USSE: cross-border cooperation to protect southern Europes forests in the face of growing risks

05 / 01 / 2026

In southern Europe, climate change is no longer a forecast: it is a threat multiplier, expressed through longer droughts, heatwaves, more intense wildfires, storms, floods and, as a result, increasing pressure from pests and diseases.

In this context, the USSE plays a decisive role: connecting territories, associations and knowledge across administrative borders so that the sector’s response is faster, more coordinated and more effective.

The USSE brings together associations of private forest owners from Portugal, Galicia, Navarre, the Basque Country and Nouvelle-Aquitaine, representing 1.5 million owners.

This territorial base has a key characteristic: in a large part of the USSE regions, forest land is predominantly privately owned and highly fragmented, with small and dispersed holdings that make management difficult and increase costs. It is precisely for this reason that cross-border cooperation is not an institutional “add-on”; it is a practical tool that makes sustainable forest management viable and scalable.

A shared reality that calls for shared responses

Forest ecosystems in southern Europe are complex: challenging topography, poor soils, temperate forests exposed to summer droughts and wildfires, and biotic risks that are intensifying under new climatic conditions. Moreover, pests and diseases know no borders and, today, the movement of people and goods exposes all territories: what emerges in one region can appear in a neighbouring region tomorrow.

One of the pillars of USSE’s work is its ability to facilitate the exchange of experience among its members: which measures have worked (and which have not) in response to drought episodes, wildfires, storms, or pest and disease outbreaks. This constant flow of practical information transforms local knowledge into collective learning, accelerating the uptake of solutions and avoiding the repetition of mistakes already identified elsewhere. In a context of increasingly frequent and intense biotic and abiotic risks, sharing lessons learned—on prevention, response and recovery—enables better-informed, faster decisions tailored to similar realities across the Atlantic and Mediterranean arc of southern Europe.

This is where USSE delivers its added value: providing a stable coordination platform to move from isolated responses to compatible strategies across regions, through the rapid exchange of technical information and alerts, the transfer of actionable knowledge to landowners, and a coherent voice at EU level grounded in regional realities. Indeed, internal cooperation makes it possible to convey stronger messages in Brussels, linking European policy to on-the-ground needs in regions where private ownership and small holdings play a central role.

The result: greater resilience, less improvisation

The cross-border cooperation facilitated by USSE does not replace local action; it strengthens it. Above all, it helps forest owners—the cornerstone of land management—gain access to more information, tools and support to continue maintaining productive, multifunctional and sustainably managed forests

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