The EU forest strategy is achieving its aims of encouraging sustainable forest management both in the EU and globally, the mid-term review has found. The report ‘progress in the implementation of the EU forest strategy’ released on 7 December 2018 concludes that the strategy has set clear aims and has successfully coordinated efforts to achieve them.

Set up in 2013 to coordinate the European Union’s response to the challenges that are faced by our forests and the forest sector, the Forest Strategy sets out specific actions to achieve eight key priorities. The report shows that the majority of the actions, across all 8 priority areas, have been implemented as envisaged.

An effective forest strategy is an essential element of the EU’s wider climate policy. By encouraging and promoting the sustainable management of forests and their multifunctional role, the strategy helps to fight deforestation, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere by sequestering carbon, to enhance resilience of ecosystems to a fast changing climate and to protect and preserve biodiversity and other ecosystem services.

Source: European Commission