UPM-Biofore-Magazine-2-2019

efforts to achieve its climate targets. One third of Germany’s landmass is covered by forests, which together offset as much as 14% of the country’s CO 2 emissions. For Fanny-Pomme Langue , Secretary General at the Confederation of European Forest Owners (CEPF), the key to ensuring that forests can meet different societal expectations, first among themmitigation of climate change, lies in sustainable forest management, which encompasses economic, social as well as environmental aspects. The CEPF represents the national associations of private forest owners in the EU. Private forests are managed by 16 million forest owners and represent 60% of the EU’s forest area. “I believe the forests can deliver many of the benefits expected from them, including carbon sequestration and storage and biodiversity conservation, thanks to sustainable and multifunctional forest management carried out by forest owners on a daily basis,” Langue says. “If we want forests to play a key role in climate change mitigation, we need

What to plant for the future? The EU countries vary greatly in the importance assigned to forests: some have very little forest coverage, while for others forests have deep cultural and historical value. Nevertheless, climate change and the bioeconomy are currently two major themes discussed across the board. “The importance of forests in mitigating climate change and the need to adapt them to altered climatic conditions is a baseline of all our policies,” says Nuno Sequeira , Member of the Board at Portugal’s Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests. Forests and wood capture and store carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), a key greenhouse gas causing global warming. Yet forests themselves need to be resilient enough in order to continue providing important ecosystem services – such as soil protection, water cycle and biodiversity – as well as to generate economic resources and other opportunities for society. This point has been on the table in Germany, where unusually dry and hot summers in recent years have left trees vulnerable to bark beetle infestation.

The EU adopted a forest strategy in 2013 to coordinate

its responses to forest issues, with the aim of promoting sustainable

forest management among its member countries and globally.

As a result, an estimated 120,000 hectares of forests have been destroyed, a calamity comparable to the forest decline caused by acid rain in the 1980s. “This time the problems are likely rooted in climate change, so finding solutions and answers is more complicated,” says Requardt. “It has not been helpful that certain news reports have unfortunately mixed their top stories and compared the Amazon forest fires with the situation in Germany. What is needed now is more research into what to plant for the future.” Economic losses aside, the disaster could potentially affect Germany’s

52 | UPM BIOFORE BEYOND FOSSILS

Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs