Czech forest owners seek inclusion in National Drought Coalition

The Association of Owners of Municipal, Private, and Church Forests in the Czech Republic (SVOL) is calling on Agriculture Minister Martin Šebesta to include non-state forest owners in the activities of the revived National Coalition for Combating Drought.

SVOL represents owners managing approximately 545,000 hectares of forest, which accounts for 21 percent of all forests in the country. The association argues that drought is significantly complicating forest regeneration, with some areas seeing the death of saplings planted only two or three years ago. This necessitates costly repeated planting and care.

Jiří Svoboda, chairman of SVOL, emphasized that increasing the country's resilience to drought requires viewing the landscape as a whole. He noted that because forests play a vital role in water retention and landscape stability, owners who implement adaptation measures directly in the field must be part of the official discussion. The association is requesting predictable and timely funding for forest management, to be reflected in next year's state budget.