In the last few decades, the role of forest has become more and more important in a perspective of socio-economical development of rural and mountain areas and within the environmental protection strategies.
Great attention is today paid by society and by international/national policies to environmental protection. This attention extends today forest functions beyond the production objectives, involving new issues and challenges such as climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, energy production, water cycle management, soil erosion and desertification containment, natural risks prevention and forest historical-cultural landscape management.
In this context, considering the new importance held by the forest sector within the European Policy for Rural Development: 1. what will be the destiny of the forests in Europe? 2. which are the orientations of rural development policies concerning the forest sector for the 2013-2020 programming period?
The two-day proposed congress aims at analysing, describing and getting aquainted with the actions provided for forests and for the forest sector by Rural Development, identifying strengthens, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and proposing ideas and suggestions for the present and future Common Program. 
For centuries forests have been representing, together with agriculture, the main resource for rural and mountain areas development. Great attention is today paid by society and by international/national policies to environmental protection. This attention extends today forest functions beyond the production objectives, involving new issues and challenges such as climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, energy production, water cycle management, soil erosion and desertification containment, natural risks prevention and forest historical-cultural landscape management.
Forests represent a very important issue for European Union, even if they are not taken into account by EU constitutional treaties. Thus, they have no specific dedicated Common Policies and, according to the subsidiary principles, they still are under the full competence of EU Member States.
In the last few decades, the role of forest has become more and more important in a perspective of socio-economical development of rural and mountain areas and within the environmental protection strategies. European Union has launched several actions related to the forest sector, even if without activating a dedicated forest policy but operating within other thematic sectors such as agriculture and environment.
In the Eighties European Union adopted a complex of Rgulations aiming to contain anthropic  deleterious impacts on forests [Reg. (EC) No 3528/86 and No 3529/86; Reg. (EC) 2157/92 and 2158/92 until the Reg. (EC) n. 2152/2003, "Forest Focus" and the next Reg. (EC) n. 614/2007 LIFE+).
The first actions of forest policy were formulated as part of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). An example is given by the two principal accompanying measures: the EU Reg. 2080/92, funding activities of "first afforestation of agricultural lands", and the EU Reg.867/90, funding "forest firms' investments".
At the end of the Nineties, with the purpose of solving the complex of problems affecting the whole European forest sector, UE approves the Resolution 1999/C/56/01 for a Common forest Strategy.
With this Resolution the Council affirms that "EU can positively contribute to the implementation of sustainable forest management and can promote the multifunctional role of forests, giving to member States the role and responsibility in the formulation of forest policies". This is the real first Common forest Strategy, that revises and reorganises all the forest measures that have been implemented till that time in different ways across Europe. The Resolution provides an explicit connection to the international commitments undertaken for the forest sector (Rio de Janeiro 1992, MCPFE, etc).
With Agenda 2000, policies and strategies for the forest sector, at National and European level, starts assuming a relevant and integrated role within Rural Development. This setting is today confirmed in the 2007-2013 Programming period by providing a pool of forestry measures within the four different prior axis of the Rural Development Policy. With this step sustainable forest management and forest multifunctionality assume a strategic role, even for the relevance of the financial resources allocated for forest measures.
With the aim to achieve a sustainable forest management and to increase the value of forest multifunctionality, UE adopts in 2006 (COM (2006)302) its own Forest Action Plan (FAP). FAP intends to increase the value of the European forest heritage, conserving and empowering the multifunctional role of forests by activating an environmental-aware forest management. This has been done to provide renewable and environmentally-sustainable raw material and to foster, especially in rural areas, local development, employment, environmental protection and public services.
These concepts are recalled, in 2010, within the EU Green Paper on "Forest Protection and Information in the EU: Preparing forests to climate change" (COM(2010)66).
In this context, considering the new importance held by the forest sector within the European Policy for Rural Development: 1. what will be the destiny of the forests in Europe? 2. which are the orientations of rural development policies concerning the forest sector for the 2013-2020 programming period?
The two-day proposed congress aims at analysing, describing and getting aquainted with the actions provided for forests and for the forest sector by Rural Development, identifying strengthens, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and proposing ideas and suggestions for the present and future Common Program.