The UEF secretary Marten Gustafsson participated in the Forest Europe Expert Level Meeting

Friday, March 13 , 2026 23

The UEF secretary Marten Gustafsson participated in the Forest Europe Expert Level Meeting, held in Malmö, Sweden on 10 and 11 of March 2026. The meeting gathered most of the signatories of Forest Europe and a handful observers’ organisations.

Main task of the meeting was to finalize the documents for the Tenth Ministerial Conference, in June, Stockholm and to make them acceptable for all signatories, which was a slow and detailed process. Compromising and dialogue were handled very well only by the Swedish chair, which was challenging for LUS.

An important point of the meeting was to get a clear acknowledgment and acceptance of the SFM concept and its Criteria and Indicators within Europe in the context of resilient societies. The foresters need to be able to lean on this kind of agreement in their daily work, in order to prevent future polarized debate on forestry actions. We hope that this work will end up in a signed document that will turn the attention to the importance of forests' functions which sustainment relay on the work of the foresters, but also depends of the climate changes and geopolitical circumstances.

One of the paragraphs in the draft ministerial declaration was dedicated to Forest Europe's support of Ukraine’s forestry sector during the war and after. The two Ukrainian delegates who attended the meeting expressed their great gratitude for the strong and solid support.

Link to Forest Europe news of Ukrainian support is available at: https://foresteurope.org/strengthening-support-for-ukraines-forests-proposal-for-a-multi-donor-trust-fund/

UEF Presidency