Beneficiaries

The funding may be applied by:

• public and private forest owners; 
• physical persons; consortia, public bodies and other subjects of public law; 
• private entities; 
• municipal administrations; 
• small and medium-sized forestry enterprises, public foresters and public foresters, in individual and associated forms.

Objectives

Measure 8. 5 aims to promote and support: 

• sustainable forest management aimed at the protection of forest biodiversity and the public use of forests 
• silvicultural interventions for renaturalisation in the most artificial productive forest systems 
• forestry measures to improve biodiversity and to protect and restore valuable forest habitats 
• investments for the enhancement of the forests from an educational, recreational and tourist point of view.

Selection principles

Submeasure 8.5 is assessed on the basis of macro-criteria, a minimum permissible score of 30 points and a maximum permissible score of up to 100 points, as defined below:

• territorial areas, specifically for the location of the intervention, the maximum score achievable is 77 points;
• types of operations activated, specifically by type of intervention, the maximum score is 23 points.

In this case, the beneficiaries do not foresee any relevance in the attribution of the score: projects with smaller investments will be financed on an equal footing.

Eligible expenditure

The financing covers the costs incurred for: 

• investment costs to improve the environmental value of the forest area and/or to provide public services (education, recreation and tourism) 
• the purchase and planting of forest reproductive material and the associated costs of transport, soil preparation, planting and planting, labour and protection 
• the costs of setting up and restoring information points, facilities for environmental education, wildlife observation points, watering points and feeders for wildlife, etc. 
• the cost of the construction and restoring of information points, facilities for environmental education, wildlife observation points, watering points and feeders for wildlife, etc.
• the costs of constructing and restoring the paths 
• overheads 

Scope of support

The support provided for Submeasure 8. 5 is at a rate of 100%.