EUSTAFOR position paper: Policy makers urged to respect subsidiarity principle and build on existing forest monitoring systems

EUSTAFOR, as a stakeholder which represents 39 State Forest Management Organizations (SFMOs) across 27 European countries, continuously supports sustainable and multi-purpose management approaches in daily forest operations and promotes research and innovation in the sector. Consequently, an EU-level action to promote application of innovative techniques, such as remote sensing, in forest monitoring, assessment and reporting as well as facilitating cooperation among the Member States in this field, is of great interest to our organization. EUSTAFOR shares the following views regarding what would make the Commission’s proposal a successful initiative:

• The New EU Forest monitoring law should have clear objectives.
• The Regulation must respect the Member States’ competence and build upon the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
• EU-based forest monitoring should build upon well-established systems
  supported by the Member States and relevant stakeholders.
• Data ownership and disclosure should not be determined by inventory method and cost covering.
• Data collection framework requires careful consideration to avoid
  inconsistencies and misinterpretations.
• The new EU Forest Governance is essential in the implementation of the forest
  monitoring framework

EUSTAFOR sees good reasons for reestablishment of an EU-level forest monitoring to ensure accurate, digitalized, consistent, comparable, timely and accessible data on the state of EU forests, provided that it is well governed by Member States and the Commission together and supported by a wide group of stakeholders of the entire value chain. Such a system must be developed with full respect to the ownership of information, data sensitivity and the need to satisfy societal needs for forest-related information. But most importantly, it should be done with respect for proper policy designing and objective setting by competent authorities, the aim of which should be durable, sustainably managed and multifunctional forests in Europe. EUSTAFOR will be ready to support such a process with the know-how and experience of its members.

The full position can be read below.