ProPopulus Team
On July ProPopulus held its last General Assembly meeting in Paris where Professor Joris Van Acker was appointed new Chairman of the Association, succeeding Mr. Pedro Garnica. Professor Van Acker develops his work at the Laboratory of Wood Technology (Woodlab) of the Ghent University (UGent) in Belgium and will be presiding ProPopulus over the next two years.
As chairman of the Association Professor Van Acker will continue to work in the line of actions initiated last year to comply with the Association’s new vision of becoming a knowledge hub and influencer in the promotion of poplar usage as a European, highly sustainable and renewable source of raw material that plays a key role in developing the bio-economy, thus helping nature and society to preserve the future.
The studies carried out so far, reveal that the demand for timber will increase, and in coming years there will be a significant deficit between production and consumption. To manage this deficit, poplar could provide a great solution.
ProPopulus promotes the idea that in the developing of a sustainable economy plantation wood should have a double function: substituting unsustainable materials such as plastic, coal and others from non-renewable resources, and replacing timber sourced from natural forests with that of sustainable plantations since even well-managed forests’ production is not enough to supply market demands.