Pro Silva Montenegro

Milic B. Curovic was born on 12 March 1971 in Bijelo Polje, Montenegro. His doctoral thesis entitled 'Forest types in National park „Biogradska gora"' he presented to the Faculty of Forestry, University of Belgrade on 21 April 2011.

Started professional career on 1st November 1998 at the Biotechnical Institute - Podgorica (later renamed the Biotechnical Faculty) of the University of Montenegro, and on 16 July 2004 he was promoted to the position of senior researcher for forestry.

Since 2011 he is appointed president/member of the board of directors of the Institute of Forestry - Podgorica. - Since 2007 he is engaged in teaching activities of the Biotechnical Faculty - subject: "Hunting and Wildlife management". From November 2011 he is appointed as Technical editor of the scientific Journal "Agriculture and Forestry".

Published more than 40 scientific papers in various peer reviewed scientific journals such as "Forestry", "Land Degradation & Development", "Austrian Journal of Forest Science", "Archives of Biological Sciences", "Journal of maps", "Plant Biosystems", "Annals of Forest Research", "Allgemeine Forst Zeitschrift (AFZ) der Wald", "Natura Montenegrina", "Glasnik sumarskog fakulteta", "Agriculture and Forestry" etc.

Milic CUROVIC: link to the References (Bibliography)

Franc is Slovenian and Montenegrin citizen with a master of science degree in forestry and more than 40 years of working experiences, of which 22 years in Slovenia and more than 18 years abroad.

Hi began his professional career in Slovenia in 1982 as a silviculturist within a former public forestry enterprise. From 1985 to 1993, he was as a teaching assistant for the subjects of Forest Growth, Forest Management Planning and Silviculture at the Biotechnical Forestry Faculty in Ljubljana. He was also a teacher of Silviculture for two generations of students at the High forestry school. Between 1993 and 1997, he served as State Secretary for Forestry at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food. From 1997 to 2005, he worked as a research and development associate in Silviculture and Forest Policy at the Slovenian Forestry Institute. Since 2005, he has been continuously engaged with international forestry institutions (FAO and Dutch SNV) and projects in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Georgia. From 2016 to 2023 he carried out these consultancies as a sole propriator.

During his career he gained in-depth knowledge and experience in: (a) implementation of sustainable and close-to-nature forest management systems and related silvicultural techniques; (b) development of national criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management (SFM) and biodiversity, along with related monitoring systems, and assessing of sustainability of forest management; (c) institutional development and implementation of forestry sector reforms of the pre-accession and accession countries, including assessing and drafting of national forest legislation, policies, strategies and programmes and their harmonisation with the EU acquis and (d) capacity building in forestry in general and practical on-the-job training in silviculture in particular.

He is considered as most renowned international forestry expert for the Western Balkans. Since 2009, he lives in Montenegro. He retired in 2023 but continues to work as short-term consultant. Apart his Slovenian (his mother tongue), he is fluent in Serbian and Croatian, English and German languages.

Franc assisted the founding of Pro Silva as a master student of Prof. Dusan Mlinsek in 1989.

The establishment of Pro Silva Montenegro was initiated by Franc Ferlin attending Pro Silva‘s annual meeting in Slovakia 2024 in Myjava. They declared their interest and they were instructed into the steps for establishing. On October 26th the founding assembly singed the Decision on Establishing the non- governmental organisation “Pro Silva Montenegro”.

Now with date of 30th January 2025 they received the official confirmation of the Ministry of Regional-Investment, Development and Cooperation with Non-Governmental Organizations. Congratulation to our new full member from western Balkans.

• promoting of and awareness raising on principles and good practices of close-to-nature forest management (CNFM)
• training of forestry professionals, forest owners and representatives of forest-related non-governmental organisations in CNFM practices
• conducting forest pedagogics related to stewardship of forests in close-to-nature way
• exchanging of knowledge, information and experience in CNFM (nationally and internationally)
• collaborating in research, development, capacity building and other projects related to CNFM
• performing advisory services related to CNFM
• advocating for CNFM and lobbying for governmental and political support to CNFM.

fotos by (c) Milic Curovic 2003-2012