The SingleTree project is making waves in the Francophone audience, offering a fresh approach to forest management that puts individual trees at the center of decision-making. The article “Listening to the Forest, One Tree at a Time: SingleTree project” has just been published in French in GIP Ecofor, in issue No. 68 of Les Échos d’Ecofor, their quarterly journal dedicated to forest ecosystems.
In this french article, readers can discover how SingleTree is transforming forest management through technology, precision, and a tree-focused approach.
European forests are at a crossroads. Essential for biodiversity and carbon storage, they face growing threats from storms, fires, droughts, pests, and diseases. The EU Forest Strategy, part of the European Green Deal and Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, calls for sustainable forest management to increase resilience, support the bioeconomy, and contribute to climate neutrality by 2050. SingleTree responds to these challenges by combining artificial intelligence, remote sensing, adaptive single-tree management, and intelligent machinery to create a fully digital and connected forestry value chain.
Launched in September 2024 and funded by the Circular Bioeconomy Joint Undertaking (CBE JU), SingleTree brings together 14 partners across Norway, Sweden, Finland, Spain, and Switzerland, working until 2028 with the goal of placing individual trees at the heart of decision-making. The project uses lidar, multispectral imaging, drones, mobile laser scanners, and predictive models to monitor tree health, species, age, structure, microhabitats, and wood quality with unprecedented precision. This enables forest managers to adapt interventions for each tree, improving resilience to climate risks while optimizing biodiversity and timber production.
Intelligent machines translate these digital prescriptions into precise operations on the ground, ensuring that carbon storage, biodiversity preservation, and wood utilization are all considered simultaneously. Through AI-driven traceability, inventory, management, operations, and sawmills are fully connected, demonstrating how digital technologies can create multifunctional and sustainable forest value chains.
SingleTree showcases innovations across three Living Lab Value Chains (LLVCs) in northern (Sweden), central (Switzerland), and southern (Spain) Europe, adapting its approach to local environmental and socio-economic realities while engaging stakeholders throughout the forestry value chain. By advancing knowledge on biodiversity, climate impacts, and non-invasive wood quality assessment, the project supports bio-based industries, rural economies, and sustainable material use, generating environmental, social, and economic benefits for regional development.
Curious to learn more? Read the full article in French in Les Échos d’Ecofor here.
