The European Union is going to set the new targets for forest carbon sinks for its Member States as part of the third stage of the Paris Agreement implementation.
In July 2017, the Environment Committee of the European Parliament adopted the draft report of the Committee’s Rapporteur, MEP Norbert Lins, on the regulation of Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF). The policy is of critical importance for the forest and agricultural sectors as it defines the climate benefits of forest management and the use of wood.
According to the proposal, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and removals by forests would be compared to a projected Forest Reference Level based on past harvest intensities.
The proposed way of regulation will cause a situation where we, in fact, support and make space on the market for products produced with fossil carbon and non-renewable natural resources. Wrongly set targets for the carbon sink in the forests will, in fact, lead to a situation working against the important targets for carbon sink and climate change fighting.
It is both unfair and illogical to compare future forest use to historical management intensities. The regulation of Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) should be socially, economically and environmentally sustainable and has to be changed.
The member states with the largest forest cluster economies should not be punished because of a successful sustainable forest management and forest industry throughout the years.
The coming regulation of Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) in the European Union has to be based on facts of the forestry today. It should, in all aspects, be fair for the EU citizens and the member states.
By taking the principles of economical, ecological and social sustainability into consideration and using the actual measured annual increment of the forests in the member state and setting the level of annual harvest intensities at a level of 85-90%, the active carbon sink of the growing forest stock is guaranteed as well as the sustainability in the forest management. Only well managed, growing forests are efficient carbon sinks.
The European Parliament is now in front of a very important decision, that has to be the best one in all sustainability aspects.
METO – FORESTRY EXPERTS’ ASSOCIATION
LUVA – NATURAL RESOURCES
UNION OF EUROPEAN FORESTERS
For additional information, please contact:
President Håkan Nystrand
METO – Forestry Experts´Association
LUVA – Natural Resources
tel. +358407615176
President Michael Diemer
Union of European Foresters UEF
tel. +49 151 40039337
METO–Forestry Experts’ Association is an organisation for safeguarding the interests of forestry and natural resources experts. The association has approximately 7,000 members who work in natural resource industries as planners, designers, supervisors, foremen, in timber acquisition and harvesting, in forestry, as executive directors, office managers, advisers, in jobs related to nature management, as teachers and as experts, in other managerial duties and as independent entrepreneurs.
There are 12,000 experts in forestry, agriculture, biodiversity and bioeconomy in the member organisations of LUVA-Natural Resources. They work in the natural resources sector as planners, advisers, leaders, teachers, researchers, experts, having different tasks related to the nature- and environmental sector, agriculture and management of agriculture and in the businesses of agriculture and forestry, as managers and as independent entrepreneurs. The student organizations in the natural resources sector can also be members of Luva.
Union of European Foresters (UEF) is a federation of professional foresters organizations from several European countries. UEF was created in 1965 and groups together today 25 associations from 21 countries. In total UEF represents some 85,000 foresters of all ranks working for different kind of forest owners (state, community, private). The aims of UEF are to contribute to reveal the essential role of forests in the balance of nature and the protection of the environment as well as the importance of the economic and social role of forests. UEF is defending and promoting within the European framework the professional, ethical, and material interests of the associations and their members to take any favorable opportunity to improve the position of foresters within Europe.
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