During the period from June 9 to 13, 2025, the city of Joensuu, Finland, hosted FORMEC 2025 – the 57th International Symposium on Forest Mechanization. This year's event brought together 265 participants from 27 countries, including scientists, practitioners, entrepreneurs, and students from Europe, North America, Asia, Australia, and Africa.
The central theme of the symposium – Harnessing Novel Technologies to Execute Sustainable and Low-Carbon Wood Supply.
On the first day of the symposium, participants had the opportunity to visit several industry-related sites:
- Joensuu Biofuel Plant, the largest torrefied biomass production facility in Europe. Visitors were introduced to the production process and the Q-Robot (Prometec), an automated wood chip sampling robot that enhances workplace safety and ensures sample precision;
- Ponsse Forestry Equipment Demonstrations, which showcased high-precision Ponsse HPP (High Precision Positioning) technology during a first thinning operation. The system integrates RTK-GNSS, IMU, and LiDAR data.
On June 11 and 12, the conference featured oral presentations organized into six thematic sessions:
- Digitalization and automation,
- Low-carbon logistics,
- Work safety and ergonomics,
- Innovations in forest technology,
- Climate change mitigation,
- Ecosystem conservation.
Scientists from the LSFRI "Silava" participated in the symposium with oral presentations:
- Raitis Normunds Meļņiks: Technological Advancements for Forest Management Using Harvester Data,
- Kristaps Makovskis: Efficiency and Planting Quality of Mechanized Tree Planting with PlantMax in Latvia,
- Kristaps Makovskis: The type of forest regeneration and planting affects the development of the root system of planted trees and the subsequent performance of forestry operations,
and poster presentations:
- Kaspars Liepiņš, Alise Bleive, Aldis Sproģis: Silvicultural aspects of birch (Betula pendula Roth.) mechanized planting,
- Santa Kalēja, Raitis Normunds Meļņiks, Jordane Jean-Claude Champion: Prototype for Gravel Forest Road Deformation Detection.
Book of Abstracts: Proceedings of the 57th International Symposium of Forest Mechanization (FORMEC)
