The green vastness of Kočevsko. Forests expand until the horizon and even further. The covertness with the forest is over 80%. So it is quite unusual that wood, this precious natural material, has once been better used than in recent times. Global and local circumstances in the last decades have almost forgotten the wood and the importance of local forest wood chains. The situation has  reflected in a substantial decline of wood processing industry in Slovenia and later resulted in lesser enrolment into vocational educational programmes for wood processing. Therefore we have found us in the situation when we could only bluntly observe how the unprocessed timber wood was leaving our forests across the state borders.  

Climate changes and the crisis in globalisation have returned us to the threshold of thinking that wood is a perfect material. The only problem is to use it differently, enriched with new knowledge and design and produced with modern technology in connection with the precious skills of our ancestors. So it is no surprise that wood has lately become one of the key materials of the green breakthrough.

In 2013 the Grammar and vocational secondary school in Kočevje was the first to give an incentive to establish the Festival of wood with a firm support of the local municipality as an echo of the described situation. We wished to create a space for rethinking the opportunities what our forest landscape has to offer us. We wanted to remind the local inhabitants of the wood value as a natural resource that is not so self-evident as we the inhabitants mostly live it and hoped to become more and more aware of the high quality of the surroundings we live in. We wanted to connect the local entrepreneurs in the region, scientists in Slovenia and abroad. In short, we wished to raise our awareness and change our attitude towards the forest and wood as something that we can be very proud of. Naturally, new knowledge and skills come together with this new awareness, persuading us that we can process wood and last but not least sell it successfully with higher added value.

MISSION:

THE MISSION OF FESTIVAL OF WOOD SUPPORTS THE MUNICIPALITY KOČEVJE IDENTITY THAT IS BUILT UPON THE VALUES OF NATURAL ENVIRONMENT, ESPECIALLY FORESTS AND VIRGIN FORESTS

VISION:

FESTIVAL OF WOOD IS THE MEETING POINT THAT SUPPORTS FOREST AND WOOD, AS WELL AS  IT ENABLES INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTING OF PEOPLE

GOALS:

CONNECTING ALL POSSIBLE AGENTS IN WOOD BUSINESS  FOR NEW KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS, NEW USAGE OF WOOD, NEW DESIGN AND NEW BUSINESS MODELS.

With the intention of longterm cooperation the following founding members have established the cooperative FESTIVAL OF WOOD that operates as a social business:

• Kočevski les, Aleš Marolt- president of the cooperative,
• Marjeta Kamšek - the initiator, the first president and now coordinator,
• Marko Stijepić,
• Danijela Vukojevič,
• Andrej Palman