Forests in the EU provide many products and services to society, benefiting citizens in numerous different ways. The expectations for forests are high – and they are subject to many and varied demands, not all of them necessarily compatible.

Sound decision making needs a solid and holistic understanding of the different roles forest can play, and of the complexity, diversity and long-term horizons of ecological processes and management decisions in forests.

Different groups of actors tend to have a good understanding of the forest roles they value the most or they are familiar with. But often information on other roles and interrelations between them are rather poorly understood or downplayed.

A new report from the European Forest Institute (EFI) aims to tackle the knowledge gap, compiling key research findings to answer 12 important questions about forests in the EU.

There is a short version in form of a publication in the EFI series “Knowledge to Action” and a long version available on the EFI webpage.

You can find both versions on https://efi.int/forestquestions