What is forest conservation and why is it controversial?
In the simplest terms, forest conservation can be defined as the practice of planting and/or maintaining forested areas for the benefit and sustainability of future generations. Such a positive formulation makes it hard to imagine such an activity being controversial - especially in the midst of our climate and biodiversity crises.
But abuse of forest communities is endemic in the history of forest conservation.
Throughout history, the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities have been trampled on in the name of protecting nature. They have been excluded from their land, and from making decisions about it. Their proven, traditional ways of protecting forests have been ignored. And they have faced violence and increased land conflicts.
This is one of the reasons that Fern classes itself as a forest and rights rather than a conservation organisation. We believe the rights of Indigenous Peoples and forest communities should always be paramount in the battle to protect the world’s forests: safeguarding rights means protecting the habitats they rely on to live and survive.
At the same time, different realities in different countries mean that there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ solution to forest protection and restoration.
When is forest conservation necessary?
Any efforts to conserve forests must take as their starting point the diverse local realities: from geography to climate, and from different economic realities to the cultural needs of local populations.
There is a chasm, for example, between the situations in tropical and European forests, and even between countries within regions. So strategies for conserving forests should be decided on a case by case (or region by region) basis.
The EU has policies to encourage other countries to protect their forests, but is failing to preserve its own forests. In 2023/24, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) failed to fully endorse the EU Nature Restoration Law, designed to “bring back nature across Europe”, raising questions about the EU’s commitment to protect the environment at home.
In Europe, primary or old-growth forests – which are so crucial for the climate and biodiversity - have been decimated. Most forests are currently managed, often intensively. Alarmingly, only 2% of the EU’s primary forests remain, but despite this, not all are protected, and some are threatened with logging.
Most of these primary forests are in North and Central-East Europe, so those countries need policies mandating greater protection. Primary forests’ ecosystems are well established and are able to better survive natural catastrophes and disease.
By contrast, in hotter and drier regions of Europe, where primary forests have long been supplanted by managed, monoculture plantations, hands-off management is a dangerous strategy. Leaving the land unmanaged in Portugal, for instance, where a series of devasting fires has caused untold misery in recent years, is a recipe for more disaster. Instead, forest management models, such as close-to-nature forestry (CNF) should be favoured to bring back more diversity and greater resilience. Read more about close-to-nature forestry.
What Fern and our partners want
Fern doesn’t work on European forest conservation. Instead, we support the introduction of EU forestry policy that protects the remaining old growth forests, restores degraded forest land and brings back diversity in managed forests with the support of local communities, Indigenous Peoples, small producers and foresters.
In the EU, our national partners are well positioned to offer recommendations for enhancing the protection and conservation of the remaining European old-growth forests. We rely on their expertise and guidance.
