17.9.84 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 248/1 
II 
(Preparatory Acts) 
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE 
Opinion on the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing a Community scheme to 
provide forests in the Community with increased protection against fire and acid rain 
(84/C 248/01) 
On 27 October 1983 the Economic and Social Committee, acting under the third para­
graph of Article 20 of its Rules of Procedure, decided to draw up an additional opin­
ion (') on the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing a Community scheme to 
provide forests in the Community with increased protection against fire and acid 
rain. 
The Section for Protection of the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Affairs, 
which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its 
opinion on 12 June 1984 in the light of the report by Mr Schnieders. 
At its 218th plenary session (meeting of 4 July 1984) the Economic and Social Com­
mittee adopted the following opinion unanimously: 
1. Need for action by the Community 
1.1. The visits to the Black Forest in Germany and 
the Mediterranean Forest in France by the compe­
tent study group enabled the Committee to take full 
account of the economic and ecological importance 
of forests and of the urgent need for the measures 
proposed by the Commission, bearing in mind the 
present serious state of European forests. 
1.2. The Community's forests not only provide an 
important raw material — about 50% of the Com­
munity's timber requirement is imported — but are 
also of irreplaceable value in that they help to main­
tain the hydrological balance and preserve the 
cleanliness of the air. They are increasingly threat­
ened by forest fires and amospheric pollution ('acid 
rain'). 
1.3. The pace at which this phenomenon is 
spreading in a number of Member States should 
make all of them more aware of the acid rain pro­
blem, which is now assuming catastrophic propor-
(i) OJ No C 358, 31. 12. 1983, p. 50. tions, and can easily spread to other Member States 
which have hitherto been scarcely affected or as­
sumed to be safe. 
1.4. Similarly, with regard to forest fires, greater 
Community solidarity should enable Member States 
where this is not a major problem to cope with such 
disasters at any time without much investment at the 
national level, and to provide a continuous flow of 
technical information to fire-prevention and fire-
fighting staff. 
1.5. The Committee therefore reaffirms its full sup­
port for the draft Regulation and hopes that it will 
be adopted by the Council by mid-1984, so that the 
measures can be introduced this year. 
2. The problem of 'acid rain' 
2.1. The Committee is aware that scientists have 
still not fully determined the relative importance of 
the various factors causing 'acid rain' and the ways 
No C 248/2 Official Journal of the European Communities 17. 9. 84 
in which it damages forests. However, there are a 
number of indications that atmospheric pollution is 
detrimental to the health of forests. 
2.2. The Committee will therefore thoroughly in­
vestigate this problem in the second part of an addi­
tional opinion. 
2.3. In the meantime, the Committee once more 
stresses the need to empower the Commission to 
carry out in all the Member States the surveys envis­
aged in the draft Regulation. Surveys of this kind of 
damage have so far been limited, and only the Fed­
eral Republic of Germany has useful statistics at its 
disposal. The Federal Forestry Ministry's Report of 
18 October 1983 states that initial estimates show 
that about 30 % of German forests are affected and 
that the direct damage caused totals DM 20 000 mil­
lion — a figure which increases each year by be­
tween 2 000 and 3 000 million. 
2.4. The Committee is seriously concerned at the 
continuing spread of this phenomenon, and at the 
fact that forest varieties other than the Swiss pine are 
now affected — which implies a threat to all Com­
munity forests. 
3. The problem of forest fires 
3.1. Similarly, with regard to forest-fire damage, 
the Committee notes that in 1983, in the Mediterra­
nean forests alone, 10 965 fires destroyed 145 000 
hectares of forest; in addition, 272 000 hectares of 
forest and woodland were affected by fire. The other 
Community countries did not escape unscathed, for 
about 1 600 hectares of forest were destroyed in the 
same year in the Federal Republic of Germany, the 
United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands. 
242 218 hectares of forest in Italy were affected by 
fire in 1981. 
3.2. If one bears in mind the French Forest Au­
thority's estimates that one hectare of forest des­
troyed, plus the value of new growth lost, plus the 
cost of reafforestation, represents between 10 000 
and 12 000 ECU, it is easy to see that this damage 
has considerable economic impact. 
3.3. Taking as examples the two French regions of 
Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur and Languedoc, statis­
tics for 1977 to 1981 showed that the causes of 57% 
of forest fires were never ascertained; of the 43% 
where the cause was identified, 7% were due to acci­dents, 7% to forest works, 15% to carelessness on 
the part of tourists and 13% were malicious. 
3.4. Thus the two main known causes are the care­
lessness of forest users and deliberate fire-raising. 
When the weather is especially unfavourable (i.e. 
when the Mistral is blowing and there is a drought) 
it is almost inevitable that some forest fires should 
assume catastrophic proportions, no matter how 
much fire-fighting equipment is used. 
3.5. In any case, the increase in the number of fires 
and in the surface area burnt cannot be halted solely 
by providing more fire-fighting resources. Protec­
tion of forests must be part of a long-term policy 
designed to improve tree varieties and provide in­
centives for exploitation and use by woodprocessing 
industries. 
3.6. It is clear that such a policy can bear fruit only 
over a period of years; for the time being, the 
increase in forest fires necessitates more effective 
monitoring and faster firefighting. 
4. Fire-fighting resources 
4.1. Experience in France to date shows that four 
aims in particular must be pursued in this field: 
4.1.1. Incorporation of ground equipment into for­
est improvement plans involving, in particular, ex­
tensive removal of brushwood (along forest tracks, 
-around houses, and to create wide belts of agricultu­
ral and grazing land which cut through forests), an 
adequate density of tracks and water supplies, and 
the improvement of tree populations. 
4.1.2. Better information for experts and the public 
on the risk of fire, through the setting-up of auto­
matic weather stations and information coordina­
tion and centralization posts, and through measures 
to educate school children, young people, walkers 
and tourists. 
4.1.3. Effective monitoring by the use of forest pro­
tection patrols to bring the watcher's 'eye' close to 
outbreak zones, with forests being divided up into 
'islands'. This would be a temporary measure while 
effective automatic detection methods are being de­
veloped, if possible. Research and final develop­
ment work could be entrusted to European firms 
partly financed by the Community under multian-
nual research programmes. The forest patrols' sole 
17. 9. 84 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 248/3 
task would be to monitor and control incipient fires 
until firemen arrived. 
4.1.4. Improvement of fire-fighting resources — es­
pecially personnel management and training in the 
use of equipment; meanwhile, progress should be 
made in all fields of fire-fighting techniques, and 
particularly the use of counter-fires and delaying 
techniques. 
4.2. The Committee is well aware that the pursuit 
of these aims calls for sizeable funds and that Com­
munity assistance is therefore essential, as a Com­
munity contribution to the efforts already being 
made at the national level. 
5. Towards a Community forest protection policy 
5.1. Moreover, the Committee fears that the imple­
mentation of individual measures which are effec­
tive in the short term may — although they are 
necessary — cause people to forget that the protec­
tion of forests must, as stated above, form part of a 
fully-fledged common policy which the Community 
should draw up as soon as possible. 
5.2. Forest decay, which previously affected the 
Swiss pine above all, has suddenly spread to the 
spruce. Other diseases are affecting the cypress, the 
elm, the plane, the chestnut and the Rosaceae 
(damage to fruit trees and hawthorn hedges). The 
multiannual agricultural research programme 
should provide for cooperation on both existing dis­
eases and possible future diseases. By the same tok­
en, research should be carried out on the increased 
risks of fire which forest decay resulting from atmo­
spheric pollution seems to entail. 
6. The part which other Community policies and 
measures can play 
6.1. It is no longer enough merely to coordinate 
some national forestry measures. The resources of 
other Community policies (e.g. regional, social, in-
Done at Brussels, 4 July 1984. dustrial, and environment policies) and of research 
and development must also be brought to bear on 
this sector. 
6.2. On the agronomic research side (in the broad­
est sense, i.e. including sylviculture), efforts should 
be concentrated on the selection of more 'economic' 
forest varieties for the Mediterranean forest (to be 
economic a forest must be maintained and pro­
tected) and of forest varieties which are more 'resis­
tant' to atmospheric pollution, for the Black Forest. 
In both cases it is important to increase cooperation 
with non-Community countries in the scientific field 
(acid rain in Scandinavia, North America and Eas­
tern Europe; forest fires in Canada, the Iberian Pe­
ninsula, Australia etc.). 
6.3. Other, non-forest, types of plant coverage, 
which are of economic value and protect the soil 
against erosion, should also be investigated. The 
Commitee particularly asks that this subject be in­
cluded in the multiannual agricultural research pro­
gramme. 
6.4. In the field of industrial policy and technolog­
ical research, it would be desirable to develop or 
support more efficient European technology (brush­
wood clearance machinery which makes it possible 
to recover the wood and use it to produce energy, a 
new fire-fighting plane to replace the Canadair, new 
helicopter prototypes, rapid fire detection systems, 
etc.). The financial instruments of industrial policy 
should be used to encourage, in particular, coopera­
tion in the European plane industry, for which there 
are likely to be sizeable markets, particularly if the 
multi-purpose aspect of these aircraft can be en­
hanced (use of planes and helicopters in combatting 
oil pollution at sea, air-sea rescue, etc.). 
6.5. Finally, the Committee takes the view that an 
essential and decisive factor in dealing with the pro­
blems of forest fires and of damage to forests by 
atmospheric pollution is the need to bring home to 
the public the importance of conserving natural re­
sources. Dealing with these problems more effec­
tively will depend essentially on the success with 
which the causes of these two deadly enemies of for­
ests can be tackled. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Francois CEYRAC