EUROPEANFORESTS

25% of the world’s forests are in Europe 

–that amounts to 1.02  billion hectares 

of forests, equivalent to the whole surface area

of China or 33.3 times the area of Italy–

  

 

45%Forests cover of Europe’s total land area.

Europe is the only region

of the world with a positive

net change in forest area

during the last 20 years.

The growing stock in Europehas increased faster than the area,

which means that the averagestanding volume of wood per

hectare has grown.

GROWING

In this period forest areain Europe has increased by

(almost half of the area of Italy).17 million hectares

Over the last 20 years,total growing stock of forests

in Europe has increased by

8.6 billion cubic meters.

All this means that Europeanforests today:

• Cover a bigger surface• Have more and bigger trees

HOW AREEUROPEAN FORESTS ?

are predominantly broadleaved are mixed

25%

 50%

25%

are predominantlyconiferous

Forests in Europe are mostlypublic owned:

In most individual forestsin Europe the trees are largelyof the same age, in generalyounger than 80 years old.

The area of old forests with trees with a widerspread of ages is tending to increase slightly.

European forests cannot be understoodseparately from the human history:

70% of theEuropeanforests are 

seminatural

 

4% are plantations

26% are undisturbedforests, mostlylocated in remote orinaccessible areas

90%of which, 800 million hectares belong to the Russian Federation)are public forest

European forestsare home to many

species that can be found only in

these ecosystems.

Deadwood is animportant habitat for a large numberof forest species such

as insects and otherinvertebrates, and arefuge and nestingplace for mammals,

 birds and otheranimals.

Forests are an incrediblesource of biodiversity: 

not only because of thediversity of species living

in the forests, but also because of the genetic

diversity within the

The average volumeof deadwood, bothstanding and lying,

is about

20.5m3 /hectare

 in the forestsof Europe.

Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe

Source: FOREST EUROPE, UN ECE and FAO 2011: State of Europe’s Forests 2011. Status

and Trends in Susta inable Forest Management in Europe.

http://www.foresteurope.org/full_SoEF