An assessment of the state of forests and forestry in the Czech republic with respect to criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management

Forests fulfil many irreplaceable functions and becouse of that it is neccessary to manage them with all respect to sustainable management to preserve them for the future generations. Current global trend of forest coverage is decreasing. Since 2015, forest coverage descresed from 31,8 % to 30,8 %. Contrary, the forest state in the European Union and in the Czech Republic is more optimistic. Generally, the forest area coverage of EU is 38 % but this representation is slightly unbalanced. Forest management is a complicated process of planning and implementing forest activities, necessary to perform it in sustainable way. Sustainable management is in this diploma thesis evaluated through the system of criteria and indicators estabilished by cooperation of various organisations. It has been set a list of six criteria and its defining indicators. In Europe, this list was adopted in 1998 at the third Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe. Thesis focuses mainly on describing the state of the Czech forests and its development through the last decade, since 2007 to 2016. According to avaible information is realized an assessment of forest area development, ownership structure, forest regeneration, forest categories, growing stock volume, tree species composition and an assessment of certified forest area. Based on processed evaluation is implemented a SWOT analysis appraising main strong and weak aspects and opportunities and possible threats of the Czech forestry