign ideas!

Immediately before the FME Gathering, on the 12 June, will be the annual meeting of the Environmental Paper Network (EPN), to discuss context & strategy on the destructive impacts of the global pulp & paper industry, and of the global biomass industry.

You can attend both the FME and the EPN if you’re interested in biomass or pulp & paper, or just the FME if you aren’t!

On the agenda for the FME (TBC):

• The fight of the Polish forest movement to defend Białowieża, including some of the different tactics they have used, most recently a successful lawsuit in the European Court of Justice to stop the logging. They also want our support in terms of bringing political visibility to their fight, including a new proposal for the legal protection of Bialowieza will be ready, and they want to keep forests on the agenda in the context of the Polish national election campaign. We will go visit Bialowieza as well, and look amongst other things at the consequences of the damaging logging in 2017, which was stopped thanks to a successful challenge at the European Court of Justice.

• Forests in a changing climate: what does adaptation mean? Lots of different strategies are proposed: from ecological restoration aiming to increase biodiversity (less controversial), all the way to assisted species migration and genetically-engineered trees (super controversial). What do people think?

• Clearcut for the bioeconomy? Bioeconomy is conceived as an economy beyond fossil raw materials and based on renewable raw materials like wood and timber. However, forests and other ecosystems are under extreme pressure from high-intensity land use and biomass is a scarce resource. Additional material and energy uses within a bioeconomy exacerbate the prevailing crises - the biodiversity, climate and food crises. At this session, we learn about current bioeconomy discourses and politics in different European countries with focus on the NGO perspectives. We discuss strategies and synergies, in order to prevent the exploitation of forests in the name of the bioeconomy.

• Inclusivity in forest policy discussions: in light of constructed hierarchies of knowledge, and inequalities in our societies, how do we ensure everyone affected by forest policies is actually able to participate in how they are shaped (both within NGO circles and within policy-making circles)?

• Mining & forests: what are the forest & land rights impacts of the skyrocketing demand for minerals due to the renewable energy transition and consumer electronics?

• The EU deforestation-free products regulation: this was just agreed in December and offers new opportunities to defend both European & tropical forests: we will discuss what these are & how to use them