The goal of B4EST is to increase forest survival, health, resilience and productivity under climate change and natural disturbances, while maintaining genetic diversity and key ecological functions, and fostering a competitive EU bio-based economy. B4EST will provide forest tree breeders, forest managers and owners, and policy makers with: 1) better scientific knowledge on adaptation profiles and sustainable productivity, and added value of raw materials in important European tree species for forestry, 2) new and flexible adaptive tree breeding strategies, 3) tree genotypes of highly adaptive and economical value, 4) decision-support tools for the choice and use of Forest Reproductive Material (FRM) while balancing production, resilience and genetic diversity, including case studies developed with industrial partners, 5) integrative performance models to guide FRM deployment at stand and landscape level, 6) economic analyses of risks/benefits/costs, and 6) policy recommendations. B4EST will capitalise on the resources developed by past and current EU projects to produce -together with tree breeders, forest managers and owners, and the industry- operational solutions to better adapt forests to climate change and reinforce the competitiveness of the EU forest-based sector. To cover the geographical, economic and societal needs of forestry in the EU, B4EST will work with 8 (six native, two non-native) conifers and broadleaves with advanced breeding programmes (Norway spruce, Scots pine, maritime pine, poplars, Douglas-fir, eucalypts) or that are case studies of pest-threatened forests (ash) or valuable non-wood products (stone pine). Our approach will result in a high degree of data and knowledge integration, involving multiple and new target traits and their trade-offs; genomic information; temporal and spatial assessments in a wide range of environments; stakeholder demands; and forest owner and manager risk perception and acceptability of new breeding strategies.

The Intergenerational Open Geospatial Carbon Registry (OGCR) aims to create: 1) updateable baseline geospatial layers for soil, biomass and peat for pan-EU, 2) a hybrid modelling framework to explore management changes in CAP and CRCF initiatives, and 3) a globally applicable open geospatial carbon registry, servicing pan-EU. We will use a genuinely transparent stakeholder co-design & consultative development process to build software interfacing between CRCF and CAP activities with mandatory and voluntary markets. Above and below ground carbon reduction and farming activities will be measured, monitored and independently verified. The system will attract both small and big landholder participation through 1) an innovative geospatial carbon accountancy framework that fairly rewards landholders for avoiding and sequestering carbon over generations, 2) applicability to all lands independent of management, and 3) easy access to geospatial information on past, present and possible future states for soil carbon, biomass and peat soils under different managements. Geospatial hazards and risks, including those related to climate change, will be scientifically based and user accessible. Economic and environmental impact evaluations will be widely available to aid landholders and project developers to assess potential for entering the nascent EU CRCF markets. OGCR will rely on an underlying statistical unification of common MRV approaches, both direct measurement, modelled and hybrid approaches, through their uncertainty metrics; and on a socially responsible and ecologically valid economic framework for their temporal valuation through time. OGCR will be built in the open view of the stakeholder community by the open source community, under scientific supervision and iteratively developed. OGCR will be free and clear of any restrictive copyright for claims, licensed under permissive Creative Commons licenses and connected to vendored services in a free-market dynamic.