After the EU rejection of the Forest Monitoring Law – European cooperation continues

Forestry issues are high on the political agenda due to climate change and loss of biodiversity. Reliable and comparable data are needed to monitor developments.

“More and better knowledge and data are needed to support political decisions. But the answer is not necessarily a single, standardised monitoring system,” says Göran Ståhl, Professor of Forest Inventory at SLU.

The European Commission’s Forest Monitoring Law proposal aimed to establish a common framework for collecting data on forest conditions, climate impacts and biodiversity.

When the European Parliament voted against the proposal, the legislative process came to a halt – but the need for coordination remains.

“The EU has no common forest policy, but forests are central to both climate and environmental policy. We already report to several international organisations, but there is still no coordinated reporting to the EU,” says Göran Ståhl.

Cooperation continues – with SLU as a key actor

Even though the legislative proposal was rejected, active collaboration between European countries is already underway.

Since 2003, Sweden has been part of the European National Forest Inventory Network (ENFIN) – a network where countries with national forest inventories cooperate to harmonise their data, that is, to make information collected in different ways comparable.

The network’s secretariat is based in France, and Göran Ståhl represents Sweden on the steering committee.

“It is a strength that countries have built and funded their own systems according to national needs. This collaboration makes it possible to use the existing knowledge in a joint and comparable way,” he says.

The goal is for countries to produce data that are comparable without using exactly the same methods. They may, for example, use different sample plots, measuring instruments or calculation models – but through harmonisation, results can be recalculated to be comparable between countries.

In Sweden, forest information is collected through a national forest monitoring programme that measures changes in forest conditions over time. At its core is the Swedish National Forest Inventory, run by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Since 1923, field crews have collected annual data on tree species, growth, harvesting and forest damage.

The statistics form part of Sweden’s Official Statistics, a national framework for quality-assured government data, and are used in both national and international reporting to organisations such as the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) and the EU’s climate reporting.

“More and more countries are now working in similar ways to Sweden. By sharing experiences and harmonising results – that is, making data collected in different ways comparable – we can build a shared knowledge base for Europe’s forests,” says Göran Ståhl.