Eastern Europe faces challenges in sustainable forest management, UN agency warns

While the rest of Europe is steadily progressing towards sustainable forest management, Eastern European countries are facing many challenges in better managing forest products following the restitution of land from the State to their previous owners, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said warned today.

“It is important for policymakers in these countries to identify ways and means to assist private smallholdings with professional advice, to enable them to take advantage of expanding markets while maintaining forest quality,” FAO Director Forest Products and Economics Division Wulf Killmann told a European forestry commission meeting in Zvolen, Slovakia.

The owners of the new holdings, which are often so small that they cannot afford professional advice in a field lacking an established tradition of forest management, are frequently tempted to sell all the timber to the first buyer and then abandon active and responsible management.

“Overall, private owners will need further support to manage and market forest products better, so that the private forests may become more economically viable. Safeguarding the environmental and social services of forests is yet another challenge,” Mr. Killmann said.

Greater demand for social and environmental benefits from forests, such as water management, soil erosion control and leisure, is expected. Improved policy coordination across sectors will be indispensable, the Agency noted.

FAO and the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) are working with other international organizations and governments to assist in solving problems. “South-eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States urgently request support for policy changes and institutional reform,” UNECE senior forestry officer Kit Prins said.

Countries in the region could benefit from the experience of the new European Union members in adapting to profound changes in their social and economic environments.

Increased efforts are also needed to combat forest fires and support forest law enforcement.

The Commission meets every two years and is part of a global network of regional forestry commissions which together feed ideas and suggestions to the FAO Committee on Forests, scheduled to meet in March 2007.