“Climate Change impacts on Forest Management
in Eastern Europe and Central Asia”

held in Sopron, Hungary, 14-16 April 2010

Objectives of the meeting

FAO has ranked climate change as one of its priorities. The programme on forests and climate change seeks to contribute to mitigating climate change by advocating and strengthening the concept of sustainable forest management and recognizing the crucial roles of forests in climate change.
The countries in transition of Eastern Europe and Central Asia represent both politically and in ecological respect a region, where adaptation to climate change raise specific problems which have to be addressed. However, there is currently no working platform for information exchange on this particular issue and there is a lack of bilateral or regional cooperation among the countries in the region. The creation of a regional platform for cooperation was intended to address the shortage of financing and of research facilities, experts and institutions in individual countries.
To support this initiative, a workshop dealing with the climate change impacts on forest management in Eastern Europe and Central Asia has been organised by the FAO Regional Office for Europe, supported by the University of West Hungary in Sopron, Hungary, in April 2010. The best available experts and official representatives of Southeast European and Central Asian countries were invited to participate and deliver detailed country reports on the subject.
The workshop has provided a platform for the representatives of the countries to exchange information on climate change impacts on forest management, to analyse the current status of research and policies addressing issues related to forest land use and climate change in the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with an additional emphasis on the identification of potential technical assistance.