Global scientific assessments increasingly reach the conclusion that transformative change of global production and consumption systems is necessary to safeguard and maintain global commons, such as biodiversity, natural forests and the ocean, and to stabilise climate at the global scale....

Despite political commitment, Europe is struggling to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010. Forests, as the hosts of much of the biological diversity in Europe, are vital to this debate. Any initiative designed to halt the biodiversity loss in Europe must take forests into account.