Forestry statistics. 2007 edition

The European Union of 27 Member states (EU-27) has a total area of forests and other wooded land of 177 million hectares, covering 42 % of its land area. Contrary to what is happening in other parts of the world, forest cover in the EU is slowly but steadily increasing at the rate of approximately 0.4 % per year. Forests provide many benefits to society and the economy and play an important role in the preservation of natural biodiversity and in climate change mitigation. This Pocketbook presents forestry statistics for the EU, the EU candidate countries and the EFTA countries for the period 1995-2005. It summarises Eurostat's most relevant data on the forestry sector as well as data produced by other organisations, thus providing the reader with a comprehensive view of the sector.