The Conference of the Parties
1. Expresses its concern about negative impacts on Carpathian forests, especially increasing severity and frequency of storms, fires, drought, outbreaks of pests and diseases, including invasive species, partly due to climate change, that affect the ability of forests to fulfil their multiple functions and emphasizes the role of multifunctional and sustainable forest management in ensuring forest ecosystems resilience.
2. Encourages the WG Forest to continue its work on identification and protection of natural and virgin forests, on promotion of close to nature forestry, and on forestry and climate change in order to implement the respective Objectives of the Strategic Action Plan, undertake relevant actions and propose concrete activities in this respect with the support of the Secretariat and relevant partners;
3. Takes note of the progress in development of the Inventory of Virgin Forests of the Carpathians, appreciates the support of European Environment Agency (EEA), the European Topic Centre on Urban, Land, and Soil Systems (ETC-ULS), as well as other relevant actors, and invites them, and relevant research institutes of the Parties, to continue cooperation and knowledge sharing with the Carpathian Convention and the WG Forest to achieve the implementation of Article 10 of the Forest Protocol;
4. Welcomes the proposal of the Czech Republic and the support offered by Slovakia to organize a workshop on close-to-nature forest management for the Carpathian countries, and requests the Secretariat to facilitate its organization;
5. Appreciates the strengthened cooperation between the WG Forest and the WG Climate Change and WG Biodiversity, facilitating the implementation of Article 14 of the Forest Protocol, welcomes the idea of collecting information from the Parties with the goal of assessing the impacts of climate change on the Carpathian forests and their ecosystem services, including, if possible, climate change effects on large carnivores and their habitats, in that regard recognizes the complexity of the issue and wide range of ecosystem services Carpathian forests provide to the society, and requests the relevant Working Groups and partners to support the development of such assessment, and the Secretariat to facilitate the process;
6. Welcomes the kind proposal to organize a session on forest ecosystems and resource vulnerabilities to climate change in the Carpathian Mountain Region during the 6th Forum Carpaticum, to be held in 2021 in Brno, Czech Republic, expresses its gratitude to the University of Vermont and the Science of the Carpathians for the proposal, and invites the WG Forest and the WG Climate Change to participate and contribute to the session
7. Recognizing that illegal logging, despite its varying significance across the Parties, is an important and complex issue in the Carpathians, which can have trans-boundary effects that require international cooperation, requests the Parties and relevant partners to exchange of information and coordinate efforts to address the problem taking into account already existing mechanisms and platforms, as appropriate.