One of the important sources of information on the state of forests in the region of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is the International Cooperation Program for Assessment and Monitoring of the Impact of Air Pollution on Forests (ICP Forests), whereas 40 European countries, the United States and Canada have been monitoring forests for several decades. Until 2016, Ukraine participated in the ICP Forests Monitoring program (first level), collecting information on about 1.5 thousand plots.
During a recent SFI Information Trip to Germany, the interest of Ukrainian officials and specialists in resuming ICP monitoring in Ukraine was echoed by experts from the Thünen Institute, who shared their experience and presented the results of their own field observations, in particular on the network of sites of the second level of ICP Forest Monitoring.
In front of this background 05.11.2025, the SFI-Project held a round table on “Monitoring of Ukrainian forests based on ICP Forests”, which was attended by more than 50 international participants and experts, representatives of Ukrainian ministries and departments, state-owned enterprises, “Ukrderzhlisproekt”, research institutes and institutions and NGO´s.
Ihor Buksha, Head of the Department of Forest Inventory, Monitoring, Certification and Forest Management of URIFFM, presented the “Current Status and ways of development of ICP Forest Monitoring in Ukraine” and largely demonstrated outcomes from the period 1991-2015, whereas he noted that the monitoring was just focussed on selected indicators related to crown condition and health of forests managed by the SFRA of Ukraine. Buksha suggested to reestablish ICP Forest Monitoring in Ukraine and proposed options for re-implementation, e.g. via implementation by determining monitoring indicators on the National Forest Inventory plots or via cooperation on field data gathering with the State Enterprise Forest of Ukraine.
Kai Schwärzel, Head of the Coordination Centre of the ICP Forests Program (the lead country of the program is Germany), presented an overview of «Long-term monitoring of the impact of anthropogenic and natural stressors on forest ecosystems within the framework of the UNECE Air Convention». He noted the scientific and practical value of the results of the ICP Forests Monitoring and mentioned the advantages of coordination of national initiatives in the area of forest monitoring: “Today, the first-level network has about 7000 active sites, and the second-level network has ca.800 plots, including more than 80 in Germany». Schwärzel expressed his support for the process of restoring the ICP Forests Monitoring in Ukraine as an important process of expanding the European network for collecting information on the state of Europe’s forests.
Viktor Tkach, Director of URIFFM, emphasized the importance of developing scientific foundations for the implementation of ICP Forests Monitoring in Ukraine. He noted about insufficient funding as a main obstacle for further implementation. During the discussion the publication of any – even preliminary – Ukrainian ICP results was supported in order to convince broader public in the advantages of and needs in proper forest monitoring.
Vitaliy Storozhuk, the National Coordinator of the SFI project, drew attention that defoliation indicators have been collected at National Forest Inventory (NFI) plots since 2021. He pointed that enhancing NFI methodology or restoration of the ICP Forests Level I network will provide “low added value” unless the ground data not combined with remote sensing data. Such combined assessment will allow mapping defoliation information for forest areas of Ukraine.
In particular, such rational way “to step ahead with defoliation estimation” was envisaged in the Proposal for a Regulation on the Monitoring System for Sustainable European Forests (2023). In this context, Schwärzel noted that a corresponding specialised RS department was recently established in the ICP Coordination Centre.
Ihor Budzinskyi, Head of the Department of Forestry and Forest Reproduction of the SFRA, emphasized the need for forest monitoring that enables Ukraine to fulfil its international obligations, while also supporting national needs such as assessing the impact of the war and climate change on Ukrainian forests and drawing corresponding strategic conclusions for forestry development.
In his summary Volker Sasse, SFI Project Leader, welcomed the SFRA’s initiative to support the restoration of ICP Forests and mentioned that the SFI project is currently backing the development of a concept for re-implementing ICP Forests monitoring in Ukraine. “There is a wide range of challenges regarding forest monitoring in general, considering the various types, such as NFI, ICP and Forest Fire Monitoring, and the numerous monitoring technologies namely field data gathering and remote sensing based analyses. Forest Monitoring in Ukraine should provide a robust base for national forests policy and administrative decision making. At the same time it ought enable Ukraine to respond adequately to international reporting requirements.”, said Sasse.
