Inside perspective on the First Borgotaro MAG Meeting

Stakeholders met in the Tuscan-Emilian community of Borgo Val di Taro to consider the production of their local mushrooms, from supply-oriented to demand-oriented approach.

The meeting was a first attempt to create a common dialogue among the several community forests. It was the first time during the last decades in which the main representatives of the community forests sat around the same table.

The attempt was to group up the common willingness to improve the marketability of the forest service generated in the area. Surprisingly they all discovered that they agree on the need to take action towards a common platform to sell the forest services. Surely, the way to reach the final stage of the platform will be quite long, but, as there is a common view, it will not be impossible to archive the objectives.

The Multi Actor Group meeting was a great opportunity for the two largest community forests to meet for the first time after a decade. The challenge now is to move from a general common idea to improve forest services’ marketability to a final tool to archive it.

Key outcomes from the meeting included: a common willingness to take a common action; using the key forest service, which is recreational wild mushroom collection, as the development drive of the valley; and the recognised need to invest in new marketing strategies to generate income that should be reinvested in the forest.

The next step is the design of the draft structure of the application that will be used to sell forest services of the valley.