Dear Reader of the eustafor.express!

In June the Forestry Commission England hosted the European State Forest Conference 2016 in the beautiful Lake District National Park in North West England. This was clearly one of the most important of EUSTAFOR’s recent events and our hosts, Forestry Commission England, are absolutely deserving of our appreciation for bringing the EUSTAFOR community together in such a fabulous English landscape, sharing their experiences, challenges and success stories in managing forests in a diversified countryside which has exceptionally high societal expectations and demands. Next year’s event will be hosted by our colleagues from ROMSILVA in Poiana Brașov, in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. Please already book your calendars for the dates of 13‑14 June 2017!

Directly preceding the SFC, an Executive Committee meeting took place at which the decision was made to launch two important position papers by early July. The first one concerned the role of forests in the EU Climate Change Post-2020 Policy and the second provided state forests’ views on the review process of the two Natura 2000 Directives.

Over the past weeks, EUSTAFOR was also involved in several other activities, including the “Beyond Wood” conference organized by the European Commission which provoked strong reactions from both the European Parliament and forest-based stakeholders. You will find further information about this event and many other topics in this month’s edition of our newsletter.

The end of June was also marked by the departure of Gerd Thomsen, EUSTAFOR’s Associate from Thüringenforst, who was part of our team for the past year.  He will remain in Brussels, working at the Permanent Representation of the Free State of Thüringia to the EU. Many thanks go to Mr. Thomsen for his essential contribution to the success of EUSTAFOR’s 10^th anniversary events which took place in the European Parliament in April 2016 and for building the association’s new website. A call has been sent out to members who would be interested in sending a new Associate to our offices.  Please contact piotr.borkowski@eustafor.eu for more information.

We hope you enjoy reading our summer edition.  Please feel free to forward it within your organization!

We wish you a very enjoyable summer vacation!

Piotr Borkowski
Executive Director