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Introduction

Forests originally covered most of the European continent. Over the last several thousand years forests were cleared for growing and cultivating crops for food production. The land use known today was formed. In many European countries, agricultural management has been intensified over the last century leading to increased production but also to negative environmental effects. Today a surplus of grain has caused decisions and changes in the EU Common Agricultural Policy and important areas of agricultural land have been taken out of production. Therefore, the governments of several EU countries have decided to work for a land use change back to more forest area. Priorites in planning the geographic location and management of these areas are among others groundwater protection and agreeements in the Kyoto Protocol that C sequestration after afforestation may be accounted as a sink in national CO2 budgets.