Work due 01 Jan 2099

SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT Short term improvement: add data from the global land cover database, to increase coverage of the indicator to certain countries not covered by Corine. Trends in extent of forest area estimated by Corine land cover for 1990–2000, have been compared with trend information available from the UN-ECE/FAO forest resources assesments, in order to create a more complete picture. Even though there have been changes in the UN‑ECE/FAO forest definitions through the years, it has been possible to establish that the overall trends in Europe calculated with this data set are very close to those calculated by land cover, when using the broad selection of land cover categories. The trends in extent in European Forests will eventually be assessed in the context of their state, described in a system of (14) forest types, which is currently under discussion in the MCPFE process (Van Brusselen and Larsson, 2005; EEA, 2006). Data from global land cover (GLC) has a broader geographical cover and so the indicator will in the future (and before 2010) include more countries and more data points. The global land cover data give data points from 2000, 2005, and possibly 2010. Corine assessments should ideally be harmonised with internationally agreed definitions.