The opinion approved by the committee will soon be deliberated at the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and also at the parliament’s plenary session.
The opinion drafted by J. Olekas states that recognising the multi-functional nature of forests is important in seeking to appropriately manage global forest heritage, as well as economic, social and environmental challenges. The opinion states that this requires a consistent holistic approach to forest safety, restoration and management, as well as resolving the problem of deforestation.
“In the Committee on Agriculture, we took the first step, coordinated positions on protecting the world’s forests. Agriculture remains a crucial sector in supplying people with food, but while the demand for food rises, we cannot recklessly and carelessly destroy the forests of our continent and the world, this particularly applying to the tropical forest zone, which has been facing vast deforestation for protein, oil demand, forests are being burnt down and turned into farmland,” MEP J. Olekas states.
Forests still cover 30 % of the Earth’s surface and they hold 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity. The opinion focuses on protecting forests and the use of sustainable resources as an active climate protection measure. The position paper states that the problem of deforestation should be resolved based on the EU political system, ensuring the consistency of sustainable forest-related policy and the sustainable management of forests across the entire EU and third countries.
The MEP emphasised the importance of sustainable lumbering, which would permit lumber products to the last longer, be more sustainable and would help retain for a longer time the carbon dioxide they have absorbed.
“If we do not hurry to protect the world’s forests, it is a significant danger to pour oil on the climate change fire. We have to limit imports from locations, which disregard sustainable forest management and apply strict marking if products arrive from such zones. We must encourage the production of protein in Europe and reduce import. With us entering into a decade of green Europe, we propose to establish sustainable forestry everywhere, thus allowing not only to make use of forest products but also protect forests from fires and other consequences of careless use,” the opinion’s initiator J. Olekas states.
The opinion emphasises the importance of forest management and the role of agricultural forestry systems in protecting biodiversity, softening climate changes and adapting to them: “It is a practice with vast carbon capture potential and which is a potential source of animal fodder,” the opinion states.
