State of Europe’s Forests 2007 The MCPFE Report on Sustainable Forest Management in Europe

1. State of Europe’s Forests 2007 The MCPFE Report on Sustainable Forest Management in Europe Quantitative Indicators Michael Köhl Aljoscha Requardt

2. Outline of the Report C1: Maintenance and Appropriate Enhancement of Forest Resources and their Contribution to Global Carbon Cycles C2: Maintenance of Forest Ecosystem Health and Vitality C3: Maintenance and Encouragement of Productive Functions of Forests (Wood and Non-Wood) C4: Maintenance, Conservation and Appropriate Enhancement of Biological Diversity in Forest Ecosystems C5: Maintenance and Appropriate Enhancement of Protective Functions in Forest Management (notably soil and water) C6: Maintenance of other Socio-Economic Functions and Conditions

3. Outline of the Report • Contents, List of Figures, List of Tables, Abbreviations • List of Authors • Preface (P. Borkowski, K. Prins) • Executive Summary • Introduction • Overview Quantitative & Qualitative Indicators • C1 to C6 (provided by CLAs) • Conclusions • Appendix - List of MCPFE countries - Country data/ tables ???

4. Authors Criterion 1: Forest resources … CLA: Zoltán Somogy, Hungarian Forest Research Institute, Budapest Criterion 2: Forest ecosystem health and vitality CLA: Michael Köhl, University of Hamburg, Section World Forestry LA: Jesús San-Miguel-Ayanz, EC-Joint Research Centre, Ispra Andrea Camina, EC-Joint Research Centre, Ispra Martin Lorenz, ICP-Forests, Hamburg Richard Fischer, ICP-Forests, Hamburg Aljoscha Requardt, University of Hamburg, Section World Forestry

5. Authors Criterion 3: Productive functions of forests CLA: Marco Marchetti, Università degli Studi del Molise LA: Piermaria Corona, Università di Tuscia CA: Bruno Lasserre, Università degli Studi del Molise Davide Pettenella, Università di Padova Criterion 4: Biological diversity in forest ecosystems CLA: Jari Parviainen, Finnish Forest Research Institute, Joensuu LA: Jesús San-Miguel-Ayanz, EC-Joint Research Centre, Ispra CA: Markus Lier, Finnish Forest Research Institute, Joensuu

6. Authors Criterion 5: Protective functions in forest management CLA: Pier Carlo Zingari, European Observatory of Mountain Forests Criterion 6: Other socio-economic functions and conditions CLA: Arvydas Lebedys, FAO, Rome

7. Data Situation – C1 • Criterion 1 • reporting on changes on C1 has generally improved in the last few years • still considerable gaps in available data, which does not yet fully enable the indicator-based evaluation of sustainability • changes of forest area, growing stocks and biomass carbon stocks are indicators that constitute the most solid base of the evaluation. • less data on carbon pools of deadwood • much less data on the age structure and diameter distribution • data on age structure are mainly available for East Europe, the Nordic/Baltic countries, and Central Europe. • only a few countries reported statistics on diameter distributions

8. Data Situation – C2 • Criterion 2 • data situation sufficient for those indicators and attributes provided by ICP-Forests and EC • data potential for biotic, abiotic and human induced damages – with the exception of forest fires – is critical and allows only for a limited evaluation of SFM • while the assessments on Level I plots allow for representative information, the results obtained on Level II provide only limited information on spatial patterns. • due to lacking data on forest fire – especially from Mediterranean countries – data on forest fires in Europe were provided by EFFIS (EC- JRC) • data on soil condition are costly to collect and can not yet be compiled during the forest resource assessment process.

9. Data Situation – C3 • Criterion 3 • data potential on Non Wood Goods and Services are relatively poor (…explained by the fact that collection of data is treated as a leisure and often underrepresented in official national statistics). • in general, applied methodologies of data assessment and reporting do not allow any evident conclusions about the value of non-timber products • …even countries with high forest coverage and/ or long traditions in using forest products supplied no data or only limited data

10. Data Situation – C4 • Criterion 4 • MCPFE guidelines for the assessment of protected forest areas is workable, available data provide a comprehensive overview of the European situation. • data on deadwood were systematically collected first time (lacking data in Souther European countries) • the most complex and ambiguous indicator is threatened forest species…data collection very demanding and time consuming…therefore heterogeneous data • evaluations on trends are possible for naturalness, regeneration, tree species composition, protected forest areas and introduced tree species. • figures on forests undisturbed by man must be interpreted with care as the major part of undisturbed forests is located in the Russian Federation where the change rate between 2000 and 2005 was decreasing.

11. Data Situation – C5 • Criterion 5 • data at national level are not always available, but often some relevant information is provided by comments, e.g. describing relevance of protection functions at regional levels • data situation in general confirms the importance of protective functions in SFM • shifts occur from one “protection” category to the another. • soil and water are priority issues in almost all regions, while protection of infrastructures seems to be of relevance only in three regions (Central, East and South-East Europe) • Criterion 6 • …data evaluation and report writing still in progress…

12. Problems Indicator 2.4: Forest damage

13. Problems • Data Submission • Number of entries per country: ~1100 • Amount of data submitted < FRA 2005 • No consistent data for forest type categories • Data on trends poor • How to interpret Russian data?

14. Problems • Which data should be used, if there are other sources (e.g. FRA 2005) with better response rates? • Is the minimum data requirement met for all indicators to make a general statement about sustainability?