In the 1980's there was concern that Europe's forests were dying. Extensive surveys found evidence of some patches of moribund trees and evidence of needle losses. In the late 1980's, rather paradoxically, some national researchers in Europe reported that trees appeared to be growing faster. The European Forest Institute assembled many of these researchers into a pan-European research team, which studied the matter in depth.
Some exceptions seem to lie on the periphery of Europe where the signal is less strong.
It matters very much what is causing this growth increases. Some causal processes could decrease long-term sustainability of forests and forestry in Europe. A pilote study funded by the European Forest Institute in 1997 reported recent considerable changes of forest growth and of site conditions for many European forest ecosystems and emphasized the necessity of detailed investigation into the interrelations between forest growth and stand nutrition. The European Forest Institute together with 24 collaborators from all across Europe therefore approached the European Union with a research proposal to determine the causes. CT98-4124 and the project started on the 1st of April 1999.