Stakeholders in the European forestry sector called for an updated and stronger EU Forest Strategy on Monday 4 February to ensure that all forest-related EU in the coming decades policies are better coordinated, more coherently integrating both sustainable forest management and the multifunctional role of forests.
This fulfils two main interests: the implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement and the achievement of the UN's sustainable development goals (SDOs).
This joint call was launched by a coalition of industry associations (CEI-Bois, CEPF, CEPI, Copa-Cogeca, Eustafor, UEF, FECOF) at a round table that they organised in Brussels with representatives of the European institutions on the future of the EU's forestry strategy. In doing so, they conveyed the main thrust of their joint statement issued in January (see EUROPE 12175).
A roadmap, presented by the European Commission in December, is currently subject to public consultation until 25 February (see EUROPE 12163).
The associations regretted that the progress report on the implementation of the 2013 strategy, presented in December, did not contain concrete recommendations for the post-2020 period. The representative of the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council indicated that the Council was working on draft conclusions on this progress report, which will also cover the role of the EU Forest Strategy beyond 2020.
Swedish MEP Jytte Guteland (S&D, Sweden) said: "The EU strategy should help to develop common ideas on sustainable forest management in order to provide consistency among EU policies". His Finnish colleague Nils Torvalds (EPP, Finland) is convinced that "forestry can play a great role in achieving climate objectives, but it can’t do this alone".
To view the progress report on the 2013 strategy: https://bit.ly/2DdDy03. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)