Improving biodiversity monitoring in sustainable forest management
18th Apr 2024
Biodiversity is prominently discussed nationally and internationally, reflecting, for example, on the best way to efficiently monitor it and how to enhance and maintain it through Sustainable Forest Management (SFM).
Several decades ago, FOREST EUROPE developed a set of Criteria and Indicators (C&I) for SFM, that was improved and revised over the years. Those are publicly available, and countries use it as a very important tool for national and European forest policy, and for the development of their National Forest Inventories. Based on the information obtained by these C&I, the State of Europe’s Forests report is regularly published every five years.
The existing pan-European indicators (available here) need to be further developed to adequately address the new and complex demands on forests due to threats triggered by climate change, habitat change, and species loss (Prins et al., 2023). The FE indicators revision process aims to be in coherence with the main political goals and instruments such as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Aichi-Targets, Global Forest Goals, EU forest biodiversity-related strategies, etc.
You can discover more reading:
- the policy brief European Forest Biodiversity Indicators at a Glance also suggests a possible way forward.
- the full report Potential for revision of FOREST EUROPE indicators under criterion 4 to obtain a full picture, discussing each FE biodiversity indicator and recommendations for the future to optimize FE indicators.
Reference
Prins, K.; Köhl, M.; Linser, S. (2023): Is the concept of sustainable forest management still fit for purpose? EnvSciPol, forthcoming
