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Fertő tó Barátai Egyesület

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A Fertő Tó Barátai mozgalom indulásakor már 3 éve megfogalmaztuk: emberközpontú, természetbarát, arányos mértékű fejlesztést szeretnénk látni a Fertő tó magyarországi oldalán!

Lobbying Activity

Response to Carbon removals, carbon farming and carbon storage - certification methodologies for permanent carbon removals

22 Sept 2025

The Friends of Fertő Lake Association is glad to provide its input into this public consultation. First of all, the European Commission and the Council should recognise that the intertwined biodiversity and climate crises require a coordinated response. The current proposal of the Delegated Act does not guarantee that any BioCCS projects will result in negative carbon emissions, because it simply adopts the RED3 carbon accounting methodology. This accounting ignores the fact that the EUs LULUCF carbon sink including forests declined by almost one third in the periods of 2010-14 and 2020-22. In some countries, including Finland and Germany, the LULUCF sector has already become a net source of CO2 emissions. A recent study by researchers from the EU Joint Research Committee (JRC), published in Nature, further confirmed that the intensification of logging has been a key reason for the decline in the EUs LULUCF carbon sink. The authors state: The increase in forest harvest may be attributed to a growing demand for wood consumption, especially for energy. Therefore the delegated act needs re-drafting with special attention to the following scientific evidences: The position of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which states: IPCC Guidelines do not automatically consider or assume biomass used for energy as carbon neutral, even in cases where the biomass is thought to be produced sustainable. In February 2025, the European Scientific Advisory Council on Climate Change looked at the recent decline in the EUs LULUCF carbon sink, writing The EUs land sink is declining rapidly, driven by climate impacts and competing demands for land use, such as food production, bioenergy production or ecosystem restoration and the decrease in the LULUCF sink is partly linked to increasing bioenergy use in the EU. Mackey et al 2025 concluded that burning forest biomass, including logging residues, increases atmospheric CO2 concentration; land sector reporting using net greenhouse gas inventories obscures the impact of forest harvesting on ecosystem carbon stocks; and biomass energy will most likely displace other renewable energy, rather than fossil fuels. We also found that the use of bioenergy results in major negative cascading impacts for forest ecosystem integrity and consequently a reduction in the resilience and natural adaptive capacity of species in the face of climate change impacts. https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cli2.70015 Without safeguards that reflect these points, the CRCF DA should not proceed.
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Response to EU Civil Society Strategy

4 Sept 2025

Szervezetünk örül a lehetőségnek, hogy részt vehet ebben a konzultációban. Véleményünk szerint egy erős EU-nak erős civil szervezeti szektorra van szüksége, amihez egy erős civil társadalmi stratégia kell. Ennek a stratégiának védenie és egyúttal erősíteni kell a civil társadalmat, hogy kompenzálja a már bekövetkezett eróziót. A stratégiának merésznek kell lennie, és el kell kerülnie, hogy olyan mértékben felhíguljon, hogy társadalmi/zöld mosásnak minősüljön. Az EU politikaalkotásának még be kell tartania azt az ígéretét, hogy a tudomány vezérelte lesz (sajnos ennek erodálása is megkezdődött, amire példa a farkas védettségi szintjének tervezett csökkentése). Nem elég, ha az Európai Bizottság hatásvizsgálatokat végez és figyelembe veszi a tudományt a politikaalkotásban, csak azért, hogy a jogszabályokat és stratégiákat az érdekcsoportok sikeres lobbizása hígítsa fel, amíg azok már nem tudományosan megalapozottak vagy alkalmasak a célra. A civil társadalom megerősítése ellenszert jelent az iparági lobbisták romboló erőfeszítéseire. Az EU Szerződése (11. cikk) kimondja: Az intézmények nyílt, átlátható és rendszeres párbeszédet folytatnak a reprezentatív szervezetekkel és a civil társadalommal. A párbeszéd azonban nem sokat jelent, ha csak látszatintézkedés. Jelenleg az iparági szövetségek dominálnak a lobbizásban, amit a civil társadalmi stratégiának orvosolnia kell. Továbbá, amennyiben az iparági szövetségek olyan álláspontokért lobbiznak, amelyek szisztematikusan aláássák az EU környezetét és társadalmi szerkezetét, és így az [EU] népeinek jólétét (3. cikk), anélkül, hogy a tudományt ésszerűen felhasználnák, befolyásukat aktívan korlátozni kell. A civil társadalmi szervezetekkel folytatott párbeszéd előmozdítása önmagában nem elegendő a civil társadalom megerősítéséhez az EU konzultációs és lobbizási területén fennálló rendszerszintű problémákat is meg kell oldani. A bizonyítékok felhívása a demokráciákban érvényesülő ellenőrző és kiegyensúlyozó mechanizmusokra utal. A civil társadalmi stratégia fontos lehetőséget kínál olyan ellenőrző és kiegyensúlyozó mechanizmusok bevezetésére, amelyek az EU politikaalkotására gyakorolt etikátlan befolyással kapcsolatos strukturális problémákat kezelik. Szervezetünk és tagjaink számos környezetvédelemhez kapcsolódó vitában vett részt (pl. RED, LULUCF, pénzügyi taxonómia, erdőmonitoring-törvény) és sajnálatos tapasztalatunk az, hogy a magánszektor érdekei dominálnak a lobbizás területén. Az EU átláthatósági nyilvántartásának gyors áttekintése azt mutatja, hogy 665 szervezet regisztrált erdő iránti érdeklődéssel. Ezek túlnyomó többsége ipari szervezet. Például a RED 2021-es felülvizsgálatát megelőző 18 hónapban az erdőbiomassza-ipar érdekeit képviselő vagy támogató lobbisták legalább 112 alkalommal találkoztak az Európai Bizottság magas rangú tisztviselőivel. Az EU lobbizási átláthatósági nyilvántartása szerint a RED-del és más uniós erdőgazdálkodási politikákkal kapcsolatos kérdéseket vitattak meg. A környezetvédelmi politikaalkotás terén a civil társadalom szinte mindig hátrányos helyzetben van a természeti erőforrásokat kihasználó iparágakhoz képest, mint az erdőgazdálkodás és papíripar, a mezőgazdaság, a halászat, a bányászat, az olaj- és gázipar, amelyek a környezeti hatások nagy részéért felelősek. A nagy ipari ágazatok által finanszírozott lobbicsoportok sokkal nagyobb erőforrásokkal rendelkeznek, mint a civil társadalmi szervezetek. Ez egyenlőtlen versenyfeltételeket teremt, és eleve etikátlan: azok, akik egészséges környezetet és népességet szeretnének, kevésbé férnek hozzá a politikaalkotáshoz, mint azok, akik a károkat okozó ágazatok pénzügyi érdekeit védik. Ezért van szükség arra, hogy legyenek pénzügyi források a valódi civil szervezetek számára EU-s és nemzeti szinten is.
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Response to European climate resilience and risk management law

3 Sept 2025

In order to reduce climate risk in the EU, the European Commission and the Member States can and should take various actions. However, the simplification of environmental legislation must not be taken as a step. Based on the wedding cake concept of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the EUs competitive economy can only exist if there is a healthy society, which is founded on a healthy biosphere. Simplification of environmental legislation would significantly undermine the very foundation of our life: the biosphere. The EU must implement the biodiversity and climate comments of the EU Green Deal and enforce existing pieces of legislation including but not limited to these: Habitats and Birds Directive, Water Framework Directive, Floods Directive, EU Deforestation Regulation, EEA directive, LULUCF regulation. This list of legislation proves that climate risk and climate resilience work through the biodiversity and climate nexus. The two intertwined crises require a holistic response and other policies linked to the EUs simplification agenda should not undermine this. What the scientific evidence says that the EU Climate Resilience and the reduction of climate risk depends on a) the protection of habitats which are in good ecological status and b) the restoration of degraded habitats. Therefore our organisation suggest the following principles taken into account when analysing and reducing climate risk: 1) Strictly protect the last remaining primary and old-growth forests, where strict protection means non-intervention and halting timber provisioning 2) Improve naturalness of ecosystems in order to reduce climate risk by enforcing the implementation of the EU Nature Restoration Regulation without any further delay 3) Climate risk must be compared to counterfactual scenarios of intact, healthy ecosystems 4) Introduce an effective Europe-wide forest monitoring law that utilises satellite and EO information 5) Prioritise nature-based solutions for tackling the negative impacts of floods, wildfires, storms and heatwaves 6) Strengthen climate-proofing in all relevant sectors requires improving forestry 7) Stop promoting primary woody biomass as a renewable source of energy, because burning fire wood cannot be climate neutral 8) Risk assessment should be based on the mapping and assessment of the full array of ecosystem services with special attention to the regulatory services of ecosystems 9) Policies and subsidies including the EU Multi-annual Financial Framework should be evaluated in the future from the biodiversity and climate impact points of view Improve policies linked to wildfires and drought through a nature-based, landscape-planning approach 10) Introduce a new Nature Fund to support the protection and restoration of ecosystems while avoiding new market failures such as greenwashed markets for carbon & biodiversity
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Response to Towards a Circular, Regenerative and Competitive Bioeconomy

21 Jun 2025

The Friends of Fertő Lake Association submits its comment on the EU Bioeconomy Strategy in order to highlight the following key points: The bioeconomy strategy must not be a replacement of the promises made within the EU Green Deal. The EU and its member states must fully and effectively implement the following biodiversity related commitments: protection of 30% of terrestrial areas, strictly protecting 10% of terrestrial areas, implementing EU Nature Restoration Law The EU Bioeconomy Strategy must recognise ecosystem services that are not based on extractive uses (carbon sequestration, water purification, biodiversity, nature-based tourism) and these must be recognised also economically in the state budgets (eg. through effective use of UN System of Environmental Economic Accounting) The EU Bioeconomy Strategy must lead to reducing consumption patterns. The utilisation of biomass should not be an addition to our current consumption level, but a replacement! Only this can lead to lowering the use of fossil based products. The Bioeconomy Strategy must support the reduction of water use in order in order to prepare for a changing climate. We need wise use of water, which means: use less water for the industry and agriculture in order to provide more for nature and improve the quality of our water (stop pollution) The Bioeconomy Strategy needs a very strong monitoring which includes: effective implementation of the Water Framework Directive and introduction of a strong EU Forest Monitoring Law. Without data transparency about the utilisation of biomass, there is no bioeconomy! The cascading principle is key especially in relation to forest biomass. The EU must stop considering primary woody biomass as a renewable energy source, because burning wood increases atmospheric carbon content, threatens biodiversity, and worsens air quality which is a major source of human health problems. The strong definition of what might be considered as waste is critical. There must be nothing considered as waste on sourcing level, which means that wood sourcing coming out from forest thining should be channelled to material use and not bioenergy. Finally the EU Bioeconomy Strategy should also include a proposal to speed up capacity building with special focus on the following elements: 1. For conservation sector: economic valuation, financial management, enterprise implementation 2. For ecosystem services providers, funders and intermediaries (agents & NGOs): environmental principles and targets We also support the attached NGO statement about the Bioeconomy Strategy
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Response to International Digital Strategy

19 May 2025

Digitalisation can help providing real time data about ecosystem indicators to the public. This is why an EU Forest Monitoring Law is so critical in order to ensure modern technology helps improving the status of forest ecosystems This study (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ff1PTnALDzt21tJ0EmxnFOEaQlV83OPf/view) for instance shows that with relatively little investment we are able to gain several new information about how our forest react on climate change.
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Response to Review report on the Governance Regulation of the Energy Union and Climate Action

1 Aug 2023

The GHG Inventories are critical part of the regulation. The sink resulting from LULUCF sector is an important part of this inventory. Therefore the regulation should recognize the latest scientific evidences which show the trend of diminishing sink in the land sector, particularly in our forests. As the GHG inventories act as our guidance system for measuring our location and the distance left to reach our target. If this guidance is based on outdated methods with measurements from several years ago, it loses its usefulness, no matter of its accuracy. Korosuo et al 2023 found that the EU forest sink is quickly moving away from the climate targets, which requires immediate action. The authors suggested that "Recent evidence suggests that integrating Earth observation information with ground data from national forest inventories has a potential to improve the quality of the estimates and fill this temporal gap. This would allow national GHG inventories to reflect better the recent dynamics of the forest sink, and thus to inform policy makers in a more timely manner. To this end, the expected upcoming legislation on improved forest monitoring, as mandated by the EU forest strategy, represents a unique opportunity to improve the accuracy and timeliness of forest related information. Without this essential upgrade to our navigation system, tracking progress toward the EUs climate targets becomes challenging, and realizing the central role of forests within these targets becomes increasingly difficult." See at https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1186/s13021-023-00234-0?sharing_token=LdNKjnLY907j869Z4RNW_2_BpE1tBhCbnbw3BuzI2RPiaEnKQhvHKfnRT3FxQyXKPaFplgfBrpDSorft1QhLE_nGrbFLUpDiNFxgP_R6onvf8c1OTjEQvYyz9618fQYONtVDNlgOYI1TStGQKqE1Fz6fsXUB2w79N77KqRC-EA8= At current rates of decline, most states will fail to reach their 2030 land sink targets, putting climate targets and the goal of net zero carbon emissions out of reach. To achieve climate stability, the EU has set targets for increased carbon storage in forests and other lands. Burning forest biomass increases carbon emissions, while accelerating harvesting is degrading forests capacity to absorb and store additional carbon. The regulation should seek for the most stringent reporting in the LULUC sector and help to enforce forest monitoring in particular. The regulation should also recognize that burning primary woody biomass is not carbon neutral, hence should not be considered as a renewable energy source. See further information about how we are burning our carbon sink due to the Renewable Energy Director at https://forestdefenders.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/PFPI-Burning-up-the-carbon-sink-Nov-7-2022.pdf
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Response to 2040 Climate Target Plan

23 Jun 2023

The EU must agree on a realistic 2040 climate target that recognises primary woody biomass is not a renewable energy source. This realistic target should be based on the following principles - burning primary woody biomass is not carbon neutral - there is no form of sustainable forest management that renders burning primary woody biomass carbon neutral - the protection of forest carbon sink is critical to meet the EUs 2050 climate neutrality target Burning trees for energy harms climate, biodiversity, and air quality, costs billions, and threatens wood product manufacturing. EU leaders must stop treating forest biomass as renewable energy and get serious about real climate solutions. EU climate policy seeks to reduce CO2 emissions via the Renewable Energy Directive (RED), and increase CO2 uptake by forests and other lands via the LULUCF Regulation. But logging and burning primary woody biomass for heat and power, which provides a significant share of the EUs renewable energy, increases emissions and reduces the forest carbon sink. EU data show burning trees and other wood for energy has more than doubled since 1990. Since 2002, when the EU first promoted burning wood for renewable electricity, it has lost 25% of its land carbon sink. Most member states are losing or have lost their land carbon sinks. In several, this loss is clearly related to biomass logging. The EU 2040 climate target must guarantee to reverse the loss of the land sink, or most countries will fail to reach net zero by 2050. Domestic heating, most of it in the poorest regions of Europe, accounts for the largest share of wood-burning in the EU. While still a necessity for many, wood-burning should be replaced with truly clean energy as soon as possible. With the consideration of primary woody biomass as RES, EU MSs have no incentive to end dependence on forest biomass as long as they count it toward targets. To trigger a clean energy revolution, policymakers must end this loophole. Burning wood for heating and in power plants is: Expensive: EU citizens provide around 17 billion per year in bioenergy subsidies each year. Countries should instead allocate these funds to big structural wins like insulating homes and ramping up wind, solar, and heat pumps. An analysis shows redirecting 856.5 million in biomass subsidies could insulate 25% of homes in the Netherlands (with 30% subsidy), delivering 132 per home in savings per year. Bad for other industries: Wood products manufacturers are issuing increasingly sharp warnings that subsidies and special treatment of bioenergy is causing wood shortages and harming other industries. Bad for health: As the EUs largest source of air pollution, wood-burning contributes to hundreds of thousands of deaths per year. The European Commission estimates reducing air pollution would not just save lives but would also yield health and environmental benefits of 38 to 123 billion annually and significantly increase GDP. But the ECs data show this cant occur without greatly reducing wood-burning. Bad for the climate and environment: The forest carbon sink is shrinking, putting climate targets out of reach. Ecosystems and biodiversity are crashing; only 14% of the EUs protected forest habitats are in adequate condition. Counting forest biomass as renewable and subsidizing it monetizes logging so-called low value wood, but its exactly this kind of wood that provides habitat and carbon storage crucial for ecosystem function. Driving illegal and destructive logging: An investigation by the New York Times showed biomass companies are illegally logging the EUs last ancient forests, grinding up ancient trees in protected areas for wood pellets. Another investigation showed how logging for pellets is destroying Estonias protected forests See more at https://forestdefenders.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/PFPI-Burning-up-the-carbon-sink-Nov-7-2022.pdf
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Response to New EU Forest Monitoring and Strategic Planning Framework

6 May 2022

The monitoring of our forests must be improved in each biogeographical region. We must assess the distance of each management unit to its potential natural status. This would correspond to the maximum values (e.g. carbon stocks and biodiversity) found in natural forests in similar ecoregions. The status of each category of forest can be compared and the distance between them for specific characteristics (e.g. maximum tree size, biomass) assessed, as well as relating forest categories to a desirable condition. Such assessments will help calibrating/promoting local best management approaches. It would avoid emphasizing “small improvements” that emerge when degraded forests become “less-degraded” in areas where forests have been largely impoverished by overexploitation. Key guiding principles for improved strategic planning The forest strategic planning must adopt a few guiding principles, which focus on the recovery of forests and the ecological infrastructure they provide for the common benefit of society. The foundational question should be ‘What will help ensure that forests, including primary forests, are strengthened to endure against the impacts of global change and exploitation?’ We suggest the answer is management and policies that embody the following guiding principles that will maximise forest ecosystem integrity: 1) The forests' composition, structure and function, including its abundance of biodiversity, should be maintained close to its natural state in order to ensure its climate mitigation benefits and adaptive capacity. 2) Forests close to their natural state benefit the whole society and guarantee resilience and capacity for adaptation 3) Deadwood is an important element of natural forests for habitat, nutrient cycling, and carbon storage 4) Natural disturbances are part of ecosystem dynamics that maintain ecosystem integrity over the long-term, while human-induced and climate change related disturbances lead to ecosystem degradation. 5) Natural forests provide significant climate mitigation through their long-term carbon storage, low risk of loss, and continuing sequestration. While harvested forest biomass does store some carbon, its production leads to a carbon debt, at least for the critical period in the next few decades. 6) All types of timber harvesting risk degrading natural forest habitats. Even "sustainable" or "close to nature" forestry has a negative impact on forest ecosystem integrity and the multitude of ecosystem services they provide. 7) Forest management needs to consider the full range of ecosystem service benefits to people 8) Tree plantations with a primary purpose to produce forest biomass should not be regarded as forests, but agricultural crops or tree farms. 9) Sustainable management of forests is to be recognised as a way to aim at sustainable production of yield, which limits other sustainability elements and while leading to degradation of primary forests clearly targets delivering only forest biomass Key monitoring proposal The future forest monitoring should reflect on the above guiding principles, and be based on the following 3 key elements: a) Reporting based on clear and unified terminology b) Use a unified reporting format along with the unified terminology c) Apply the same measurement, which would make the data comparable, so the EC can produce reports which actually support decision making processes The reporting format must include the following: - forest habitat - species composition - forest structure and functions - naturalness (use the Buchwald 2005 hierarchical terminology) - amount of deadwood - natural disturbances frequencies and type - carbon stock and carbon removal capacity - amount of timber and increment - origin of forests - existence of any certification in the forests - ecosystem services valuation The attached files include these points above with additional background and science references.
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Response to Carbon Removal Certification

2 May 2022

See our contribution in the attached file
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