The timing could hardly be worse. The comprehensive European Environment Agency (EEA) report, Europe's Environment 2025, published just days after the vote, paints a stark picture of biodiversity collapse across the continent. The assessment reveals that 81% of protected habitats and 62% of non-bird species are in poor or bad condition, with deteriorating trends expected to dominate the near future. Forestry activities rank as a major pressure on species and habitats, yet politicians have just voted against improving the very monitoring systems needed to address these threats effectively.
The contradiction is glaring. The EEA report acknowledges that while considerable environmental legislation exists, implementation gaps persist, and biodiversity targets remain unmet. The report notes that reversing biodiversity loss requires not only full implementation of existing environmental laws but also complete integration of environmental concerns across sectors - including forestry.
Yet when presented with legislation designed to provide the accurate, timely data necessary for evidence-based forest management, a parliamentary majority chose to reject it.
Industry groups, including forest owners' organisations, argued against the monitoring law, citing unclear added value and administrative burdens. But this reasoning rings hollow when Europe's forests face unprecedented challenges. The EU's land use and forestry sector, once a reliable carbon sink absorbing approximately 335 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent annually, has seen its capacity decline by 30% over the past decade. This reduction stems from increased harvesting and climate change impacts - precisely the conditions that comprehensive monitoring could help address.
The EEA report documents the barriers to implementing effective forest policy: insufficient capacity to execute restoration work, poor monitoring of progress and inadequate stakeholder involvement. The rejection of the Forest Monitoring Law entrenches these failures. How can we address declining forest health without knowing its full extent? How can we develop sustainable forest economies without understanding what our forests can sustainably provide?
The report also emphasises that achieving Europe's biodiversity goals requires fundamental changes in how we produce, consume and manage natural resources. It stresses that protecting ecosystems is not merely an environmental imperative, it is essential for Europe's economic competitiveness and resilience to climate change.
It is now very clear that a majority of Member States and the EU Parliament do not want transparent monitoring of the harvesting that is underway in their forests, often citing the 'red tape' bogey man. But better information does not create 'bureaucratic burden', it creates opportunity, as the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies emphasised earlier this year. With accurate forest data, Europe could unlock high-value, less extractive forest economies that balance conservation with sustainable use. It could identify degraded areas needing restoration and healthy forests requiring protection. It could track whether policies are working or failing.
Instead, by rejecting improved monitoring, politicians have chosen to fly blind. They have ensured that when the next State of Nature report arrives in five years, we will once again read about declining forests, long after we should have reversed the decline. The question is no longer whether Europe can afford comprehensive forest monitoring. Given the accelerating ecological crisis, the real question is whether Europe can afford not to have it.