Initial reactions by key stakeholders to the Farm-to-Fork & EU Biodiversity Strategies

The webinar on “Initial reactions by key stakeholders to the Farm-to-Fork and EU Biodiversity Strategies” was co-organised by the European Parliament Intergroup on “Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development” and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on 2 July 2020. Mr. Piotr Borkowski, Executive Director of EUSTAFOR, was among the speakers of the webinar.

On 22 May 2020, the European Commission adopted the Biodiversity Strategy and Farm to Fork Strategy, as part of the European Green Deal. While the EU Biodiversity Strategy focuses on the sustainable use, conservation and restoration of ecosystems with concrete steps to undertake by 2030, the Farm-to-Fork Strategy aims at improving the EU food system through the sustainable transformation of the EU food-supply chain, enhanced consumer information and the promotion of healthier diets.

Speaking at the webinar, MEP Petros Kokkalis highlighted the importance of the multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder approach of both Farm-to-Fork and EU Biodiversity Strategies and of achieving coherence between them. Moreover, Mr. Kokkalis declared that the biodiversity aspect needed addressing and that all stakeholders must work together to achieve a better food system.

In the panel discussion, Mr. Borkowski stressed that biodiversity protection is very important for EUSTAFOR, the mission of which is to implement European and national forest plans and to practice sustainable forest management. At the same time, Mr. Borkowski listed 5 policy recommendations raised by EUSTAFOR on the EU Biodiversity Strategy. A first recommendation is to establish conservation targets in line with what is currently on the ground and supported by solid assessments. Secondly, Mr. Borkowski stressed that the restoration commitment requires properly defined objectives and clearer definitions of the concepts mentioned. Mr. Borkowski added that the new targets need to be realistic, feasible and fairly distributed among various ecosystem types and land uses. The last recommendation from EUSTAFOR is to strengthen Sustainable Forest Management as a feasible way forward. Concluding his intervention, Mr. Borkowski underlined that the role of forests’ management goes further than biodiversity protection and could also contribute to economic performances through the bioeconomy, the promotion of carbon storage and energy substitution.

The full report of the webinar can be found here.

Please click here to access all webinar documents, namely presentations, agenda and list of participants.