Forest Workers’ Cooperatives occupy a different position in Greek forestry from the contractors entering through antinero. Their work precedes the programmes introduced after 2021 and is rooted in a specific system through which forest services assign forestry and logging works directly to recognised cooperatives. These assignments are generally made under the Forest Code and related legislation at prices determined by the state, rather than through competition under the ordinary direct award provisions of public procurement law.

This dataset reconstructs that field of work through contracts published since September 2021. It contains 2,004 contracts awarded to 246 forest workers’ cooperatives, with a combined stated net value of €30.16 million. The contracts were issued by 48 awarding bodies through 99 forest services. In contrast with antinero, they are generally small and territorially specific. Their median value is €5,792, and around three quarters concern the assignment of firewood for local needs, alongside logging and silvicultural treatments associated with the recurring management and use of a forest.

The dataset also shows that this local basis does not mean that cooperatives work only within their own regions. Larger movements of cooperative labour appear particularly in the aftermath of extensive fires, when cooperatives from elsewhere in the country are brought into affected areas for urgent forestry, erosion and flood protection works. The flows towards Evia after 2021 and later fire-affected regions make this movement particularly visible.

There is no publicly accessible list from the official ΜΗΔΑΣΟ register against which the 246 cooperatives identified here could be checked. The dataset therefore describes the population that could be reconstructed through contracts and related documents, rather than the complete national population of registered cooperatives.

Placed beside antinero, these records make a sharp difference in scale, legal basis and organisation visible. They show a dispersed system of relatively small contracts allocated through local forest authorities alongside a centrally administered programme distributing much larger contracts to an entirely different group of actors.