Inside perspective on the second Russian MAG Meeting

For our second MAG meeting, that took place on 29^th of March, 2019 in CEPF RAS, Moscow, we chose to change the format drastically, compared to the first one. Unlike the first, the second meeting was designed as a scientific conference. An expert group of forest scientists, forestry officials, business people and politicians was invited to discuss the possibility of introducing multipurpose forest use in Russia.

We presented them our plans and ideas, as well as all the major issues, discussed with stakeholders during the first MAG meeting. After that, the experts got an opportunity to speak out and ask questions on any aspect they found worth discussing.

Exchange of views proved to be fruitful, the experts shared some interesting experiences with us, mostly related to the zoning approach to multipurpose forest management and FES evaluation, which could be possibly incorporated into our Innovation Action (IA); we also got some information about our precursors who tried to develop a similar project and the reasons why they failed.

It’s safe to say that we learned much during the meeting, and will use a lot of it in the future development process. At the end of the meeting all the participants received questionnaires that were designed to bring together their opinions on different issues within the IA.