Navigating through the EU forest-related objectives

Forests stand at the intersection of many of the European Union’s key ambitions, from achieving climate neutrality and conserving biodiversity to ensuring energy security and fostering economic competitiveness. Forest governance within the EU is therefore complex, as numerous policy domains intersect with forests. Over the past three decades, a diverse array of policy instruments — both legally binding and non-binding — has emerged to address these interlinkages.

A new study forming the basis of this ThinkForest event maps forest-related objectives across 90 EU policy documents, taking the 2021 EU Forest Strategy as its starting point. The analysis identifies 15 key policy objectives and reveals how forests are increasingly portrayed as multifunctional allies in tackling Europe’s major challenges. While the European Green Deal has strengthened environmental and climate ambitions, economic productivity remains firmly embedded within EU forest policy.

However, forests, their management practices, and ownership structures vary widely across Europe. In the light of increasing forest disturbances, the need to adapt forests to the future and increase their resilience while maintaining and enhancing biodiversity and their carbon sink, it will be instrumental to understand how all of these EU objectives can be achieved simultaneously.

Our ThinkForest event:

• presented key insights from the study on EU forest policy objectives
• discussed opportunities for better policy coherence and governance integration
• fostered dialogue on challenges and opportunities for addressing trade-offs in implementation