Woodland and forest

Forest is the largest terrestrial ecosystem in the EU covering more than 40% of the total land cover and is home to much of European biodiversity. Forests provide timber and a multiplicity of important ecosystem services to society such as clean air, fresh water, carbon sequestration, food, opportunities for recreation and many others.

However, despite their importance, the knowledge on forest ecosystems and their services still needs to be substantially improved.

A basic target of the EU 2020 strategy is to show and guarantee that EU forests are managed according to the principles for sustainable management and to sufficiently contribute to the decreasing of the worldwide deforestation, thus assisting the balance of different function of forests and their ecosystem services provision.

One of the key directions in the EU strategy about the forests and the forest sector is mapping and assessment of the ecosystems condition as well as the services they provide. This is a basis for the member states to develop a conceptual framework for valuation of ecosystem services encouraging their integration into the accountancy systems at both EU and national level.

The EU initiative on Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES), with the support of all Member States, contributes to improve the knowledge on ecosystem services.

MAES is one of the building-block initiatives supporting the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020. In 2014, the MAES Working Group launched a forest pilot study aiming to identify available knowledge that can be used to map forest ecosystems and assess their condition and the services they provide, including forest biodiversity. On 2nd December 2014, a dedicated workshop on “Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) in the forest environment” was held with wide participation from the private and public sector and stakeholders.

The predefined project BG03.PDP2: Methodological assistance for ecosystems assessment and biophysical valuation (MetEcoSMAP), which is implemented under the programme BG03 “Biodiversity and ecosystem services” funded by the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area 2009-2014, aims to provide national methodological framework on mapping and assessment of ecosystems and their services.

The methodology delivers a practical step-by-step guidance to the process of:

Methodoly of mapping and asseement of woodland and forest ecosystem