Vocational training in forestry is characterized by a vast amount of challenges. These are due to many factors, starting from the multitude of topics associated to forestry, ranging from the regional specifications, the outdoor based training, the economic and ecological impact, the rapid evolution in forestry techniques and science, to the increasing need for wood as a renewable resource. Through transnational cooperation, forestry schools, teachers and students try to keep themselves up-to-date, learn from each other and put their resources in common in order to improve their quality of training. Thus this project, called SILVAforum, defines several aims to meet these expectations: - Comparison of forestry and forestry training in different countries - Knowledge transfer between partners - Sharing and creation of educational material (video-tutorials, dictionaries...) - Elaboration of ECVET units The partners are VET schools (or associations of schools) of the green sector from Austria, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Romania and Sweden. Every partner defines his field of excellence. This is a forestry topic, technique or know how where the partner organization excels not only by their knowledge, but also by the means to teach the related competencies. For every field of excellence there are 4 actions: 1. Workshop for multipliers 2. Workshop for students 3. Publication of related open source training material 4. Elaboration of an ECVET unit The workshops will last at least a week. The workshop for multipliers (mostly teachers) will be open for every partner. All the participant partners will not only attend the workshop in order to learn its content, but will participate actively if possible to compare the teaching of this topic in his country/school. Video tutorials, interactive learning material will be done by the hosting partner, but translations and additional training resources will be made available by the other participants. During this workshop there will be discussions how to make an ECVET unit about this topic and a group of three people at least will be in charge to elaborate this. A second workshop will be held afterwards, this time aimed for students of the partner organisations, which will focus on the training aspect, but also spare some time for cultural aspects and international exchange. Of course it will use the previously elaborated training resources in preparation of the workshop or during this latter. All the elaborated resources will be made permanently available through the EUROPEA homepage (www.europea.org). In addition to these workshops, there will be the biannual meetings of the steering group. Due to the increased contact of the partner schools, student exchange and work placements will be promoted and made easier. Many participants take regularly part in forestry skills competitions, partners will be invited to compete as well. Partners will notify each other if some interesting activities (like seminars, excursions, workshops...), which are not part of the project, take place and are invited to participate if possible. It is expected that this cooperation will last, even after the project end. Resulting ECVET units, some of the workshops can be organised for interested groups after the end of the project.

ANNIE (Aquaponics, New Novelty In Education) is essentially the combination of Aquaculture and Hydroponics. Both aquaculture and hydroponics have some negative aspects. Re-circulating aquaculture needs to have excess nutrients removed from the system, normally this means that a percentage of the water is removed, generally daily. Hydroponics requires expensive nutrients to feed the plants, and also requires periodic flushing of the systems which can lead to waste disposal issues. This nutrient rich water in both systems needs to be disposed of and replaced with clean fresh water. When both systems are combined, these negative aspects are turned into positives, as the nutrient rich water from the aquaculture system is recirculated into the hydroponics system to grow produce. This water is then filtered (clean) into the aquaculture system.Many different species of fish can be grown in an aquaponics system, and the species selection will depend on a number of factors, including climate; freshwater or saline loving fish and plants; the density of fish per cubic metre and fish stratification preferences (the preferred water depth of different species). Aquaponics systems can be used in ‘local for local’ food production situations, is biological and organic and aquaponics need no extra toxic additions like antibiotics, manure or artificial fertilizers, and don't need weeding.Aquaponics has a significant reduction of water usage, compared with traditional growing methods. Plants grow faster and the whole year round; healthier food is produced because of a reduction in chemical applications; water usage is reduced and is cleaner (with only 10% of recycled water lost by vaporization, reducing the water footprint); reduction of transport, reducing the CO2 footprint. Aquaponics will be one of the solutions to the food shortages the world is facing.‘To satisfy a peak global population of 9.7 billion people in 2050, agricultural economists project that total agricultural demand will increase by 60 percent to 100 percent compared with 2005 levels’(Zeigler, M.M (2017) http://www.globalharvestinitiative.org/2017/03/sustainably-doubling-agricultural-productivity-the-right-global-goal-for-2050/)Objectives: This project is a starting point to change regional food production strategies all over Europe. As well as the potential applications for urban areas, this project is also applicable for rural areas. Education played an important role in this project, because this teaches the workers of the future and makes them aware of emerging food problems.The main goal of this project is to expand a network between educational institutions, food producers and local governments. Schools can integrate this topic into current curricula and on any EQF level. ANNIE increased this network where education providers, farmers (business) and governments worked together to raise awareness of water scarcity, water purity and food productivity issues.Number and profile of participating organisations: 13 organisations, Agri Vet- schools EQF level 1-4; Vet schools A.D.; Applied Science Universities, Secondary Schools with LLL-aspects; Business & Development Consultants and Entrepreneurs.Description of undertaken main activities: National: founding of aquaponics platforms in which knowledge and skills are shared, founding aquaponics training centres to provide information and share knowledge and skills; raising awareness by organising workshops for pupils, students and staff within the institutions and outside with partner schools; training activities in the project by the experienced company LandingAquaculture, an international company in aquaculture. There were 4 Steering group meetings and 3 partner meetings and an ANNIElympics, the final meeting was an event in which all participants participated in frivolous items related to fish and plants, healthy and safe food and innovations.The final result included the creation of a database of shared documents to be used to assist start-up aquaponics projects; leaflets in all languages with basic information about aquaponics; 4 training centres (ES,NL, RO and PT) to provide workshops and short training events on aquaponics; 2 working models for educational events; exposures on school days and at national and international meetings like European Parliament, European Committee of the regions (CIFEA MdS) and meetings about sustainability; World Food Day 15th of October 2017 NL; 2 instruction films available for everybody (on YouTube); 4 master classes organised by students.5 Students will graduate on aquaponics through ANNIE. Thousands of people know about aquaponics because of the ANNIE project. Longer-term benefits: new partnerships, a continuation of the partnerships in a new project with the partners, the pioneers become experts in aquaponics in education, pioneers became trainers.