Abstract
Two decades after the pan-European set of indicators for sustainable forest management was adopted, the European Commission published the New EU Forest Strategy for 2030. We compared the documents on the basis of a content analysis to determine whether they share the same understanding of sustainable forest management. We looked at whether, and to what extent, the existing indicator set is fit for purpose to monitor progress towards the Strategy’s objectives, and the delivery of policy commitments. About two thirds of the identified objectives and commitments in the Strategy can be monitored at least partially by the pan-European set of indicators, whereas new indicators or approaches need to be developed for the remaining third. Several of the indicators are not linked to the Strategy, and some of them are only weakly linked to the policy issues addressed in the Strategy. Our comparison shows a few significant differences between the comprehensive vision of sustainable forest management formulated in the indicator set and the scope of the objectives and commitments in the Strategy. In particular, the forest policy concerns reflected in the Strategy address several issues which are not fully covered in the pan-European indicator set.
Highlights
Accepted: 27 January 2022The European Commission has adopted the New EU Forest Strategy for 2030 [1] as a flagship initiative of the European Green Deal [2]
We carried out a detailed line-by-line comparison of the pan European set of indicators for sustainable forest management, first formulated in the 1990s, but revised twice since [12], with the New EU Forest Strategy for 2030, presented by the European Commission in 2021 [1]
The underlying concept of sustainable forest management may have changed over time, notably by changing the scope to include major emerging issues, and giving lower priority to others
Summary
The European Commission has adopted the New EU Forest Strategy for 2030 [1] as a flagship initiative of the European Green Deal [2]. The Strategy places forest demands in the context of changing environmental conditions due to climate change and meeting socio-economic needs. Demands on forests have evolved recurrently over time, which has been reflected in changing concepts of sustainability. Hans Carl von Carlowitz formulated the concept of sustainable forest management in 1713 with regard to the backdrop of deforestation and forest degradation and the accompanying uncertain timber supply [3]. The principle of sustainable forest management was further developed in the 18th and 19th centuries and was fundamental to restoring destroyed and overexploited forests in Central Europe and to eliminating the timber shortage [4,5,6]. The special significance of the sustainability of the multiple functions of forests, i.e., the sustainability of all functions of forests and of the economic function of forests serving the timber market, was formulated by Dieterich [7]
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