The State of Europe’s Forests 2025: Poorly monitored, managed and used
30 Maret 2026
Every five years, Forest Europe releases the State of Europe’s Forests (SoEF) which uses agreed indicators to give an overview of European forests’ sustainability.
The bird’s eye view is mostly born from thousands of individual measurements and observations carried out by National Forest Inventory (NFI) teams in 44 countries.
It is essential to carefully examine the report because Europeans care about their forests and want strong laws to safeguard them, because it is referenced by countries and industry associations as the ultimate source to understand the trends and status of forests, and because it is used as evidence on which to base EU forest policy.
Our analysis of SoEF 2025 revealed five essential things that weren’t mentioned when the report was released:
- European forests are in a poor state and not improving.
- Harvest levels are high, despite tree growth slowing in many places.
- Logging has increased but jobs have stagnated and forestry’s contribution to Gross Domestic Product has decreased.
- Some SoEF indicators are too delayed to be used.
- The SoEF is not helpful in guiding action for Nature Restoration Law indicators.
There is huge value in the incredible work of the thousands of people in NFI teams that is summarised in this report. But the SoEF does not deliver all the information needed for the EU to design forest policies to meet their environmental and social objectives. The EU must look for other ways to deliver the harmonised, timely and relevant data needed to ensure Europe’s forests increase their resilience.
Categories: Reports, European forests
