Multifunctional forests offer diversified opportunities of sustainably optimising the usage of natural resources and creating rural development opportunities. That is why they play a key role in the successful implementation of the EU bioeconomy strategy.

In order to explore innovative approaches in creating new values from multifunctional forests the EIP-AGRI network organised, with the support of the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture, a two-day workshop in Vienna on 10-11 November 2016.

More than 80 participants from 20 Member States attended the event and shared practical experiences in establishing new value chains from multifunctional forests. The value chain examples were diverse and included leisure services, food, non-food and agroforestry products, such as the use of cork for 3D-printing, birch sap, drinks made from spruce needles, fees for recreational mushroom picking or woodland eggs