Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Matters Arising
  • Published:

Quantifying forest change in the European Union

Nature volume 592, pages E13–E14 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

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).

Using remote-sensing data on forest cover change in the European Union (EU), Ceccherini et al.1 report an abrupt increase in harvested biomass (69%) and in harvested forest area (43%) on the basis of a comparison between two periods, 2010–2015 and 2016–2018, in a single decade. They demonstrate a spike in harvests in 2016–2018, and use the short-term rise to infer a long-term trend of increasing harvests, causing them to question the viability of European forests remaining a terrestrial carbon sink in the future. They then suggest that the recent expansion of wood markets around the globe may portend sustained growth in the area harvested for forest products in the EU, and that this might adversely affect goals to mitigate climate change in the coming decades. We feel that this argument is misinformed and, together with their analysis, leads Ceccherini et al.1 to several errors in their conclusions.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Ceccherini, G. et al. Abrupt increase in harvested forest area over Europe after 2015. Nature 583, 72–77 (2020).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. E-yearbook of Food and Natural Resource Statistics for 2018 (eds Kortesmaa, T. & Salo-Kauppinen, R) https://stat.luke.fi/en/e-yearbook-food-and-naturalresource-statistics-2018-2018_en (Natural Resources Institute Finland, 2018).

  3. Swedish Forest Agency. The Swedish National Forest Inventory (accessed 15 August 2020); https://www.slu.se/en/Collaborative-Centres-and-Projects/the-swedish-national-forest-inventory/

  4. Hansen, M. C. et al. High-resolution global maps of 21st-century forest cover change. Science 342, 850–853 (2013).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Kauppi, P. E. et al. Carbon benefits from Forest Transitions promoting biomass expansions and thickening. Glob. Change Biol. 26, 5365–5370 (2020).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. European Pellet Council. Bioenergy Europe Statistical Report 2019 https://epc.bioenergyeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/SR19_Pellet_final-web-1.pdf (2019).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA

    Iddo K. Wernick

  2. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ-8 UPSACLAY, Gif sur Yvette, France

    Philippe Ciais

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

    Jonas Fridman

  4. Department of Forest Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå, Sweden

    Peter Högberg, Annika Nordin & Pekka E. Kauppi

  5. Natural Resources Institute Finland, Helsinki, Finland

    Kari T. Korhonen

  6. Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Pekka E. Kauppi

Authors
  1. Iddo K. Wernick
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Philippe Ciais
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jonas Fridman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Peter Högberg
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Kari T. Korhonen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Annika Nordin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Pekka E. Kauppi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

This Comment was initiated by I.K.W. and P.E.K. P.C., J.F., P.H., K.T.K. and A.N. all contributed to the writing and editing of the Comment.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Iddo K. Wernick.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wernick, I.K., Ciais, P., Fridman, J. et al. Quantifying forest change in the European Union. Nature 592, E13–E14 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03293-w

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03293-w

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Anthropocene

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Anthropocene