Online Event: Sustainable management of forests – How to seek a balance through EU policies?

Wednesday 27 April 2022, 13:00 – 15:00 CEST

Co-hosted by MEPs Jytte Guteland (S&D), Elsi Katainen (Renew Europe), & Simone Schmiedtbauer (EPP)

Co-Chairs of the Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) Working Group of the European Parliament Intergroup on ‘Climate Change, Biodiversity & Sustainable Development’

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Several ongoing EU-policies include provisions related to sustainable forest management (SFM); as these policies are interlinked, outcomes of one policy might have a certain impact to others. Specifically, while these provisions are not fully in-line with each other, nor in line with already approved EU-policies and objectives, the lack of clarity and coherence within policies creates a lack of input for forest owners and managers hampering the planning of future management of their forests.

Meanwhile, SFM is a key tool for forest owners and managers to ensure the best possible management of their forests, making sure that the decisions they make are ecologically, economically and socially sustainable. SFM is a dynamic and evolving concept, and currently Forest Europe is working on revisiting the set of criteria and indicators for SFM that have been defined and agreed within this pan-European process.

This online event aims at therefore bringing together speakers to exchange about the future of sustainable forest management concept and practices, to clarify the current complexities put forward by several EU-policies concerning provisions related to SFM, and to debate the feasibility of these provisions and possible ways forward, in order to render EU political decisions aligned with constraints and expectations from the ground.

Final Agenda:

13:00 – 13:10: Welcome remarks by MEP Jytte Guteland, and MEP Elsi Katainen 

13:10 – 13:20: Intervention by Isabelle Mellier, Chair of the Working Party on Forestry, French Ministry of Agriculture

13:20 – 13:25: Video-message from forest managers

13:25 – 13:35: Keynote speech by Dr. Georg Winkel, Professor and Chair of the Forest and Nature
Conservation Policy Group, Wageningen University & Research

13:35 –13:40: Video-message from forest owners

13:40 – 14:15: Panel discussion, with the participation of:

• Dr. Bernhard Wolfslehner, Head of Governance Programme, European Forest Institute

• Gaëlle Marion, Head of B2 Unit on Environmental Sustainability, DG AGRI, European Commission

• Galena Woodhouse, Project Manager on Global Biodiversity Standard at BGCI, representing IUCN

  Species Survival Commission

• Dr. Peter Mayer, Director of the Federal Research and Training Centre for Forests, Natural Hazards and

  Landscape (BFW)

14:15 – 14:30: Reactions (5′ per speaker) from:

• Joan Calabuig Rull, Rapporteur for the Opinion on the “EU Forest Strategy for 2030”, CoR

• Simo Tiainen, Rapporteur for the Opinion on the “New EU Forest Strategy for 2030”, EESC

• Tomáš Krejzar, Director, Department of Forest Policy and Economics, Ministry of Agriculture, Czech

  Republic

14:30 – 14:55: Q&A session with the audience

14:55 – 15:00: Key take-away messages by MEP Simone Schmiedtbauer