At the welcome reception on September 11, 2019 also a topic of forest pedagogy was discussed. The member of our group “Forest of experiments”, Kristina Sever, presented forest pedagogy at European and Slovenian level:

“Slovenia has a long tradition of close-to-nature forest management, within which different functions are considered. Education is one of them. In Slovenia we are active in the field of forest pedagogy for approximately 10 years. There are several institutions working in this field, including Slovenian Forestry Institute, Slovenia Forest Service, Institute for forest pedagogy and other non-governmental organizations –. In our database there are about 200 members who are working in the field of forest pedagogy.”

“Lately, our country has been facing some extreme weather events, also climate change is an important topic these days and here we can use forest pedagogy as a tool to reach to people of all age, to raise awareness on the importance of forests, their close-to-nature management and as well to promote forestry as such.”

The Common European Strategy on Forest pedagogy adopted in 2017 is linked with sustainable management and is therefore the most important achievement of this group and tightly connected to PRO SILVA principles. Also, at the level of European Union, the importance of environmental education and sustainable development is recognized.