5th International Conference of Forest Engineering and Technologies (FETEC 2024): “Forest operation technologies and systems for small-scale forestry applications” will be organized on 16-18 September 2024 by University of Ljubljana, Biotechnical Faculty in the city of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The conference co-organizers include FETEC Platform and IUFRO Division 3.01. The sponsor of FETEC2024 is Tajfun LLC.

Forestry plays a crucial role in maintaining ecosystems, biodiversity, providing habitats, regulating the water cycle, and serving as a carbon sink to mitigate the effects of climate change. The forest resources should be managed according to principles of sustainable and close to nature forest management in order to meet needs of today’s and future’s generations. These two approaches aim to maximize the benefits of forests and to minimize environmental damages by using modern techniques and technological tools in forestry activities. Particularly, forest operations producing wood-based forest products should abide to the precision forestry approach. In recent decades, advanced small-scale forest operations, which are used in non-industrial and site-specific forestry, provide alternative methods well suited for use with precision forestry concept. Besides, small-scale forestry significantly contributes to the bio-economy through forest-based businesses, rural communities, and provision of multiple ecosystem services in many regions of the world. Small-scale harvesting machines have low initial cost and relatively low operating cost, while at the same time, their potential environmental impacts can be considerably lower than with use of large scale machinery.