EUSTAFOR CONFERENCE 2025 – SEGOVIA

The world is constantly changing, socially, politically, economically, and climatologically, bringing constant challenges to the way we manage and preserve European forests.

From climate change, to changing social needs and perceptions pertaining to our forests, there are multiple influxes that call for change in the way in which we currently manage forest resources.

But some of these drivers lack of considering the mere need of managing forests or of disregarding the positive effects of sustainable management: a more integrative approach in this sense is needed in the upcoming initiatives from the EU which have a lot to do with forests, i.e., laws regarding nature restoration, deforestation regulation, forest monitoring, soil and water resources, bioeconomy, climate change, etc.

All of this is related to forests, but it does not solely respond to an explicit forest policy based on planned management in the long term. European State Forests play a relevant role in this issue, as we can show practices that have been successfully applied during more than a century and which have not only generated forest products and services to local populations over the years, but also an improvement in biodiversity.

Moreover, this management has become a real guarantee of forest conservation in the long term, as well as a key factor for the maintenance of population in high-risk depopulation areas and for the prevention of the severe fire hazard which is one of the main threats for forest conservation in growing areas of Europe.

Main topic will be the need of managing forests whatever our objectives are. We will talk around wood and non-wood products, integrate firefighting, diseases control, nature restoration, biodiversity improvement, livestock systems, long term planned management, new opportunities and demographic loss vs. employment creation.

We hope these issues will enrich the constructive debate and strengthen the fact that management is needed to afford all these challenges and others upcoming from the EU new regulations, and that we the State Forest Managers have a lot to say at this stage.