Silvia Bender, the State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, opened the event and reminded that sustainable forest management and preserving forest biodiversity are not mutually exclusive and that sustainable forest management is the only way for us to actively adapt our forests to the climate change.
Bernhard Wolfslehner and Silvia Abruscato from Liaison Unit Bonn presented FOREST EUROPE’s policy brief “Forest Biodiversity in Europe –where do we stand?”. The brief gives an overview and evaluates the FOREST EUROPE Criterion 4 which focuses on forest biological diversity. FOREST EUROPE is currently working on revisiting biodiversity indicators and a scheme for key SFM indicators, which shall create a constructive working base for a consistent approach on forest biodiversity monitoring in the future.
Fanny-Pomme Langue, CEPF Secretary General, participated to the second panel on the future needs to further enhance forest biodiversity and guarantee forests’ multifunctionality. Ms. Langue presented a joint statement of forest owners’ organisations which among others lists enabling conditions for the enhancement of the sustainability of forests and forest biodiversity. She shared two examples to illustrate these conditions. The first example from Finland called “Luontoarvot – Nature Values” is a marketplace for natural assets developed by the Finnish Federation of Agricultural and Forestry Producers MTK. The second example from France called “The Index of biodiversity potential” (IBP) is a decision-making tool easy to use for forest owners to estimate the potential of forest to host biodiversity, and to identify biodiversity features that could be improved through identified management practices. It is developed by National Forest Ownership Centre (CNPF) in cooperation with French ministry for Environment.
During the event, Ministerial Decision “Supporting the recovery and sustainable management of Ukrainian forests and its forest sector” was adopted by the 44 Member States of FOREST EUROPE. It sends a strong signal of solidarity with the Ukrainian people and the forest sector. The current situation in Ukraine was presented by Liubov Poliakova from State Forest Agency of Ukraine. Sergiy Vlasenko, Deputy Minister of Environment Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, joined the meeting online and thanked FOREST EUROPE process for endorsing the Ministerial Decision and for the support.
