After months of hard work, we’re excited to celebrate the release of the 2024 edition of the Eurostat European forest accounts handbook.
Forests are a vital planetary resource contributing to climate regulation, biodiversity, and food and fibre provision. However, the measurement of the area of forest land, the volume and value of timber resources, the economic activity of forestry and flows of forestry products has been inconsistent globally, with countries tackling the measurement challenges in different ways.
In Europe, these challenges have become front of mind with the adoption of a new legal requirement to compile and report forest accounts.
To support European countries to meet these reporting requirements, Eurostat has developed the European forest accounts handbook. It supports countries to compile consistent and comparable statistics on Europe’s forest resources. The development of this comprehensive guide was led by IDEEA Group Director Carl Obst and Research Analyst Maria Angelopoulos, in cooperation with Eurostat’s Expert Group on Forestry Statistics over a period of 18 months. They worked in a truly collaborative process with representatives across Europe, examining and collating various sources and methods, and incorporating feedback from forestry measurement experts.
The Handbook aligns with the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), the System of National Accounts (SNA), and the European System of Accounts (ESA). It equips European countries to meet the new legal requirements and supports the sustainable management of Europe’s forests for decades to come.