Act. 5.2 Assessment of drought impact on forests Forest policy at UN, EU and national level and general information about forest ecosystems (Milestone 1) Name of the milestone: Joint report on Topic 1 and 2: Forest policy at UN, EU and national level and general information about forest ecosystems – comparative analysis for 4 GWP CEE countries WP: WP5 Activity: Act. 5.2 Assessment of drought impact on forests Activity leader: Galia Bardarska Participating experts: Bulgaria: - Ivan Raev Lithuania: - Gintautas Stankūnavičius; Povilas Zemaitis Slovenia: - Urša Vilhar; Lado Kutnar; Aleksander Marinšek Ukraine: - Igor Buksha CONTENT Contents 1. INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................................................................................2 2. GENERAL INFORMATION .......................................................................................................................................................2 3.FOREST POLICY..........................................................................................................................................................................5 3.1. Forest policy at UN and EU level ...........................................................................................................................................5 3.2.Forest policy in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovenia and Ukraine ....................................................................................................6 4.FORESTRY SECTOR in BULGARIA, LITHUANIA, SLOVENIA and UKRAINE ................................................................ 10 4.1. Forest governance................................................................................................................................................................. 11 4.2. Forest‘s property, employment and GDP ............................................................................................................................. 13 4.4. Forests education and research ........................................................................................................................................... 20 5. PROBLEMS and SWOT ............................................................................................................................................................. 22 6. CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................................................... 26 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................................................................ 27 ACRONYMS EEA – European Environment Agency EC – European Commission EU – European Union GWP – Global Water Partnership CEE – Central and Eastern Europe IDMP – Integrated Drought Management Programme UN – United Nations 1 1. INTRODUCTION The demonstration project Activity 5.2 “Assessment of drought impact on forests” is part of IDMP CEE. Projected impacts from climate change for Central and Eastern Europe are as follows (EEA. 2012): - increase in warm temperature extremes, - decrease in summer precipitation, - increase in water temperature, - increasing risk of forest fire, - decrease in economic value of forests. These impacts will influence on sustainability of forestry and water sector. Forests are significantly dependent on water regime and, in turn, have a significant impact on the water regime of territories. Drought is a factor of extreme importance for the forest management in the conditions of climate change. The main output of the forest demonstration project is the establishment of local programmes with adaptation measures for the forests in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovenia and Ukraine – pilot area to mitigate negative effects of the drought. The objective of Milestone 1 is to describe the current sitution of the forestry sectors in these countries which will be the base for further investigations in the frame of IDMP. 2. GENERAL INFORMATION The 4 GWP CEE countries with total area 800 203 km2 and 58 million inhabitants, covered by demonstration project, are geographically situated in different parts of GWP CEE region (Figure 2.1, Table 2.1). There is a big difference in socio-economic conditions between Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovenia and Ukraine (Table 2.1 and Table 2.2). Only Ukraine is not member of EU. Figure 2.1. Map of Europe. Table 2.1. General country information. 2 No. Indices Bulgaria Lithuania Slovenia Ukraine 1. Population 7 327 224 * 3 007 758*** 2 055 496**** 45 633 600***** (inhabitants) (1.01.2012); (2012) (2012) (2012) 5 384 040** (2060 – NSI) 2 2. Territory (km ) 111 002* 65 300*** 20 273**** 603 628 ***** 3. GDP (Million EUR) 39 667.7* or 32 781.8*** or 35 466.3**** or 176 308 (Million 0.3% of EU-27 (2012) 0.3% of EU-27 0.3% of EU-27 USD)***** (2012) (2012) 4. GDP per capita at 5430*(2012) 10 968*** (2012) 17 244**** (2012) 6394 USD (2012) current prices (EUR) 5. GDP per capita at 12 033* or 17 808*** or 70 20 967**** or 82 7418 (USD, 2012) purchasing power (PPS) 47 (EU-27=100) (EU-27=100) (EU-27=100) (2012) (2012) (2012) 6. Unemployment rate (% 12.3* (2012) 13.3*** (2012) 8.9**** (2012) 7.5 (2012)***** of labour force) 7. Agriculture, forestry 5.3* or 3.4*** or 2.5**** or 7.9 (2012)***** and fishing (% of total 1.7% in EU-27 (2010) 1.7% in EU-27 1.7% in EU-27 GVA) (2010) (2010) *http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/statistics/factsheets/pdf/bg_en.pdf; **NSI – National Statistical Institute, ***http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/statistics/factsheets/pdf/lt_en.pdf,****http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/statistics/factsheets/pdf/sl_en.p df, *****State Statistics Service of Ukraine http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/ Table 2.2. Population, employment and GVA according to the new EC methodology. No. Indices Bulgaria Lithuania Slovenia Bulgaria* EU-27 Lithuania** EU-27 Slovenia** * EU-27 (2009) (2009) (2009) 1. Total population (1000 inhabitants), 7 620 1.5% of EU- 3 349.9 0.7% of EU- 2 032.4 0.4% of EU- of which: 27 27 27 1.1. in predominantly rural regions (PR) 38.7% 23.6% in EU- 43.3% 23.6% in EU- 43.1% 23.6% in EU- 27 27 27 1.2. in intermediate regions (IR) 44.9% 35.5% in EU- 31.3% 35.5% in EU- 31.2% 35.5% in EU- 27 27 27 1.3. in predominantly urban regions (PU) 16.4% 41.0% in EU- 25.4% 41.0% in EU- 25.7% 41.0% in EU- 27 27 27 2. Employment (1000 inhabitants), 3825.3 1 415.1 983.8 of which: 2.1. in predominantly rural regions (PR) 1 275.1 585.1 386.9 2.2. in intermediate regions (IR) 1 642.2 441.4 277 2.3. in predominantly urban regions (PU) 908 388.6 319.9 3. GVA (Million EUR), of which: 29 518.8 23 978.3 30 788 3.1. in predominantly rural regions (PR) 7 513 7 221.8 30 788 3.2. in intermediate regions (IR) 10 928.7 7 551.2 8 379.2 3.3. in predominantly urban regions (PU) 11 077.1 9 205.3 11 319.6 *European Commission, Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development, 2012 Rural Development Report - http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/statistics/factsheets/pdf/bg_en.pdf **http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/statistics/factsheets/pdf/lt_en.pdf ***http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/statistics/factsheets/pdf/sl_en.pdf The total forests area of Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovenia and Ukraine is about 35% of forests area in GWP CEE region (Table 2.3). 3 Table 2.3. Key figures of the forests in GWP CEE region. Forest % of forests (not including Forest under Fellings in % Forest&OWL available for OWL) with a protective public EU27/ of net wood supply function ownership country annual area as % of 1000 ha % of land % of forest increment 2000, % 2005, % area forest area 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 EU 27* 177016 42 73 60 11 13 39 Bulgaria* 3678 34 70 41 17 16 92 Czech 2647 34 95 84 15 15 77 Republic* Estonia* 2358 56 89 52 12 11 38 Hungary* 1948 22 86 56 12 9 61 Latvia* 3150 51 90 68 4 4 54 Lithuania* 2198 35 83 73 15 16 77 Poland* 9200 30 91 55 38 35 83 Romania* 6649 29 70 46 - 29 94 Slovakia* 1932 40 91 75 16 18 52 Slovenia* 1308 65 88 44 7 9 28 Moldova** 3450 10,2 70 40 2,8 4,2 95 Ukraine*** 9746 15.9 58 50 21.2 22.9 100 Source: *EC. 2010a. Accompanying document to the Draft Green Paper on: Forest Protection and Information in the EU: Preparing forests for climate change. COM (2010)66 final, p.14 **Anuar statistic, Chisinau, 2011 *** Reference book on forest fund of Ukraine (on results of state forest inventory on 01.01.2011) Slovenia is the third most forested country in Europe, after Finland and Sweden. 1 184 369 ha of forests cover more than a half of its territory (58.4 %). The occurrence and the structure of the forests are therefore, to a great extent, shaped by the climate, parent rocks, soils and relief. Ukrainian forests and forest management have several distinctive features compared to other countries: low percentage of forest cover; historically forests were continuously managed by permanent users; large forest area is located in a zone polluted by radiation, and half of the forests are artificial and need intensive maintenance, which raise the climate change threats on forestry sector. Forests in Bulgaria provide and support the quantity and quality of 85% of the water-flow in the country or resource of about 3,6 billion m3 pure drinking water. Bigger part of Bulgarian forests would be affected by drought, because 61% of them are in the zone below 800 m a.s.l. The forests management in Lithuania is improved very fast after soviet period. The total forest land area at 2012 was 2 173 000 ha, covering 33.3% of the