Since the CAP and Rural Development policy is of utmost importance for forest owners, the CEPF Secretariat strongly encourages all European forest owners and their supporters to take part in the public consultation and to strengthen and implement our interests and the interests of forestry and sustainable forest management in the upcoming CAP.

The public consultation is open until 2 May 2017 and available in all official languages of the EU. The objective is to consult stakeholders and citizens on an updated Common Agricultural Policy for the period 2020-2027 and to summarise available evidence on the performance of the CAP so far, draw lessons from the implementation of the latest reform 2013, and anticipate needs for modernisation and simplification of the CAP.

An online questionnaire with 33 open and closed questions is part of the consultation process. This questionnaire includes questions concerning forestry directly (question 27), but also indirectly by questions related to climatic (question 26), environmental issues (question 25) and rural areas (question 29).