Legislation and policies are no doubt one of the most effective starting points to enact changes, if adhered to and enforced. A quick google search had returned relatively few results on policies that tackle pollution in forests directly. Most policies that we have found seemed to place focus on preventing deforestation through the regulation of forestry and industrial activities. Whilst also important, we also believe that more legislation and policies should be enacted towards forest pollution, in order to carry out more detailed investigations of this issue.

The International Cooperative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests, or simply ICP Forests, under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is one of the more extensive policies that have paid more attention to the pollution of forests. Launched in 1985, the ICP Forest’s goals aim to monitor the effects of anthropogenic (particularly air pollution) and natural stress factors on the condition and development of forest ecosystems in Europe, and to contribute to a better understanding of cause-effect relationships in forest ecosystems functioning in various parts of Europe(UNECE, n.d.).

ICP Forests also conducts annual transnational forest condition surveys at two intensity levels (ICP Forests, n.d.), with:

• Level I monitoring – Based on 5852 observation plots (as of 2019) on systematic transnational grids of 16 x 16km throughout Europe, to gain insights into geographical and temporal variations in forest conditions
• Level II monitoring – intensive monitoring of 623 plots (as of 2018) in selected forest ecosystems that aims to clarify cause and effect relationships.

Mandatory and optional parameters have been defined for these surveys, and they aim to collect a wide variety of information that can be helpful to determine forest pollution. Some of these are: aerial photography, studies on phenology, litterfall, insects, fungi and also more intensive investigations like gas exchange, root damage and foliar damage etc (ICP Forests, n.d.). The latest revised mandate can also be found here.

While legislative bodies and policies might be limited at the moment, ICP Forests can be a good reference point for more legislative bodies to widen the study and regulation of forest pollution to international levels.

References:

ICP Forests. (n.d.). ICP Forests. Retrieved November 5, 2020, from http://icp-forests.net/

UNECE. (n.d.). ICP Forests International Cooperative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests. Retrieved November 5, 2020, from http://www.unece.org/fileadmin//DAM/env/lrtap/WorkingGroups/wge/forests.htm