madam president at this very late hour i would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur mr arsenis for his commitment and his work in preparing the report on forest protection and information
thanks also to the members of the committee who have put forward their views for their valuable contributions
the commission announced its intention to present a green paper on forest protection and information in the context of the two thousand and nine white paper on adaptation to climate change
it was adopted in march twenty ten
the green paper set out the various socio-economic and environmental functions of forests and the challenges they will face in coming decades
it also reviewed current forest information systems in europe
most importantly it invited parliament and the council as well as all other interested stakeholders to provide their views on forest protection and information and on the way forward so that the eu could provide added value to the work going on at member state level and more widely across europe
the guiding principle has been to respect member states competences and subsidiarity while at the same time seeing how best the eu could contribute to ensuring that the functions of forests are protected and that the information necessary to achieve this is available
the past year has been rich in discussion and the council conclusions together with the results of the stakeholder consultation are already feeding into the commission's reflections on the next steps
despite the fact that there has been a lengthy debate as to whether the eu needs a forestry policy or not i am very pleased to see that appreciation of the economic social and environmental functions of forests was a common theme in the stakeholder and council input and that this concern is again evident today in the report drafted by kriton arsenis
likewise there is a very great need for information at a comparable level across a wide range of forestry-related issues such as employment stocks biomass fires soil and forest carbon information and trends forest health biodiversity and water protection and each institution lays great emphasis on finding means to achieve this
in anticipation of parliament's report we have already begun working with the member states to develop further and more clearly the precise information needs at eu level
the report will help us to focus this work
a further phase needs to be developed once the information needs are clear
we will be working on both aspects over the coming year carefully and without duplicating other efforts in the forest area
armed with relevant useful and comparable information we should in the near future be better able to provide eu added value across forestry-related socio-economic and environmental issues thus paving the way for better eu input to help forests to continue to deliver their multiple benefits for us all
the commission will now study this report in detail and reflect fully on our response to it and to the council conclusions and stakeholders input
