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  • Matters Arising
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Concerns about reported harvests in European forests

Nature volume 592, pages E15–E17 (2021)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 28 April 2021

The Original Article was published on 01 July 2020

arising from G. Ceccherini et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2438-y (2020)

Ceccherini et al.1 reported an abrupt increase in harvested forest—in terms of both biomass and area—in Europe from 2016, and suggested that this reflected expanding wood markets encouraged by the bioeconomy policies of the European Union (EU). They used Global Forest Watch2 and GlobBiomass3 data together with an analysis that sought to remove natural disturbances from forest losses, which overall resulted in estimates of 49% for the increase in harvested forest area and 69% for the increase in harvested forest biomass. We argue that the reported changes reflect analytical artefacts, with inconsistencies in the forest change time series, misattribution of natural disturbances as harvests, and a lack of causality with the suggested bioeconomy policy frameworks. There is an urgent need to re-examine available forest information that can accurately and reliably inform the ongoing policy discussions in the framework of the EU Green Deal, particularly the upcoming post-2020 EU Forest Strategy.

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Fig. 1: Abrupt changes in GFC after 2015 are visible in many temperate regions.
Fig. 2: Areas identified as natural disturbances.

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Acknowledgements

We thank G. Ceccherini and co-authors for immediately making available all original material, processing codes and results of their study upon request. N.A. and T.A.M.P. acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC) Programme Grant Agreement no. 758873 (TreeMort).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Marc Palahí, Ruben Valbuena

Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Forest Institute, Joensuu, Finland

    Marc Palahí, Lauri Hetemäki, Pieter Johannes Verkerk & Minna Korhonen

  2. School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, UK

    Rubén Valbuena

  3. Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management Group, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    Cornelius Senf & Rupert Seidl

  4. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Nezha Acil, Thomas A. M. Pugh & Jonathan Sadler

  5. Birmingham Institute of Forest Research, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Nezha Acil, Thomas A. M. Pugh & Jonathan Sadler

  6. Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Thomas A. M. Pugh

  7. Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Peter Potapov

  8. Institut Européen de la Forêt Cultivée, Cestas, France

    Barry Gardiner

  9. Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agrarie, Alimentari, Ambientali e Forestali, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Florence, Italy

    Gherardo Chirici & Saverio Francini

  10. Dipartimento per l’Innovazione dei Sistemi Biologici, Agroalimentari e Forestali, Università degli Studi della Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy

    Saverio Francini

  11. Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

    Tomáš Hlásny & Róbert Marušák

  12. Wageningen Environmental Research, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Bas Jan Willem Lerink & Gert-Jan Nabuurs

  13. Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Umeå, Sweden

    Håkan Olsson & Jonas Fridman

  14. Joint Research Unit CTFC - AGROTECNIO, Solsona, Spain

    José Ramón González Olabarria

  15. Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, University of Turin, Grugliasco, Italy

    Davide Ascoli

  16. Natural Resources Institute Finland, Joensuu, Finland

    Antti Asikainen

  17. Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Jürgen Bauhus & Marc Hanewinkel

  18. Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Göran Berndes

  19. Latvian State Forest Research Institute Silava, Salaspils, Latvia

    Janis Donis

  20. INRAE, University of Bordeaux, BIOGECO, Cestas, France

    Hervé Jactel

  21. European Forest Institute, Bonn, Germany

    Marcus Lindner

  22. University of Molise, Campobasso, Italy

    Marco Marchetti

  23. Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Douglas Sheil & Gert-Jan Nabuurs

  24. Centro de Estudos Florestais, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Margarida Tomé

  25. Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia, CTFC, Solsona, Spain

    Antoni Trasobares

Authors
  1. Marc Palahí
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  2. Rubén Valbuena
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  3. Cornelius Senf
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  4. Nezha Acil
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  7. Rupert Seidl
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  8. Peter Potapov
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  9. Barry Gardiner
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  21. Janis Donis
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  22. Jonas Fridman
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  23. Marc Hanewinkel
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  24. Hervé Jactel
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  25. Marcus Lindner
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  26. Marco Marchetti
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  27. Róbert Marušák
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  28. Douglas Sheil
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  29. Margarida Tomé
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  30. Antoni Trasobares
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  31. Pieter Johannes Verkerk
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  32. Minna Korhonen
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  33. Gert-Jan Nabuurs
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Contributions

M.P. and G.-J.N. conceived and initiated the study. R.V., C.S., N.A., T.A.M.P., G.C., S.F., T.H., B.J.W.L. and D.A. ran different parts of the analyses and demonstrations. M.P., R.V., G.-J.N., C.S., T.A.M.P., J.S., R.S., B.G. and L.H. drafted the initial version of the manuscript. P.P. provided first-hand experience of the algorithms involved in the production of GFC data. All authors offered insights from their own national statistics and local knowledge, which focused the analyses and the argumentation, and contributed critically to the interpretation of the results, revising and approving the final version of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Marc Palahí or Rubén Valbuena.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Palahí, M., Valbuena, R., Senf, C. et al. Concerns about reported harvests in European forests. Nature 592, E15–E17 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03292-x

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