Statement by Commissioner Sinkevičius on delivering the European Green Deal - Hoofdinhoud

Thank you very much and good afternoon to everyone.

Let me put a little bit more emphasis on forests. I am very proud that today together with Fit for 55 package we have a Forest Strategy. Because forests play a vital role. We are talking today about legislation and important changes, but also we are not forgetting about forests, which are huge carbons sinks and also they host huge resources of biodiversity.

Most importantly, with our strategy we aim at protecting our old-growth and primary forests, but also restore those degraded ecosystems, which due to increased pressure and due to climate change we are unfortunately losing here in the EU.

But most importantly that we aim at building in resilience. All the multifunctionality what my colleague Janusz mentioned, can be only maintained if our forests are resilient to climate change and future shocks.

And therefore we will also rollout a very positive and engaging initiative of planting 3 billion trees around the EU. Not all trees planted can be called forest, and that is why we will go a step ahead looking at specific areas, specific species, which can be planted and create the forest of the future. That we will do with of course enhanced cooperation with our Member States building on their best practices.