Position paper: How could European forests best benefit from the EU Forest Monitoring Law?

Published: 26 February 2024
Size: 1.26 MB

Forests play a vital role for biodiversity and climate, yet there is a significant deficit in public information about their status, the impact of management practices and their ecological condition. It is concerning that information about the state of forests, and their trends towards destruction or restoration, is often scattered, incomparable, inaccessible, outdated or entirely missing. Consequently, there is a strong need for a harmonised legally binding forest monitoring framework that ensures public, accessible and comparable data and information on EUs forests.

In November 2023, the European Commission has published a proposal for a Forest Monitoring Law. This position paper makes recommendations to ensure that the Forest Monitoring Law will enable the EU to live up to its commitments and base future plans on science, allowing for forest ecosystems restoration, carbon storage and sequestration, species protection and socio-economic prosperity.