The Portuguese Presidency is promoting a debate on practical steps to increase forests’ resilience. Many instruments are under preparation at EU level, or have been released recently and the we are going to discuss how can EU instruments better support activities that are needed to adapt forests to climate change focusing on 3 main themes.

• Forests and water nexus: droughts will most likely increase due to climate change and, while the water cycle benefit from forests as runoff is controlled and water quality improves in healthy forest ecosystems, drastic changes in the rainfall regime can affect forests and increase their decay/decline.
• Preventing wildfires: higher temperatures and longer dry season, together with extreme weather events, create conditions for increasing intensity of wildfires
• Forests health and vitality: climate change exacerbates the conditions for spreading of biotic agents and therefore increase the risk of pests and diseases and decay.