Since the year 2018, the yield and management situation in German forest enterprises is characterized by extreme weather events (storms, draught) and, consequently, bark beetle calamities, leading to a significant above-average occurrence of damaged timber. In addition to processing the damaged timber, forest managers are challenged to develop and implement silvicultural adaptation strategies to climate change in order to ensure future wood production and long-term viability of these enterprises. In our study, we aimed to estimate the long-term economic impacts of an active climate change adaptation strategy compared to a passive, successional adaptation strategy on the forestry sector under consideration of climate change induced survival probabilities, using - and enhancing - the Forest Economic Simulation Model (FESIM). Based on our study's assumptions about tree species changes, we find that active forest conversion demands greater initial financial investment. However, in the long run, it proves to be economically more sustainable despite persistent risks. This is due to the potential for higher growing stock, felling volume, and ultimately improved yields in the future. The findings from our analysis offer valuable insights and decision-making guidance for both forest enterprises and forest policy, regarding the two adaptation strategies.

Overarching objective of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030 is recovering biodiversity by strengthening the protection and restoration of nature. Key elements are the creation of protected areas on at least 30% of Europe's land and sea area, including stronger protective measures for forests. However, any implementation of dedicated measures will reduce roundwood production in EU member states. It is to be expected that parts of this reduced roundwood production will be compensated by increasing roundwood production in non-EU countries. There is a fundamental risk of biodiversity losses in non-EU countries accompanying such leakage of roundwood production. From a global perspective, such biodiversity losses must be opposed to biodiversity gains in EU countries. The presented study provides a first assessment of possible leakage effects and rep-resents the state of work as of September 2020. At first, the presented study provides an estimate of the decline in roundwood production in EU member states as a result of implementing partial or full production restrictions in forests. In a second step, implications of reduced roundwood production within EU-27 on global wood markets are assessed. Finally, leakage of roundwood production to non-EU countries is evaluated using indicators related to governance, sustainable forest management, biodiversity, forest condition, deforestation pressure and socio-economic aspects. In order to estimate the reduction in roundwood production in EU countries firstly three single implementation measures are assessed and then consolidated for Germany: (i) 10 % share of forest area set-aside, (ii) non-utilization of “old-growth forests” and (iii) 30 % share of protected forest areas under Habitats Directive management requirements. As a result, the potential roundwood production in Germany declines on average within the period examined (2018 - 2052) by 23.96 million m3/a to 52.77 million m3/a or to 69 %. In the following calculations, this reduction share is assigned to all EU-27 countries. ...