The art of the “green” deal: Policy pathways for the EU Forest Strategy

Abstract The European Green Deal is being promoted as the cornerstone of European policy over the next five years. One of the many actions planned under the Green Deal is the third EU Forest Strategy. The objective for this commentary is to discuss whether and how the Green Deal may affect the next EU Forest Strategy. Using the pathways to sustainability approach, we discuss alternative pathways for the next Strategy. We do this by reviewing the Green Deal and a series of different statements put out by representative organisations; we also draw some important insights from previous scientific work on the preceding Strategies. We find that the Green Deal hardly gives any consideration to the multiple benefits forests provide to society and how the forest-based sector could contribute to the Green Deal. The scientific literature provides several potential policy pathways related to coordinating policy objectives, forest governance, cost impacts, data accessibility, harmonisation, knowledge production and communication. However, given the current narratives around forests in the Green Deal, many of the problems that have been articulated by forest policy researchers over the last 20 to 30 years, such as lack of coordination and integration remain the same. We end by discussing potential pathways to overcome these challenges which ultimately may deliver the long-awaited common strategic vison on forests.