At a hearing with experts on Monday 13 January, the European Parliament, which is examining the proposal to harmonise the monitoring of Europe’s forests, generally criticised a text that would create headaches for national administrations.
The European Commission’s proposal to establish a harmonised EU-wide forest monitoring framework (as set out in the EU Forestry Strategy 2030) has been widely criticised.
For Emma Wiesner (Renew Europe, Swedish), co-rapporteur for Parliament’s Committee on Environment, “it’s a good example of a bad regulation. Why impose this kind of additional burden?”, she asked.
For Éric Sargiacomo (S&D, French), co-rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture, legislation is needed at EU level, but it is important to have “solid foundations before trying to build the roof”. The text should not be another administrative hurdle.
Both rapporteurs stressed the difficulty of converging data from one country to another. These fears were also expressed by the stakeholders invited.
Jessica Polfjärd (EPP, Swedish) said she was “not convinced of the need for such regulation“.
Fanny-Pomme Langue, secretary general of the Confederation of European Forest Owners (CEPF), felt that the objective of the regulation proposed for the end of 2023 “is not very clear, and (that) data collection will not make forests more resilient”. She deplored the proposal’s lack of coherence with other European texts, such as the law on nature restoration, which requires a report on the state of forests every six years, whereas the proposal on forest monitoring requires one every five years.
A gradual process. Dutch expert Gert Jan Nabuurs, from Wageningen University, defended the need for such a regulation, arguing that the current situation was “far from ideal, because we don’t have complete information” (forest inventories). “We need a text on surveillance”, he said. He suggested a gradual process (five to ten years), starting with a small set of variables and then extending the number of indicators.
Countries such as France and Sweden, which have had forest inventories in place for decades, fear that their practices will be called into question. Those who haven’t yet put anything in place are afraid of the administrative overload.
Peter Pröbstle, president of the Bavarian Forestry Institute (Germany), believes that there is a fear that everything will now depend on satellite observations and that Member States will no longer want to finance local inventories, which are nonetheless essential.
The European Commission has assured that its proposal will not change the way in which Member States already collect their data. The aim is to harmonise reports so as to better prepare for the challenges ahead (climate change, fires, new pests, carbon certification, etc.). Discussions will continue within the European institutions. Member States have also expressed reservations about the proposals (see EUROPE 13541/4). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)