Last week, the scientific journal «the Nature» published an article “Abrupt increase in harvested forest area over Europe after 2015” based on a study by the European Commission Joint Research Centre bioeconomy unit based in Ispra, Italy.
The study claims that there was a significant increase in the harvested forest area in Europe over the recent years and speculates about the reasons and impacts behind such “dramatic increase”.
The conclusion of the researchers is that the increasing demand for forest services and products, driven by the bioeconomy, poses a challenge for sustainable forest management in particular and, more generally, for the EU’s ambition to fight the climate crisis.
Representing an industry based on circular and sustainable forest raw materials, Cepi would like to highlight some important flaws in the study’s methodology and assumptions.
Our intention is to support the development of an EU Forest Observatory that can fast and reliably be used to inform policy and the general public.
The full Press Statement can be read here.