Analysis of protected forest areas in Europe - provisional results of the COST Action E27 PROFOR

Protected Forest Areas PFA have become a major issue in the international forest policy forum. To analyse the large number of PFA categories and classification systems at both the national and international level, the EU-COST Action E27 "Protected Forest Areas - Analysis and Harmonisation" was launched in 2002 with a duration of 4 years. The main objective of the action is to describe, analyse and harmonise the wide-range of PFA categories used in European countries within the context of existing international systems of protected forest areas. The scientific programme covers PFA definitions, national classifications and their historical and legal background, analysis of options for the integration of data collected in national forest inventory programmes, and harmonisation of definitions and identification of problem areas when using international classification systems and reporting to international organisations. Clarification of the concept of naturalness and key terms is needed. An overview of provisional results of the action is given.