AITOLOS

AITOLOS answered the need for integrated regional action on monitoring forests in order to minimize illegal logging and the cross-border illegal timber trade, which is/was a major concern among all countries worldwide. AITOLOS project fostered cross-border collaboration and coordinate the activities of Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia against illegal logging and timber trade, through:

• Developing policy guidelines for addressing illegal logging, with a special focus on cross-border timber trade. Define policy scope and objectives, describing key policy pillars across value chain.
• Developing operational plan across participating border regions for implementing policy guidelines, defining platform technical specifications, stakeholders roles, monitoring mechanism, timetable and budget.
• Two implementation pilots, one per country, in order to assess project results in real world situations. Pilots will run in forest offices of Goumenissa and Bitola.

Our contributions were towards the identification of smart ICT solutions to be incorporated into the everyday work of national forest protection services, to facilitate and support traditional forest management processes and to protect forest ecosystems against illegal logging and trade. We also contributed to the identification, prioritization, and risk estimation for building a portfolio of smart solutions.

I was leading a team of five engineers in this project, as a faculty affiliate of Centre for Research and Technology – Hellas.