Many forests across Europe are publicly owned and are intended to serve a variety of public needs – from biodiversity conservation and carbon storage to clean water and recreation. In 2020, the EU committed to protecting at least 30% of its terrestrial area, with one-third (10%) being strictly protected. Yet today, that vision is being undermined. EUSTAFOR (the European State Forestry Association) appears to be betraying this public mandate.
EUSTAFOR issued a statement in March 2025 calling for a “balanced and sound” approach to land protection. While that sounds reasonable, a closer read reveals the problem: the document actually argues against the biodiversity and climate commitments made by EU Member States. Instead of supporting these goals, EUSTAFOR seems to be experiencing role confusion, positioning itself more as a forest owner rather than as a representative of state-owned companies that manage public forests for the public good.
Roughly 40% of EU forests are publicly owned. These lands present a critical opportunity to reshape forestry practices toward protecting ecosystems, biodiversity, and climate resilience, not just timber production.
It is time to remind EUSTAFOR and its members that their management objectives must align with the public interest. Forests are not simply timber resources. Besides removing atmospheric CO₂, forests regulate and filter water supplies, buffer and moderate the microclimate, provide critical habitat for countless species (including pollinators), and offer nature-based recreation. Logging forests almost always harms these vital functions. Yet because the financial value of these services is rarely evaluated, forests continue to be valued primarily for timber.
In fact, EUSTAFOR seems out of touch with what’s really happening to the EU’s forests.
They claim that “advanced sustainable forest management in state forests has in fact created nature values.” This is simply false. Nature values are created through evolutionary processes over millennia. At best, sustainable forest management can maintain these values, not create them. Focusing biodiversity and climate action on publicly owned land, including public forests, is a logical and necessary step that would likely generate the least social conflict.
Their statement further claims that “European State Forest Management Organizations (SFMOs), now and in the past, have proven to follow the highest sustainability standards in forest management, including the preservation of valuable habitats and species.” That’s a staggering misrepresentation. While there are indeed examples of good practice, this sweeping claim grossly misses the mark. The European Environmental Agency’s State of Nature in the EU report found that only 14% of forest habitats within Natura 2000 areas are in favorable conservation status. The same report identifies forestry as the biggest threat to our forests.
It’s easy to see that continuing with business as usual will further degrade Europe’s forest ecosystems by reducing their ecological integrity and resilience. Short-term profits from timber extraction should not be allowed to undermine the achievement of our biodiversity and climate targets. EUSTAFOR should be speaking for the public — not for private or industry interests.
We call on EUSTAFOR and its state-owned or state-affiliated members (e.g. the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture) to stop undermining biodiversity and climate commitments and to focus on applying forest defender principles across public forests in the EU:
- Climate mitigation and biodiversity values are intertwined and require a joint response.
- Forest ecosystems, as natural habitats, are self-sustaining and do not require active human management.
- The higher a forest’s level of ecosystem integrity, the greater its stability, resilience, and resistance to threats, and the greater its climate mitigation benefits and adaptive capacity.
We also urge EUSTAFOR to stop undermining the credibility of the nature conservation sector, which is often government-linked. Its statement focuses solely on skilled professionals within the forestry sector, ignoring the essential contributions of forest ecologists, biologists, and conservation professionals, who work tirelessly to protect biodiversity in protected areas and beyond.
Disclaimer: the position presented herein represent the views of PFPI exclusively and should not be interpreted as representing the views or endorsements of any other organizations associated with the Forest Defenders website.
