Monitoring forest biodiversity: a European perspective with reference to temperate and boreal forest zone.

Recent state of forest biodiversity at the European level was reviewed and analysed with respect to the current requirements from the environmental policies as well as with respect to scientific findings in the field. The analysis reveals the main deficits and development needs, and outlines some possible courses for future action. Specific reference is given to the boreal, Atlantic and continental regions of Europe. Especially the operational definition of biodiversity, the selection of the scale and consideration of the most appropriate indicators and data collection methods are of primary importance when defining a monitoring approach. The results of a recent assessment at national scale contribute to an improved understanding, but show some shortcomings with respect to the level of detail. The high variability of the distribution, structure and composition of forests in Europe can be comprised only partially when the monitoring follows national borders. To detect changes in time for corrective measures and to be able to apply appropriate threshold values for biodiversity indicators a more detailed approach, which takes into account different bio-geographical regions and forest ecosystem types, is needed. Technically, this could be based on aggregation national forest inventories or European-wide sampling scheme combined with remote sensing data and distinct forest types or categories.