Bosnia and Herzegovina

Albania

Kosovo

Montenegro

North Macedonia

Serbia

Biodiversity

Forest biological diversity refers to all life forms found in forests, such as trees, plants, animals, fungi and microbes, and their genetic variation. It is determined by various factors, including soils, climate, topography, management and disturbances that are either natural or induced by humans. Biodiversity can be measured by counting species and their uniqueness. Since it is difficult to monitor all species, biodiversity often is characterised according to its composition, structure and function.

Share of forest inside Natura 2000

Areas inside Natura 2000 are protected under the Birds and Habitat Directives.

Conservation status and trends of forest habitats

The conservation status of the habitats is assessed every six years reporting the conditions and trends of habitats and species compared to the favourable status as described in the Habitats Directive.
The conservation status of the protected forest habitats are assessed as “Good”, “Unfavourable-bad”, “Unfavourable-inadequate”, and “Unknown”.
The trend in the conservation status of forest species (population status) is assessed as "Improving", "Stable", "Deteriorating", or "Unknown".

The conservation status for forest habitats is the overall assessment of the status of a forest habitat type at the scale of a Member State’s biogeographical or marine region. It can be described as a situation where a habitat type is prospering (in both quality and extent/population) and with good prospects to continue to do so in the future. The conservation status objective of the Habitat and Species Directive is defined in positive terms, oriented towards a favourable situation, which needs to be defined, reached and maintained.

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The graph is presenting the share of the number of assessments reporting on the conservation status of habitats in 2018.

The habitat assessment is a monitoring process reporting every six years the conservation status and trends of habitats, as described in the Habitat Directive. The number of assessments for habitat types in a specific country is the result of the number of habitat types combined with the number of biogeographical regions of that country. More information on the methodology for the assessment can be found here: Article 17 Assessment tool methodology.pdf

Looking at trends is an essential part of conservation status assessment, as they inform and enable reflection on how statuses are evolving within the reporting period. Trends are reported for habitats with a poor or bad status only, and identified as improving, stable, deteriorating or unknown. Habitats with a good status are not included in this analysis This allows the recognition of subtle changes in both categories and guides the analysis of where more conservation efforts need to be taken.

The trend in conservation status for forest habitats is the overall assessment of the trend of a forest habitat type at the scale of a Member State’s biogeographical region.

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The graph is presenting the share of the number of assessments (n=X) reporting on the trend in conservation status of habitats in 2018.

The habitat assessment is a monitoring process reporting every six years the conservation status and trends of habitats, as described in the Habitat Directive. The number of assessments for habitat types in a specific country is the result of the number of habitat types combined with the number of biogeographical regions of that country. More information on the methodology for the assessment can be found here: Article 17 Assessment tool methodology.pdf

Tree species composition

A higher number of tree species in a forest stand will also lead to more biodiverse and resilient forests. Stands of single tree species, often coniferous such as Norway spruce, have proven to be more vulnerable, especially when occurring outside its natural growing range.

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Structural biodiversity

Age structure is expressed as the share of even-aged and uneven aged forest area. Forests are mainly even-aged with almost half of the stands in the intermediate age structure phase.

Forest stands with a mixture of younger and older trees (i.e. an uneven-aged forest) are generally more favourable towards biodiversity, as the life cycle of plant and animal species may be specifically connected to younger or older forest.

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Functional biodiversity

  m³/ha

Total deadwood forest in 2015³

Deadwood provides microhabitats for a diversity of animal and plant species (including mammals, birds, amphibians, insects, saproxylic funae, moss and lichens). Many factors influence the occurrence of deadwood, such as tree species composition, forest structural and age diversity, management regime and other factors. Nowadays, forest managers are consciously encouraged to leave dead trees in the forest to stimulate biodiverse habitats.

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References

1. Natura 2000 Barometer
2. FOREST EUROPE pan-European dataset provided by FAO, UNECE and FOREST EUROPE
3. Ibidem

Climate

Forests play a vital role in regulating carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere. Forests accumulate and store large amounts of carbon in the trees and in the soil as they remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and emit greenhouse gases by harvest, decay, or disturbances.
Forests act as a carbon sink, when the uptake, or removal of carbon from the atmosphere, exceeds the amount of carbon released. Forests are considered sources when they emit more than they remove.

Carbon

In these figures, total emissions and the forest sink are expressed in CO₂ equivalents, while carbon stock is shown in C. The carbon stock is based on the data available for the carbon pools and most recent year shown in the graph below.

The five main carbon pools in forests are aboveground biomass, belowground biomass, deadwood, litter, and soil.

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LULUCF and emissions reporting

Countries annually report their total emissions in the national GHG inventories.

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The net emissions and removals from total forest land are collected and reported annually under the LULUCF (Land Use Land Use Change and Forestry) sector. Forest and harvested wood products play an important role in the emissions/removals of this sector. Harvested wood products provide benefits to mitigate climate change impacts. Wood products store carbon for a long time. The use of wood products may substitute the use of more fossil energy-intensive materials such as steel and concrete.

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References

1. EEA greenhouse gases - data viewer provided by European Environment Agency (EEA)
   National emissions reported to the UNFCCC and to the EU Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Mechanism provided by European Environment Agency (EEA)
2. Ibidem
3. Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Bioeconomy

Forest economy

Economic activities include the forest-based sector (forestry and logging and the primary processing activities) and the wood-based secondary processing and manufacturing activities.
Employment, turnover, and value-added for the forest and forest-based sector typically refers to economic activities such as forestry and logging, manufacture of wood and of products of wood and cork, and manufacture of paper and paper products.

A substantial part of the employment, turnover and value added in Europe’s wood-based sector takes place in downstream parts of value chains. Below, a more comprehensive overview is presented of economic indicators for the forest-based sector (forestry and logging and the primary processing activities), as well as wood-based secondary processing and manufacturing activities.
Forest-based bioeconomy employment encompasses the workforce distributed in different sectors, comprising forestry, primary processing and secondary processing and manufacturing.

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Non-wood forest products (NWFP)

Forests provide many types of products, which include a wide variety of non-wood forest products (NWFP) such as berries, mushrooms, aromatic and decorative plant material, saps and resins, nuts, honey and wild meat. Their economic and social importance is considerable but available data on NWFP are mostly incomplete and difficult to compare.

Main non-wood forest products in 2015, million EUR

References

1. Employment by sex, age and detailed economic activity provided by EUROSTATAnnual detailed enterprise statistics for industry provided by EUROSTATSold production, exports and imports by PRODCOM list provided by EUROSTATUse table at purchasers' prices provided by EUROSTATCorrection factors for sectors according to Robert, N., Jonsson, R., Chudy, R., & Camia, A. (2020). The EU Bioeconomy: Supporting an Employment Shift Downstream in the Wood-Based Value Chains? Sustainability 2020, Vol. 12, Page 758, 12(3), 758.
2. Ibidem
3. Ibidem

Vitality

Major pressures affect forest ecosystems. In Europe, forest vitality is generally gauged through assessment of tree crown condition, occurence and impact of forest disturbances, forest fragmentation and deforestation. These indicators reflect forest health, resilience and ability to provide ecosystem services in a sustainable manner. Forest vitality is also a way to gauge the forest ability to adapt to climate change.

Tree crown condition

Defoliation is defined as needle/leaf loss in the assessable crown as compared to a reference tree. Defoliation is observed regardless of the cause of foliage loss. Trees are moderately to severely defoliated when defoliation exceeds 25%.

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Main disturbances on forest ecosystems

The main disturbances on forests comprise forest fires, diseases, insects and storms.

Forest fires

Most forest fires are triggered by human activities (such as agricultural machinery, arson or accidents). Forest fires are enhanced by extreme drought conditions with increasing prevanence due to climate change.

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Pathogens

Invasive pathogens have increasingly become detrimental to forests and ecosystem functions and services in Europe. The economic value of the forest resources is also negatively impacted. Pathogens often specifically target certain tree species. Some of the common diseases in European forests are Dutch elm disease, chestnut blight and sudden oak death. Tree pathogens may be carried through seeds or in the soil.

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Insects

Bark beetles and insect defoliators can cause major economic losses as well as threaten the forest ecosystem balance. Conversely, ecosystem imbalances can also encourage the mass infestation of insect pests. Wind storms, drought and certain management practices can impact the occurance of insect pests in forests.

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Severe weather

Severe weather is understood as windstorms, rain and heavy snowfall with destructible impacts on forests. Severe weather can result into economic losses and it can increase the susceptibility of the forest to biotic disturbances (insects and fungae).

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Deforestation

Deforestation is defined as the permanent conversion of forest land to agriculture, grassland, wetland and urban areas. Deforestation applies to forests where disturbances, excessive use, change of use (such as urbanisation), or environmental changes degrade the forest so severely that its canopy cover can no longer exceed 10%, and/or a permanent change in land use. The graph below represents deforestation as a share of the forest area in 2000. Part of the deforestation is compensated by forest expansion (afforestation or natural expansion) leading to a positive forest area balance in most countries.

Deforestation as proportion to the total forest area, in percentage.

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Forest fragmentation

Forest fragmentation is breaking large, contiguous forested areas into smaller forest patches, separated by roads, agriculture, utility corridors or other anthropological developments.
Fragmentation is one of many factors that threaten forest health and vitality. Large and intact forest ecosystems are essential to maintaining a good forest condition and biodiversity. Increased fragmentation means that the forest area in the largest patch sizes will decrease and that the small size classes will increase.

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