Europe losing forest to harvesting at alarming rate, data suggests

Rise in harvesting could affect ability to combat climate crisis due to carbon absorption capacity reducing

Europe has lost a vastly increased area of forest to harvesting in recent years, data suggests, reducing the continent's carbon absorption capacity and possibly indicating wider problems with the EU's attempts to combat the climate crisis.

Many of the EU's forests - which account for about 38% of its land surface area - are managed for timber production, and thus harvested regularly. But the loss of biomass increased by 69% in the period from 2016 to 2018, compared with the period from 2011 to 2015, according to satellite data. The area of forest harvested increased by 49% in the same comparison, published in the journal Nature Research.