Forest monitoring law: a monitoring framework for resilient European forests

The Forest Monitoring Law plugs information gaps about European forests and creates a comprehensive forest knowledge base to allow Member States, forest owners and forest managers to improve their response to the growing pressures on forests. It strengthens the capacity of forests to fulfill their multiple environmental and socio-economic functions.

In particular, the proposal aims at creating:

• an effective and cost-efficient forest monitoring system;
• a system for mapping and localisation of forest units;
• aA forest data collection framework, combining:

  • standardised data from EU Earth observation technologies (Copernicus satellites),

  • harmonised data, largely based on National Forest Inventories, collected by the Member States.

• a forest data sharing framework that will make sure that data is publicly accessible, also in Forest Information System for Europe (FISE);
• synergies with and support for the implementation of other key European legislation on climate mitigation and adaptation, bioeconomy, biodiversity, etc. such as the revised Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry legislation and the Nature Restoration Law.