Author: Jo Van Brusselen
Last year has seen major shifts in EU policy-making processes, most notably the withdrawal of the legislative proposal for an EU Forest Monitoring Regulation in October 2025. Simultaneously, debates and delays surrounding the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) have created some level of uncertainty concerning the future of this policy. Meanwhile FCM stakeholders may wonder how the regulatory volatility may influence requirements for EO-based monitoring services.
Rest assured, the policies that are fundamental to FCM in setting monitoring requirements, remain in place. And the absence of an EU monitoring law may counter-intuitively even increase the demand for flexible, robust tools like those developed in the FCM project.
The EU’s Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) Regulation remains the core of national-level compliance requirements. For the 2026–2030 period, it moves beyond the previous “no-debit rule” to enforce binding national net removal targets, contributing to the EU's objective of 310 Mt CO₂ equivalent of net removals by 2030.
Another important driver of the demand for future forest carbon monitoring is the Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF), adopted in 2024. This regulation introduces the QU.A.L.ITY criteria (Quantification, Additionality, Long-term storage, and Sustainability) for carbon removals.
The CRCF is set to transform the voluntary carbon market (VCM), which currently relies on diverse standards like Verra or Gold Standard. As the CRCF establishes stricter quantification rules, FCM services for high-resolution biomass and change detection maps, contribute essential tools for providing transparent evidence that is required by this new framework.
From pure carbon accounting and carbon credits to more holistic nature credits, the Nature Restoration Regulation, adopted in June 2024, mandates the restoration of at least 20% of the EU’s land areas and 20% of the EU’s sea areas by 2030, explicitly linking climate mitigation with biodiversity recovery.
This mirrors global scientific discussions that increasingly view carbon and biodiversity as inseparable. FCM tools do not just weigh carbon; they map forest structure, tree species, and disturbances, which are all essential components of assessment of forest health and biodiversity.
As the market is moving towards high-integrity nature credits and strict LULUCF compliance, an evolution towards EO monitoring tools with high spatial and temporal frequency and high accuracy remains as essential as ever for effective and efficient policy monitoring and implementation.