Part II: European Forests: Status, Trends and Policy Responses 69

Indicator 1.1 Forest area provide a full time series but reported data on FAWS
Area of forest and other wooded land, classified by from 2005. Data on other land with tree cover are
broad-leaves and conifers, and by availability for wood rather sparse and were only reported by 22 countries.

supply, and share of forest and other wooded land in
total land area.
Introduction
The forest area indicator provides a general overview
of European forest resources and is a basic source of
information on the overall state of European forests,
land-use policies, forest policies and environmental
reporting. The extent of forest area and, particularly,
changes in forest area are crucial elements for
assessing the sustainability of land-use management.
Furthermore, the availability of forests for wood supply
in Europe is gaining in significance in the context of
the multiple demands on forests, e.g. for material and
energy uses.
Estimates of forest area and other wooded land area are
available for all countries in the European region for the
years 1990, 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015. 6 countries did
not report data on Forests Available for Wood Supply
(FAWS) for 2015. Moreover, 2 countries were unable to
PART II: CRITERION 1: MAINTENANCE AND APPROPRIATE ENHANCEMENT OF FOREST RESOURCES AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO GLOBAL CARBON CYCLES
9 countries, which account for 18.5% of the European
forest area, were unable to provide information on
forest types %.
Data availability and significant differences between
national and international definitions of forests available
for wood supply and between different interpretations
by the various countries of the international definition in
this and previous reports (SoEF 2011, FOREST EUROPE,
UNECE and FAO 2011) are the main reasons for the lack
of more complete and harmonised national data sets.
Status
Forests cover over 215 million ha in Europe, that is 33% of
Europe’s land area. Forest area is unequally distributed
over the European territory and there are significant
differences in the percentage of forest found in different
European countries. However, the percentage of forest
is between 30 and 45% in nearly half of the countries
(Figure 19).

22.2

28.1
12.1

2.2

3.4

0.6 2.2

8.6
0.8

3.1 9.4
0.4
11.4 9.7
0.7
0.1 2.7
1.9 0.4

3.9 2.1 2.8

17.0
1.3 6.9
1.2

1.9
2.1 2.7
3.8
0.8
9.3
1.0
11.9
Share of forest area (%) 3.2 18.4 0.8
3.9
0 - 15
0.2
16 - 30

31 - 45

46 - 60

61 - 100
3.5 Forest area (million ha)

Figure 19. Forest area (million ha) and share (percentage) of land area by country, 2015
70

Large forest areas are typical for countries in the
North Europe region (Table 5). In Finland, almost three
quarters of the total land area is covered by forests. At
68%, Sweden is the country with the second largest
forest area. Slovenia is the only country in the South
Europe region with more than 60% forest cover. The
lowest share of forest land occurs in the South-East
Europe region (23% of the land area). Between 10 and
15% of the land area is under forest cover in Denmark,
Moldova, United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Ireland.
The countries with the least forest cover are Malta and
Iceland (1.1 and 0.5% respectively).
Other Wooded Land (OWL) represents 36 million ha, a
small part of the total land area in all regions except South
Europe (Table 1). Indeed, the climate and soil conditions
in South Europe favour scattered tree vegetation and
shrubland. 5 countries in Central-West and East Europe
(Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Poland and
Slovak Republic) reported zero values for other wooded
land, which explains the very low share of less than 1%
OWL in these two European regions.
The forests in Europe are made up of stands dominated
by coniferous trees (45%) and broadleaved trees
(36%). Mixed stands cover 19% of Europe’s forest area
(Figure 20). The larger share of stands dominated by
coniferous trees is mainly explained by the dominance
of coniferous trees in Finland and Sweden (75 and 72%
respectively) where boreal forests predominate, while
a greater share of broadleaved-dominated stands is
found in other parts of Europe.
Higher percentages of predominantly broadleaved
stands are mainly located in the Mediterranean
countries and in South-West and South-East Europe,
which report 62 and 47% of broadleaved stands
respectively, and in countries under oceanic influence
in Central-West Europe. The higher percentages of
mixed forest are located in Central-West Europe and
represent 31% of the forests there.
The area of forests in Europe available for wood supply
in 2015 amounted to 166 million ha (Table 5). This
corresponds to 79% of the forest area of countries
reporting on FAWS. Central-East Europe is the region
with the lowest share of forests available for wood
supply (70% of the reported forest area). These data
differ from the results in previous reports, in which
the lowest share was reported in the South-East

Table 5. Extent of forest and other wooded land, 2015

Forest…. ….of which available for wood supply other wooded land
Region % of total Total forest area of countries % of forest % of total
1 000 ha 1 000 ha 1 000 ha
land reporting FAWS 1000 ha land land

North Europe 70,832 53.2 55,223 70,832 78.0 5,874 4.4

Central-West Europe 38,582 27.6 36,290 38,582 94.1 918 0.7

Central-East Europe 44,494 27.1 31,019 44,085 70.4 914 0.6

South-West Europe 30,913 35.0 25,016 30,897 81.0 12,747 14.4

South-East Europe 30,446 23.5 18,391 24,826 74.1 15,308 11.8

Europe 215,267 32.8 165,939 209,223 79.3 35,760 5.5

EU-28 160,931 37.9 134,486 160,931 83.6 20,987 4.9

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
North Europe Central-West Central-East South-West South-East Europe EU-28
Europe Europe Europe Europe

Mixed forest Predominantly broadleaved forest Predominantly coniferous forest

Figure 20. Proportion of forest area by forest type and region, 2010