State of Europe’s Forests 2025 report officially launched

After initial delays, Forest Europe published its long-awaited State of Europe’s Forests 2025 (SoEF 2025) report on 27 March. The report compiles forest statistics from 45 countries across the pan-European region, including all EU member states, based primarily on submissions from national forest authorities.

Rather than launching the report through a single event, Forest Europe has opted for a series of monthly thematic webinars throughout 2026, covering topics such as forest health, carbon resources, biodiversity, bioeconomy and green jobs. The links to the webinars will be uploaded on EUSTAFOR’s website as they become available.

Forests continue to grow, but more slowly

One of the clearest findings of the new report is that Europe’s forests continue to accumulate timber volume. Average standing stock rose from 169 m³/ha in 2020 to 171.5 m³/ha in 2025, and is now around 45% higher than in 1990.

However, the pace of growth has slowed significantly. While the average annual increase over the longer term was estimated at 1.3%, growth over the last five years stagnated to just 0.3%. Forest Europe attributes this to slower expansion of forest area, aging forest structures, rising harvest intensity and forest damage. A factor they did not mention as explicitly is climate-related stress, which is playing an increasing role.

Forest area still expanding

Europe’s forest area continues to increase. Since 2020, the continent has added approximately 2 million hectares of forest, bringing the total to 232 million hectares, up from 230 million in the previous report. Since 1990, some of the largest expansions have taken place in countries such as Spain and France. This is mostly due to large scale afforestation projects of degraded areas, but a change in methodology cannot be ruled out as a contributing factor.

The share of broadleaved species also increased from 37% to 40%, suggesting a gradual shift in species composition.

Utilization rises

The report shows that the utilization rate, the proportion of annual growth being harvested, rose from 73% to 81% since last report. In most countries, removals remain within sustainable limits, but several nations reported harvest levels exceeding 100% of annual increment, including Estonia, Belgium, Sweden and Germany.

These figures require careful interpretation. In some regions, salvage logging following bark beetle outbreaks or storm damage may have temporarily inflated harvest statistics. The report does not consistently separate regular harvesting from salvage cuts, making comparisons more difficult. In addition, several countries lack recent harvesting or increment data.

This issue reflects a wider policy challenge: Europe increasingly expects forests to deliver timber, renewable energy, biodiversity protection and carbon sequestration simultaneously.

Encouraging biodiversity signals

Despite concerns over forest pressure, SoEF 2025 also contains positive biodiversity indicators.

• Deadwood volume increased from 11.5 to 14 m³/ha
• Protected forest area rose from 23.6% to 26.4%
• Uneven-aged forest area expanded from 28.2% to 36.3%
• Plantation forests declined from 3.8% to 2.4% of total forest area

These trends may indicate more structurally diverse forests and a gradual move away from simplified stand structures.

At the same time, forest health indicators deteriorated. The share of forests with moderate to severe defoliation rose from 26.4% to 31.1%, underlining the growing impact of drought, pests and climate stress.

Ownership shifts and economic trends

The share of publicly owned forest land declined from 53% to 51.2%, largely linked to restitution processes and some public land sales. South-West Europe was the only region where public ownership increased, likely due to forementioned afforestation programmes.

Economically, the forest sector presents mixed signals:

• Contribution to GDP rose from 0.7% to 0.83%
• Forest sector jobs declined from 2.6 million to 2.4 million
• Wood consumption per capita increased from 1.0 to 1.1 m³
• Marketed forest services more than doubled in value, from €495 million to €1.26 billion (likely due to several countries that did not provide figures in the previous report)

The decline in employment likely reflects continued mechanization and productivity gains rather than contraction alone.

Conclusion

The State of Europe’s Forests 2025 report confirms that Europe’s forests remain a growing and strategically vital resource. Forest area is expanding, biodiversity indicators show some progress, and the sector continues to contribute economically.

But forests are also under strain. Growth is slowing, defoliation is rising, and harvesting levels remain politically and publicly sensitive.

EUSTAFOR will continue to follow the Forest Europe webinars and engage in the discussions. And the report will likely be discussed in depth during the upcoming Forest Europe Ministerial Conference in Stockholm on 3 June in Stockholm.