Perturbations forestières, risque, réponse aux calamités

Woodsapp is a digital platform designed to serve both forest owners and forestry organizations through two complementary solutions: a mobile app for landowners and a professional tool, Woodsapp Pro, for service providers and organizations.
For landowners, Woodsapp is an easy-to-use mobile application that brings forest status, tasks, and professional contacts directly to your phone – no matter where your forest is located. It makes forest ownership easier, more transparent, and more productive – especially when managing the forest remotely.
Developed by a Finnish company with a strong forestry technology background, Woodsapp is already available in Germany and Austria, with expansion underway across Europe. The app is designed to help forest owners manage their assets more effectively, address climate-related risks such as insect outbreaks, and stay connected with service providers and other stakeholders through transparent collaboration and easy communication.

What do you gain as a forest owner with Woodsapp?
- Know your boundaries and find your way: See your property location and borders of neighbors accurately and use the app for navigation in the forest
- Check forest health at a glance: Get real-time insights into forest condition and changes through satellite monitoring and official map data sources
- Get alerts early: Receive automatic notifications about early-stage risks detected by satellite monitoring – helping you plan timely actions.
- Keep everything organized: Tasks, notes, photos, and documents are saved on the map – no more scattered papers or lists.
- Easily share your information: Share your stored data, including location and attachments, with forestry professionals using Woodsapp in their organizations.
- Stay up to date: Receive location-based news, guidance, and support opportunities directly in your pocket – tailored to your specific forest area by relevant organizations.
- Work in the ground even with poor connection: app includes offline mode to work fully in offline.
 
What does Woodsapp Pro offer to organizations and service providers?
- Reach a large number of scattered forest owners easily and in a targeted way.
- Share timely information, such as available subsidies, recommendations, or upcoming operations, directly through the app.
- Manage fieldwork, send updates, and track task progress in real time.
- Keep customers updated about the statuses of the agreed tasks automatically with notifications
- Collect data from the field through mobile app (also offline mode) and receiving tasks with all the info needed (location, files, images, maps)
- Communicate effectively with landowners and teams - Centralize task-related information and reduce the need for emails or phone calls.

In drinking water protection zones (DWPZ) it may be necessary to transform forest stands which are not site-conform into more stable stands. During this process it can occur that the tree species which are not site-conform become a source of wood through the specific silvicultural transformation strategies. The amount of achievable wood is medium, as the timber-cutting activities have to be in line with the requirements for DWPZ. In Austria the main tree species in such situations will be Norway spruce (Picea abies). In DWPZ the amount of timber (wood) achievable through forest stand transformation strategies can be given but is limited as the guidelines for silviculture in DWPZ have to be applied. Hence no clear-cut activities are allowed there. Despite this fact it will be necessary to transform homogeneous spruce plantations into more stable forest stands. This process will release a limited amount of timber (wood). Cutting of Norway spruce in DWPZ which grows on sites which are not adequate for it in terms of forest ecosystem stability could yield medium amounts of wood. This process of cutting Norway spruce on sites of e.g. beech forest hydrotopes will last until the forest transformation is fulfilled. In all cases the guarantee of forest ecosystem stability is more important than the amount of timber yield. Hence the quantities of timber released in DWPZ will be limited in all cases.

The CIFA is a regulated savings product, subscribed with Crédit Agricole, whose objective is to encourage wood mobilization by creating financial savings.  
Any natural or legal person who owns forest plots that have taken out storm risk insurance can build up savings.
A CIFA can be opened with a financial institution holding a deposit account or with an insurance company.
The funds placed in this account come only from the income from logging and will be used to finance work to reconstitute forest plots after disasters (health, climate, weather or fire-related risks) or routine forestry work (brush clearing) for the prevention of these risks.

CIFA helps improve sustainable forest management and requires owners to take out storm insurance. It promotes logging and therefore mobilisation by allowing 3/4 exemption from wealth tax and transfer duties.
Without the CIFA, an owner who cut his wood was taxed 100% on the ISF. To keep a tax advantage, he left his forest standing without cutting. The CIFA then makes it possible to market wood that would have remained standing.

Owners can invest up to 2 500 €/ha of insured forest. They can withdraw at any time up to 30% of the total sum of the CIFA per year for current works and up to 100% for works following a disaster. To open an account, the owner must have an insurance certificate, a sustainable management document and a notarized property certificate.
The remuneration is fixed in the contract. In Aquitaine, the CIFA of Crédit Agricole d'Aquitaine sets a rate of return of 2 to 2.5%/year.
The duration of the contract is 10 years.
It allows 75% of the sums deposited there and the interest they generate from the sale of timber to be exempt from wealth tax, gift tax or inheritance tax. The tax benefits are then the same as for standing forests.

The Caisse Phyto Forêt, a South-West France forest protection and provident fund, was created at the initiative of the South-West France Forestry Syndicate in 2013 to provide concrete phytosanitary solutions for the Landes de Gascogne massif. The purpose of this association (law 1901) is to act in matters of uninsurable phytosanitary risks. The Caisse Phyto Forêt is working on the development of a method to prevent the contamination of stumps and healthy trees by the fomes, a root fungus that causes significant damage to conifers by reducing the quality of the wood and causing mortality in stands.

Currently, the dosage of the blue dye recommended by the manufacturer does not allow, in certain cases, to sufficiently color the product and to verify the correct application of the product. It would be necessary to multiply by 3 or 4 the dose of dye necessary, meaning an additional cost for the operator and thus the forest owner.
Operators and contractors must undergo training to obtain a plant protection product certificate (CERTI-PHYTO).
It is now necessary to communicate more widely with the foresters of the massif in order to encourage them to treat the strains and stem the spread of contaminations.

In order to avoid contamination of the stands, the treatment against fomes is applied to each cut of wood (depressing, thinning, and clearcutting). The product to be used is a powder to be diluted in water containing spores and mycelia of a fungus endemic to the massif, the Phlebiopsis gigantea natural strain VRA-1835, with an antagonistic action to the development of the resinous fomes. The only one approved in France is the Rotstop, manufactured and sold by AROLE. As the mixture is colourless, a blue dye should be added to check the correct spray on the stumps.
Application must be made within 3 hours after cutting, either by manual painting or mechanical spraying by adapting systems at the harvester head: using a guide spraying the product through holes distributed along the guide, or with a nozzle that sprays the product in a single outlet. The solution is then spread over the stumps when the trees are cut.
Loggers need to equip their machines with one of two systems to automate processing.
Treatment can take place throughout the year and to be effective, 80% of stumps must be treated.

Groupama Forêts Assurances is a solidarity and responsible mutual insurance company specialising in forest insurance.
Since the 1960s, the mutual has been investing in the purchase of real estate in Bordeaux. It was able to compensate silviculturists following the storms.  
Since 2017, the State has decided to stop helping foresters to restore their forests after a storm has passed. It is necessary to promote forest insurance as one of the first acts of sustainable management in order to provide financial resources to restore the forest after a disaster and to secure the heritage.
Their objective today is to extend forest insurance to any forest owner with a sustainable management document.

 - securing forest investment
- propose a complement to preventive action (fire)
- allow reforestation after a disaster
- contribute to the harmonisation of sustainable management criteria in Europe
- better guarantee of producing wood in the future in the face of storm and fire risks.

The contracts apply to fire, storm and civil liability risks in the forest.
Guarantee levels are in several forms:
- flat-rate compensation for the reconstitution per hectare, which ranges from €500/ha to €5,000/ha depending on the type of stand and the region
- fixed compensation for the reconstitution and in addition compensation for the value of the damaged wood (100€/ha/year for the first 15 years or 150€/ha/year for the first 20 years).
The packages are adapted according to the species and the forest and therefore applies to all forests in France.
To date, only 5% of forest owners are insured; however, the level of risks in the forest is constantly rising.
The European participation envisaged for the future would reduce the cost of contributions and thus allow all owners to have access to insurance. To do this, needs must be assessed on the basis of a sample of European countries and European insurance models must be adaptable to each Member State. 

Many forests that could generate income are not really managed and forest-owners don´t take care of them. The causes are very often the low profitability of wood exploitation and the complexity of its management. Forest owners are not usually specialists and are not engaged in forestry activities. This leads to no incomes and to an increased risk of fires and pests. Faced with this situation, Agresta proposes specific contracts to forest-owners, making it possible a professional sustainable management allowing revenues, forest planning, wood mobilization, and infrastructure and silvicultural operations.

Forest management is not enough to get many forests out of abandonment. It is important to be in contact with main stakeholders and the reality of the markets, something that a forestry company can assure.
It is necessary to work with professionalism, entrepreneurial vision and long-term commitment, in a collaborative relationship and win-win with the owner.
The specialization in turnkey forest management by a company allows improving and making profitable the management since it increases the innovation capacity, including the technological one (management software, forest inventories with remote sensing...)

Taking into account environmental and heritage issues of sustainable management