At the beginning of March 2019, Spacebel and Finland's Wuudis Solutions (Wuudis) signed a business agreement in Liège, Belgium regarding the distribution of the Wuudis services to the forest users of the EO Regions! business platform on the one hand and the commercialization of Spacebel’s Earth observation forest products in the Wuudis electronic platform on the other hand. The aim is to strengthen their common offer in the field of forestry services worldwide.
Wuudis’ software services are widely used for timberland management, field data collection and forest authority inspection in Finland. Wuudis will customize its platform and mobile software to guarantee a seamless interaction with Spacebel's EO services related to forest management. Thanks to the EO Regions! e-marketplace, Spacebel will accelerate the supply of the Wuudis services to forest landowners, forest authorities and industries in Belgium and Luxembourg. The solution will be accessible from computers, laptops or mobile devices.
Forest owners, contractors, timber buyers and authorities need reliable and easy-to-use solutions to manage daily operations of forestry management. They also need detailed information on biodiversity and risks in terms of forest growth such as insect and fungi damages causing tree deaths.
Thierry du Pré-Werson, Managing Director of Spacebel said that this cooperation agreement is an excellent opportunity to implement standardized forest management and data sharing tools for the forestry business in Wallonia (Belgium). Moreover, it will allow them to scale their monitoring tools for Wuudis. Wuudis’ solutions will considerably increase the collection of forest field data and enhance the sustainable exploitation of forest resources.”
Seppo Huurinainen, CEO of Wuudis Solutions added that the dynamic forest monitoring tools of Spacebel serve the purposes of all stakeholders in the supply chain, i.e. forest landowners, contractors, harvesters, timber buyers and public bodies. Their services are based on Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and very high resolution (VHR) satellite data providing cost-effective information at local or regional scale for improved forest management practices.
For Spacebel, this partnership provides a consistent way to plan, manage and track forest resources across the supply chain, from forest to end-user-point near real-time operations. For Wuudis, this relationship represents its entry into the EO Regions! forest IT solutionsmarket.
To integrate their respective solutions with one another, both companies will benefit from the ongoing EU funded H2020 DataBio project (EC grant agreement 732064) dedicated to the use of Big Data for the Bioeconomy in which Spacebel is leader of the Earth Observation and Geospatial Data & Services work package whereas Wuudis is heading the Forestry Pilot work package.