The Forest policy processes in Europe

 The next SIFI newsletter (mid-April) will summarize the seminar.

 Please find more information at www.sifi.se

The Forest Europe process to develop a Legally Binding Agreement, started just over four years ago and culminating in a Ministerial mandate to start negotiations on a Legally Binding Agreement on Forests in Europe last year. The First Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee for a legally binding agreement on forests in Europe (INC1) was just held in Vienna. There was a common understanding that the agreement will be a framework agreement with firm commitments that clearly add value and address all types of forests.

There are several other forest policy initiatives that have been quietly working their way through the EU machinery. Most notably, EU Member States and stakeholders are now working together with the Commission to review the EU Forestry Strategy, which dates from 1998. Apart from that, another working group under the Standing Forestry Committee is tasked to take up where the discussions on the Commission’s Green Paper on Forest Protection and Information in the EU ended. This group is expected to give proposals on how to improve the availability and quality of information on forests in the EU.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry is proud to present speakers highly involved in these processes, representing different areas and types of forests in the North, the South, the West and the East of Europe.

The seminar will shed light on the driving forces and the future processes of the different policy processes and to catch the essence of the challenges during the panel discussion. The purpose of the seminar is to present the driving forces and the future processes of

a)    the Forest Europe process

b)      the Negotiations for a Legally Binding Agreement on Forests in Europe

c)      the Green Paper on the Forest Protection and Information in the EU

d)      the review of the EU Forestry Strategy

Programme

Moderator     Åke Barklund, General Secretary and Managing Director, KSLA