EU forests: Information is essential for fair and successful implementation
16 octubre 2024
European companies seem to flip flop on the usefulness of having harmonised information systems to monitor their forestry activities, depending on the law being discussed and who is being asked to deliver it. Representatives from different areas of the wood industry and the Confederation of European Private Forest Owners (CEPF) recently called for a “functioning and user-friendly EU Information System” to properly prepare for the EUDRs entry into force – recognising the importance of harmonised data to address deforestation and forest degradation in European forests. Yet in their feedback to the EU’s Forest Monitoring Law, which would deliver such data, business organisations expressed that centralisation of information would lead to unnecessary burdens, claiming that adequate information already exists across Member States.
What does harmonised forest monitoring offer?
It is hard to see, however how the proposed Forest Monitoring Law could increase the burden, given that a central element is the provision of Earth Observation data from the Copernicus satellite, which would offer free information to anyone interested in their forests, as opposed to having to obtain remote-sensing data from private sources.
More directly related to companies’ bottom lines, wind, fire, bark beetle, other insects and drought have sharply increased since 1950; the damage in the last 20 years equals about 16% of what is harvested annually. Science has made the clear link between resilient forests and healthy forest economies, so new information on disturbances could help guide new climate and forest friendly ways of managing forests and offer a level playing field to reach EU policy objectives.
Does adequate, comparable information exist across the EU?
Countries are expected to produce National Forest Inventories, but only every five to 10 years, preventing citizens, scientists and policymakers from seeing issues before it is too late. For example, Germany’s forests recently shifted into a source of carbon dioxide emissions; no map exists of the EU’s few remaining old-growth forests; and existing wood-flow information does not provide a clear picture of the final uses of wood. These are matters where up-to-date data could guide potential steps to address information gaps and negative trends.
Additionally, we are not seeing adequate information about the overall resilience of EU forests, which is determined by its biodiversity. This is monitored by looking at well-chosen biodiversity indicators, such as species diversity, stand structure, the location of old growth forests and forest naturalness classes, as well as by mapping forest habitats as defined by the Habitat Directive. We do not monitor forest such characteristics uniformly across the EU.
Clearer and more frequent information on these elements can help us increase the resilience and adaptation of our forests through better forest management, protection of hotspots of biodiversity, and creation of a more circular and high-quality wood economy. For our forests, and for all who care for them, information is more than power: it’s an insurance against an increasingly risky future.
Image credit: Max Zielinski/Greenpeace
Categorías: News, Forest Watch, European forests
