Non Wood Forest Products (NWFPs) are important resources
for rural economies. Highly regarded food products are collected from
Mediterranean forests, such as nuts, berries, mushrooms and truffles, as well
as aromatic and medicinal plants. Other NWFPs, such as resin or cork, can play
a role in the circular bio-economy, providing sustainable alternatives to
fossil-based raw materials. However, achieving fair levels of profitability for
all actors throughout the value chain is still a challenge. Existing
hourglass-shaped monopsony structures need to be resolved and market access to
local producers must be strengthened. Furthermore, it is important to promote
greater consumer awareness and willingness to pay for the sustainable,
‘wild-collected’ nature of these goods. The European thematic network INCREDIBLE
(Innovation networks on Non-Wood Forest Products in the Mediterranean basin)
brings together the main actors associated with NWFP with the aim of sharing
knowledge, expertise and experience. Sharing information helps to identify the
challenges and requirements of each NWFP value chain so that profitability and
sustainability can be improved. The objective of Open Innovation is to bring
together innovative ideas of actors from different organisations, thus making
the best use of their respective areas of competence in order to create an
effective innovation ecosystem. INCREDIBLE facilitates open innovation by
establishing and operating Innovation Networks (iNets) for different NWFPs. The
social, technological and silvicultural challenges and requirements for
innovation in each iNet are identified and different approaches to addressing
these are explored by the various actors involved in accordance with their
areas of competence.
Primary Language | English |
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Subjects | Engineering |
Journal Section | Review Articles |
Authors | |
Publication Date | June 24, 2019 |
Published in Issue | Year 2019 |
The works published in Journal of Innovative Science and Engineering (JISE) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.