1 Forestry in the Expanded European Union: principles and practice

The paper, which sets the scene for the international conference on the future of poplar culture with particular reference to Europe, considers first recent developments in the principles, strategies, policies, programmes and processes underlying sustainable forest management within the existing European Union. It then considers the characteristics of the forestry sector within the EU, the ten “candidate ” countries, the three further candidate countries and other MCPFE countries, especially the Russian Federation and the Ukraine, which have very significant areas of forest. Finally, it identifies particular constraints which the principles and policies of the EU will have on the practice of forestry in the candidate countries, and necessary actions to meet those challenges. There are a number of conclusions: Accession to the European Union by the ten candidate countries will increase the forest area of Europe by 21%. Most of this new area, as in the existing EU, will be semi-natural woodland (95 % as against the existing 87%), which will not be available for forest plantations. It is also possible that there is less experience in plantation management in the candidate countries than in the countries of the existing EU.