Austrian Forest Strategy 2020+
The Forest Strategy serves as a guideline for short-, medium- and long-term forest policy in Austria. The manifold functions of forests are addressed in seven specific fields of action and, derived from a vision for Austria’s forests, contain 49 strategic goals and numerous concrete forest-policy approaches.
Joint development
The Austrian Forest Strategy 2020+ was developed jointly by 85 organisations associated with forest policy as part of the Austrian Forest Dialogue. The spectrum ranges from forest owners, authorised users and their interest groups to governmental and non-governmental organisations and regional authorities.
The Austrian Forest Dialogue
Many of the current forest-policy activities would not exist without the Austrian Forest Dialogue. The Austrian Forest Dialogue (“Österreichischer Walddialog”) is an open, ongoing and participatory policy development process that was launched in 2001. It became a prime example of good governance that has garnered a lot of recognition nationally and internationally. In 2005, the first Austrian Forest Programme was adopted in this framework.
Forest Programme as a basis
Based on the first Forest Programme, the forest-policy cornerstones for the next years that have been devised by the different social groups by way of consensus have been laid down in the Forest Strategy 2020+. The Austrian Forest Strategy 2020+ takes account of political requirements of current national and international forest-related strategies, programmes and processes, among them the 2020+ Austrian Biodiversity Strategy, the Austrian Forest Ecology Programme (ÖWÖP), the Austrian Strategy for Adapting to Climate Change, the Rural Development Programme LE 2020, the “Forest.Water” programme as well as the EU Forest Strategy, the EU Biodiversity Strategy, the Forest Europe Process, the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF), the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Implementation
The implementation of the Forest Strategy 2020+ is a joint endeavour. It lies within all institutions’ own responsibility to consider and implement the results of the Forest Strategy 2020+ in their scope of action to the best of their ability. The 2020+ Forest Strategy constitutes the fundamental basis for Austria’s forest policy and contributes to developing the signposts for existing sovereign and other forest-policy instruments.
The 2020+ Austrian Forest Strategy is available for download in German.
If you are interested in the print version or an English version, please send an email.