The European Commission on Wednesday pro-posed a forest monitoring system that will use satellites to track threats such as climate change-fueled wildfires and illegal logging.
Climate change is taking a mounting toll on Europe’s forests, as extreme heat and drought increase the risk of deadly wildfires. Nearly 900,000 hectares of EU land was burned in forest fires last year, an area roughly the size of Corsica, EU data show.
The degradation of Europe’s forests spells trouble since their CO2-storing capacity is needed to meet climate targets and protect surrounding areas from flooding.
On Wednesday, the Commission proposed a law that would see Brussels collect forest data from the EU’s Copernicus Sentinel satellites. EU member states would also be obliged to gather ground measurements of trends including the areas available for logging, the volume of trees and the location of ancient forests.
“We need to see the trends, need to predict better, we need to see how they are responding to climate change,” EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius told Reuters.
“At this moment there are no comprehensive monitoring requirements to provide an overall picture of the state of our forests,” he said.
The new data will also help track other risks, like illegal logging, across national borders, Sinke-vicius said.—AFP
