OBJECTIVES

The overall objective of our work program is to formulate a theoretical decision-support model, which could be a useful analytical tool in the hand of farmers, growers and policy-makers. The model will help to identify those pieces of mainly agricultural land, on which energy forest development and biomass planting would be economically rational and recommended. Non-productive lands, potential energy forest planting locations will be mapped and then categorised. Subsequently, we shall elicit the most significant biomass types and discuss which ones would be preferred for planting in each land category of our classification system. Then we shall analyse the policy implications, socio-economic outcomes, and agricultural and environmental effects of energy forest planting. Finally, a case study, entitled "Energy Forests for Re-cultivation" will conclude the project. The following horizontal objectives will be pursued by our consortium: Web-site development, organisation of meetings and study trips, publishing of a newsletter and the publication of our findings in hard-copy format.

The overall objective may be further detailed as:

• Sub-objective 1 Development of a new decision supporting methodology
• Sub-objective 2 Assessing the non productive areas, as possible energy forest places,
• Sub-objective 3 Land classification, ranging the possible areas
• Sub-objective 4 Characterisation of relevant biomass type
• Sub-objective 5 Analysing the socio-economic, agricultural and environmental aspects of energy forest development.
• Sub-objective 6 Case study: How can the planting of the energy forests help to the recultivation