Photo: Leopold Ziehaus
Forest Conservation as a Global Task
The global forest area including primeval forests and plantations was 3,454 million hectares in 1995, i.e. 27% of the total land surface of our planet.
Just over half of all the forests are in developing countries. Between 1990 and 1995, a net 56.3 million hectares of forest were lost, whereby a total area of 65.1 million hectares of forest was lost in the developing countries, whilst the forest area increased by 8.8 million hectares in the developed countries. Deforestation remains a core problem in the developing countries. However, the loss of primeval forest areas decreased markedly in these countries between 1980 and 1990. The main reasons for the decrease in forest area are: Expansion of agricultural surfaces and major economic development programmes, in the course of which settlements are moved. The utilisation of wood is not an immediate cause of deforestation, but in many regions it promotes the destruction of forests because forest roads make remote areas accessible for agricultural use.Starting out from this worldwide decrease in forest area and the associated impacts on the global climate, joint international efforts have been made to protect the forests globally. The 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, for instance, dealt comprehensively with the necessary global task of forest conservation.
With this Conference, a worldwide discussion of the subject was initiated within the scope of which the need for a legally binding forest convention is currently under discussion.
Forest conservation is also an important forest policy issue in Europe. This is shown by the pan-European Process for the Protection of Forests in Europe, which is a forest policy dialogue involving some 40 states and the European Union, as well as forest-oriented organisations and institutions, with the objective of harmonising the forest policies and developing a coordinated procedure for Europe.
Whilst the first Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe in Strasbourg in 1990 was a reaction to the problem of dying forests, the second Ministerial Conference in Helsinki in 1993 focused primarily on sustainability and biodiversity in the forest, but also on cooperation with the Central and Eastern European countries and issues in connection with a possible climate change.
At the third Ministerial Conference in Lisbon in 1998, two resolutions were adopted which, based on the concept of partnership between society and forestry, deal with socio-economic aspects in connection with forest management and on pan-European criteria and indicators as guidelines for sustainable forest management. Additionally, a cooperation with the pan-European Environmental Ministers Process was entered into for the first time in the form of a biodiversity work programme.
With the Lisbon Conference, Austria has taken over the chairmanship of the pan-European Forestry Ministers Process. For Austria, this is an opportunity to actively help design the cooperation for the future of the European forests in this most important forest policy process in Europe.
The European Union is currently working on a “Community Strategy for the Forest Sector”.
25.06.2008,