Europe has only a limited amount of remaining old-growth forest. These forests are economically important, but they also provide critical habitats for numerous species and support biodiversity that cannot be replaced once lost. Their protection therefore requires a balance between ecological, economic and social considerations and must be based on sound science while being implemented in a socially just way.
Across the Nordic and Baltic countries, scientists have raised concerns that national definitions of old-growth forests do not always reflect the latest scientific understanding of these ecosystems. In some cases, forests that meet scientific criteria for old-growth status may remain outside protection and could be exposed to logging.
This raises a fundamental question for the European Union: Can the EU deliver on its commitment to protect Europe’s remaining old-growth forests if Member States apply substantially different or less ambitious national criteria?
Against this backdrop, researchers from the Nordic and Baltic countries will present joint, science-based criteria for identifying and protecting old-growth forests in Northern Europe at a Brussels press event.
The scientific team brings together expertise from across the region, providing a cross-border scientific basis for identifying boreal old-growth forests.
The event offers the public and journalists an opportunity to hear directly from the scientists behind a new Nordic-Baltic scientific framework for identifying old-growth forests, and to question policymakers and stakeholders about how science should shape the final decisions.
