Forestry in Europe faces major challenges that need to be tackled together, can be filtered out as a consensus of the EU symposium “Forest meets politics” on January 15, 2020 in Berlin. All parties involved in the forest and timber industry in Europe should join forces in order to implement the EU Commission’s Green Deal. It is important to appreciate the multifunctionality of forests and the use of wood – beyond climate protection and biodiversity. In this context, strengthening the EU forest strategy also plays a very important role, and with it Germany, which will take over the chairmanship of the EU Council Presidency in the second half of the year and with it also the possibility of shaping forest topics.
The comprehensive consideration and rewarding of ecosystem services, for example, is becoming increasingly important for European forest owners. Their participation in political processes is essential. With the involvement of the European Forest Associations CEPF (private forest), EUSTAFOR (state forest), FECOF (municipal forest), the Croatian Forest Owners Association and the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), the German Forestry Council (DFWR) organized the parliamentary event for the third time in the German Bundestag.
The European Commission presented the Green Deal on December 11, 2019. At the same time, a number of policy initiatives were presented to ensure that Europe achieves the goal of net zero emissions by 2050. With a huge investment program, the EU Commission wants to invest in options to deal with the climate change in Europe.