The European Commission proposing on 22 November a Forest Monitoring Law that will plug existing gaps in the information on European forests and create a comprehensive forest knowledge base, to allow Member States, forest owners and forest managers to improve their response to growing pressures on forests and strengthen forest resilience.
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Why do we need EU legislation on forest monitoring?
Europe’s forests are under increasing stress from climate change, the direct or indirect impact of unsustainable human activities, and related land use changes. Hazards like wildfires, pest outbreaks, droughts and heatwaves, often reinforcing each other, are likely to lead to more frequent and intense catastrophic events that do not stop at national borders. These pressures undermine forest resilience and pose a threat to the capacity of forests to perform their different environmental and socio-economic functions, including their role as natural carbon sinks.
Overall information about the status of forests in the EU is fragmented. Data on their environmental, social, and economic value, the pressures they face and the ecosystem services they provide are largely heterogeneous and inconsistent. The data currently available has gaps and overlaps, and is often provided with significant delay. Moreover, even advanced monitoring systems lack coverage of non-forestry data (i.e. biodiversity and climate). In other words, the EU lacks a common system to collect long-term, accurate and comparable forest data. This limits the ability of Member States, foresters, forest managers and other stakeholders to take informed decisions and act against stressors and threats, including for taking rapid and efficient disaster risk responses.
A comprehensive, high-quality, timely monitoring system that covers all forests and other wooded land in the EU and ensures data comparability would help counter these threats, support rural development and bioeconomy, help comply with agreed EU rules and policies, and enable the uptake of new business models such as carbon farming and payments for ecosystem services. Systematic EU-wide forest monitoring for climate hazards, risks and damages at high resolution and frequency is particularly important, to improve risk management, adaptation and post-disaster recovery.
What does the Forest Monitoring Law propose?
It will put in place a comprehensive, high-quality monitoring system that ensures standardised or harmonised data and covers all forests and other wooded land. It will build on existing data sets, good practices of Member States and the technological advancement of remote sensing as well the EU capacity to provide these services.
Specifically, the Forest Monitoring Law will create:
- A system for mapping and localisation of forest units
- A forest data collection framework, combining:
- Standardised data, for which the Commission will take the lead role and provide a cost-effective service primarily from Earth observation (Copernicus)
- Harmonised data, largely from National Forest Inventories, that is comparable across Europe
- A forest data sharing framework:
both the Commission and Member States will publish this data, including in the Forest Information System for Europe (FISE).
Who will benefit from the EU forest monitoring law?
For policy makers, the new law will offer better data and access to information including more up-to-date data, inter alia, on natural disturbances, forest disasters, sink capacity, biodiversity condition and bioeconomy across Member States. Building on existing national efforts, the framework will offer better data and knowledge for decision making and policy implementation. The framework will help to create an integrated forest governance, by ensuring cooperation among Member States, and by encouraging them to set up long-term forest plans, taking into account all the relevant policy dimensions and the multi-functionality of forests.
Current data shows that the impact of future temperature increases on 32 tree species in Europe by 2100 is expected to reduce the value of European forest land by 27% due to a predicted decline in economically valuable species. Strategic and informed intervention today will reduce this decline.
Forest managers can market the ecosystem services their forests provide, such as carbon removals, under the EU Carbon Removal Certification, based on more credible and accessible data, helping to scale up carbon farming. The economic value of the EU forest area’s net carbon sink can be estimated at 32.8 billion, according to the impact assessment accompanying the proposed Regulation. EU forestry and wood products currently remove approximately 380 MtCO2 eq per year.
The monitoring law will strengthen the sustainable provision of economic, social and cultural forest resources and services. For example, timber provision was estimated at around 16 billion in 2021 and the value of regulatory and cultural ecosystem services (i.e. flood control, water purification and recreation for which forests were the main contributor to the total value of nature-based recreation) was estimated at about 57 billion.
Businesses active in digital services, including SMEs, will be offered new opportunities based on standardised/regularised products and by further developing a market for Earth observation and aerial monitoring tools.
What about existing national forest inventories?
The proposal builds on and does not replace existing national systems. It also strengthens the existing Forest Information System for Europe (FISE). It will complement,not duplicate, what already exists at national level, in full respect of subsidiarity.
The framework will build on existing monitoring schemes at national and EU level and aims to reduce reporting burden on national administrations by applying principles of the Open Data Directive.
Will the law bring additional costs, restrictions or bureaucracy?
Member States will be able to collect harmonised data based on their existing data collection systems, as long as data accuracy requirements are fulfilled. Member States will therefore benefit from better comparability and consistency across the EU, without an obligation to change their monitoring methods, where in place.
The Commission will also support the Member States that require assistance, among others, by providing Earth observation services. Substantially more detailed and frequent data can be available thanks to the state-of-the-art Earth observation technologies, while opening the door to considerable monitoring cost reductions. Copernicus services will be provided free of charge by the Commission. This will mitigate part of the additional costs on the national level.
The proposal does not introduce new direct administrative requirements for businesses, including forest owners and foresters.
Implementation will also not entail substantial additional costs for Member States, many of which already have monitoring systems and technologies in place. It is expected that some will even have an advantage in providing monitoring technology and experience to other Member States.
Will the law put additional obligations on forest managers?
The proposal does not regulate forest management. The initiative focuses on data and monitoring as well as on voluntary long-term forest planning. It will not interfere with Member States operational choices on forest management, including on planning.
Will Member States have to submit forest plans to the Commission?
The framework will help to create an integrated approach to forest planning by encouraging Member States to develop long-term forest plans, taking into account all the relevant policy dimensions and supporting exchange and cooperation between Member States.
If Member States decide to engage in a voluntary process of “integrated long-term plans for forests”, these plans would be developed by the competent authorities in the Member States. Where such plans already exist, those can be adapted following the suggested minimum elements for integrated long-term plans. They would not be subject to an approval by the Commission.
Proposal for Forest Monitoring Law
Report on Forest Fires in Europe, Middle East and North Africa 2022
Carbon Removal Certification (europa.eu)
Source: European Commission
