Co-creating the future of European forest policy with local stakeholders
As part of the EU PathFinder project, ELO and the University of Freiburg organised five regional workshops in Madrid, Vienna, Helsinki, Ljubljana, and Brussels to gather stakeholder perspectives on EU forest policy. Across the five workshops, 57 participants representing 38 organisations contributed to discussions on forest governance, future challenges and the policy actions required to support resilient and multifunctional European forests.
In Spain, participants broadly agreed on several widely sup ported stepping stones, including strengthening education and awareness, increasing regional management capacity, investing in research and innovation, improving governance coordination across regions, and establishing long-term mon itoring systems to track resilience, biodiversity and fire risk. Participants also highlighted the importance of maintaining active, multifunctional forest management to balance eco logical, economic and social objectives. However, several proposals were contested, including concerns over funding, eligibility, fairness, and potential complexity payments for ecosystem services schemes, โclose-to-natureโ forest man agement approaches considered less suited to dry ecosys tems, opposed large-scale protection of unmanaged old growth forest, and cross-regional management strategies which affect regional autonomy.
In Helsinki, participants identified integrating multifunctiona forest education into school curricula as a central priority, alongside updating forest management practices through new technologies and developing a national 2030 Multifunc t ionality Plan to guide adaptive governance. While improving forest by-product value chains was seen as beneficial, some questioned its feasibility, and proposals such as land-use anti-pollution zoning generated debate over implementation responsibilities and governance challenges.
The Austrian workshop focused on governance structures and institutional clarity. Participants supported the develop ment of a comprehensive system for tracking forest condi t ions, the creation of a transparent national forest budget, adaptive national forest management guidance tailored to site-specific forest management practices, including species selection and risk mitigation strategies and resolving the debate over forest governance, Member State versus EU competence in forest governance, to ensure coherent and predictable future policies. Some proposals, including promoting wood-based products as substitutes for fossil-based applications and establishing site-specific pilot areas where stakeholders can test climate-resilient management practices, were viewed as neutral but potentially beneficial. Measures such as mandatory forest protection quotas or the introduction of close-to-nature management requirements were more contested.
In Slovenia, stakeholders prioritised updating the national forest strategy with longer operational programmes, strengthening support and education for small forest owners, integrating holistic forest education into schools, revising legislation to allow site-adapted tree species, and setting site-specific forest targets. Measures such as increased bioeconomy investment, improved access to economic advisory services and integrated water-forest planning were perceived as neutral. Participants perceived that establishing a state-owned forest nursery, prioritising management plans only in actively managed regions, and consolidating unmanaged forests from inactive owners, were seen as having limited impact or relevance in practice.
The EU-wide Brussels workshop explored broader European governance issues. Widely supported measures included mapping forest ownership across Europe, enhancing EU-wide data exchange, halting deforestation through effective enforcement by 2030, implementing landscape-scale ecosystem management plans, expanding biorefinery capacity, and allocating rural development funding to support socio-economic transitions. Measures considered neutral included introducing an EU forest budget, phasing out fossil-fuel subsidies, and deploying sustainable biomass heating systems where appropriate. Measures not supported by all participants included an EU Sustainable Consumption Fund, which would use public and private finance to promote sustainable production and land use, with a particular focus on forestry and forest management.
Overall, the workshops combined regional insights with EU- level dialogue, highlighting education, monitoring, governance coordination, and adaptive management as key stepping stones to strengthen Europeโs forest resilience and multi functionality.
This piece first appeared in Countryside Magazine, Issue 221 (February 2026), published by the European Landowners’ Organization. Reproduced with the kind permission of Pierre le Maitre and the European Landowners’ Organization.