​The Symposium “Forestry Mechanization” (from 1994 named with the acronym “FORMEC”) was held for the first time in 1966 at Zvolen in former Czechoslovakia. The original idea of the organizers of this scientific meeting was to give an opportunity for scientists from Eastern and Central European countries to gather, discuss about forest engineering matters, deepen the knowledge in that field of science and overcome gaps due to different technology levels.​

Since then 47 meetings have been organised. The more recent meetings are not only held in Central and Eastern Europe, but also of Northern and Western Europe, maintaining the Symposium’s main purpose which is the oppurtunity for leading professionals and expert scientists in all the fields of forest engineering to gather, facilitate and encourage the cooperation and the exchange of ideas.

One of the founding ideas of the “men of the first hours” (Bojanin, Hafner, Kaldy, Krivec, Pankotai, Pestal, Platzer, Ronay, Turk, et al.) was to ensure that the Symposium costs be kept low to ensure unrestricted participation. The official language of the Symposium has changed during the years from German to English in order to increase international participation and to encourage the attendance of young people. At the beginning the number of participants varied from 20 to 40 persons, but in the latest meetings the number of participants has grown to 200-250.


FORMEC will take place in Madrid (Spain) from 25 to 27 September 2018

For more details please visit: www.formec.org