40 % of the EU land mass is covered with forests, providing European citizens with an invaluable amount of goods and ecosystem services. This places Europe’s forests in the spotlight for contributing to solutions for many of today’s challenges, such as establishing and fostering a competitive bio-based economy, strengthening the rural sector, mitigating climate change, as well as maintaining and enhancing biodiversity. The new EU Forest Strategy and its Multi-Annual Implementation Plan, the FOREST EUROPE Ministerial Conference in Madrid (20-21 Oct 2015), as well as the climate change summit of the 21st UNFCCC Conference in Paris (30 Nov – 11 Dec 2015) are underlining the high relevance of sustainable forest management in Europe.
Within the EP Intergroup on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development, the working group on Sustainable Forest Management aims at creating a focal group in the European Parliament to discuss and exchange on this topic, gathering a wide range of policy makers and stakeholders. This multi-stakeholder platform of dialogue aims to look into the solutions and opportunities provided by different sectors, such as the forest sector, to address today’s and tomorrow’s environmental and socio-economic challenges. This meeting will serve as the kick-off meeting of the working group for the mandate 2014-2019.
Link to event page
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