Between 07 and 10 October 2025, the Romanian city of Brașov was the site of ForestPaths' third Annual General Meeting, hosted by the Transilvania University of Brașov for a three-day agenda of progress updates and forward-looking discussions as well as a study visit to the Şinca old-growth forest.

The beginning of the event was marked by an overview of achievements and results from the past twelve months. Specifically, the following activities were reported to the attendees during this first day of the programme:

•    project deliverables on high conservation value forests (D2.4), factoring in forest management in modelling simulations (D3.4) and a database on substitution and biodiversity factors in forestry (D4.3);

•    the communication, dissemination and exploitation of ForestPaths’ outputs;

•    results from the multi-faceted exploratory scenarios developed for the project using an array of modelling tools.

On 08 October, the focus shifted to the ongoing development for the next year concerning the project’s policy pathways and the analysis of the climate mitigation potential of forests and the forest-based sector and the associated environmental impacts.

The final day linked these discussions to the forthcoming third Policy Lab, as part of the Policy Engagement Forum. Moreover, discussions focused on upcoming training formats and the roll-out of the CANOPY platform, the project’s future repository of policy-relevant data and holistic pathways. Partners also participated in an interactive workshop on how to behave in front of and behind the camera, with the aim being to enhance their capacity to showcase their work independently to interested parties and wider audiences.

Following the conclusion of the meeting itself, a full-day study tour took place with a visit to the Şinca old-growth forest, an area recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site. This was an opportunity for educational and productive conversations on how Climate-and Biodiversity-Smart (CBS) approaches to forestry management are carried out in practice and what the challenges in doing so actually are.

Last but not least, the gathering of the project’s participants was also taken advantage of to produce new video interviews with experts leading various research and outreach endeavours within ForestPaths – those will be publicly shared over the coming year. 

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