Europe’s forest provide multiple ecosystem services for societies, ranging from provisioning (e.g. wood) and regulating (e.g. climate mitigation and biodiversity) to cultural (e.g. recreation) services.

This paper assessed the state and prospects of forest ecosystem services provision in Europe, introducing new data from the European collaborative research projects SINCERE, NOBEL and CLEARING HOUSE, and combining it with findings from the literature. The authors identify six challenges and three opportunities relating to forest ecosystem services provision. Subsequently, they introduce four distinct but complimentary policy pathways for European forest policy to better align forest ecosystem services provision and demand. The authors conclude by emphasizing the momentum that the EU Green Deal unfolds for a future European forest policy to incentivise the provision of multiple forest ecosystem services.

Winkel, G., Lovri´c, M., Muys, B., Katila, P., Lundhede, T., Pecurul, M., Pettenella, D., Pipart, N., Plieningerj, T., Prokofieva, I., Parra, C., Pülzl, H., Roitsch, D., Roux, J., Thorsen, B. J., Tyrvainen, L., Torralba, M., Vacik, H., Weissf, G., Wunder, S. 2022. 2022. Governing Europe’s forests for multiple ecosystem services: Opportunities, challenges, and policy options. Forest Policy and Economics, 145, 102849. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102849