Forest Strategy: Greens/EFA dissatisfied with commitments adopted during negotiations

Brussels, 3 September 2020 – The Greens/European Free Alliance will reject the initiative report on the European Union’s Forest Strategy when it reaches plenary. The group is not pleased with what was agreed. 

Globally, this report is nothing more than business as usual: it states that the EU occupies a top spot in environmental standards (ignoring the current bad ecological condition of EU forests); it pushes for a growth of the wood biomass for the energy sector (even though it is extremely innefective and leads to accelerated forest destruction); and recognizes Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) as the sole measure to improve forest protection in the EU, a questionable logic, given that this is a private management system without enforcement means.

Climate adaptation and fire protection measures are well considered in the report, but they are only seen as a means of being able to exploit forests more, and not as symptoms of a problem in the current EU forest management. In addition to this, another amendment approved by the majority and that the Greens vehemently reject is one that recognizes hunters as central players in biodiversity.

Greens/EFA are in favour of:

1) actively protecting primary and ancient forests, which would require the extension of protected areas, but also better implementing the 'Natura2000' area network (a network of areas designated to preserve rare, threatened or vulnerable wildlife species and habitats in the EU);

2) exploiting forests intelligently and sustainably, keeping wood mainly for long-life uses (construction, furniture), and as locally as possible, using environmentally correct management methods. Massive replacement of fossil fuel energy with wood is not a solution, and the same can be said when replacing "single use" plastic products with "single use" wood products.

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