Forest Resources Management and Sustainability: The Specific Case of European Union Countries

Abstract

Forest land provides several environmental services and goods with significant implications for different socioeconomic and environmental dimensions. Forestry and its management are determinant activities for sustainable development, specifically in the current context of urgent mitigation of climate change. In this perspective, one objective of this research was to survey the main insights from the literature about the forest and management dimensions put together, highlighting the contributions of these activities to mitigate climate change. Another objective was to explore indicators related to forest management (land, employment, output, and net emissions) in order to obtain a forest sustainability index through factor analysis. As main insights from this study, we can quote that the literature survey pinpoints the most relevant factors framing forest management: soil characteristics, ecology, ecosystems, biodiversity, deforestation, climate change, socioeconomic frameworks, local knowledge, public policies, institutional context, and new technologies. Forest indicators reveal a strong relationship between forest land, employment and output, and a weaker relation with net emissions. We concluded that there is a need for stakeholders to explore and improve the interlinkage with climate change impact, specifically with regard to improving the relationships of forestry greenhouse gas emissions impacts with forest size and output.