Brussels, 19/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - The Council of Ministers of the EU has invited the European Commission to examine various solutions for a “better coordination” of the forestry policies of the EU and the implementation by the member states of a sustainable forest management, adaptation to climate change and information on forests. In conclusions adopted on Monday 19 May assessing the communication of September 2013 on forests, the countries of the EU call on the Commission to identify areas in which certain member states may hope to make further progress, such as the prevention of forest fires, natural hazards, the loss of biodiversity, cross-border measures to fight pests, invasive alien species and diseases or promoting the use of wood and other forest products exploited sustainably.
Forest management is a matter for the competence of the EU countries and the Council reiterates this more or less directly. However, the Council makes a few requests: it calls on the Commission to reinforce and promote the role played by the Standing Forestry Committee as a central coordination body responsible for providing advice and improving the communication on forestry policy; - it urges the Commission and the member states to continue to contribute, “where appropriate, and in a cost-effective way,” to the creation of a European information system on forests.
The Council stresses that although forest management plans and similar tools are particularly useful instruments to help managers in this sector to implement a sustainable forestry management, these plans are “not the only instrument for monitoring implementation of policies.” According to the Council, forest inventories and new technology, such as the geographical information system (GIS) and data systems, “provide for effective and less burdensome systems.”
Forests cover nearly 50% of the relevant surface area of the Natura 2000 network. The Council stresses that further emphasis should be laid on: - preventing the negative impacts on forests of biotic and abiotic threats; - mitigation and restoration of damage; - extending the forest area in countries or regions with low forest cover and areas affected by extreme weather, forest fires and desertification. The Commission is called upon to carry out an in-depth evaluation of the cumulative costs of EU policies with an impact on the value chains of the wood sector (wood can replace fossil fuels and other materials which produce high volumes of greenhouse gas). The Council calls upon the Commission and the experts to examine whether replacing materials and energy with forest biomass and developing the forest biomass market could be beneficial for the climate.
The Council calls upon the member states and the Commission to continue to support and reinforce the effect of the forest measures implemented in the framework of rural development and to seek synergies with other EU funds. It stresses the need to increase the capacity of forests to adapt and bounce back from climate change, to reduce the risks and consequences of forest fires, pests, diseases and invasive alien species as well as other factors by making use of preventative measures, and of increasing the potential of the forests in terms of attenuating climate change and adapting to this phenomenon, “without compromising other forest benefits, in line with international commitments of the EU and its member states under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)” (our translation throughout). (LC)