The Cost Action E19 on Natural Programmes in a European Context assembled more than 70 researchers and civil servants from 20 European countries and the USA. Some meetings were also attended by scholars from Canada, China and Japan. The participants aimed to provide policy makers in Europe with improved means for the formulation and implementation of National Forest Programmes (NFPs) for ensuring sustainable forest management. In order to accomplish this objective the work programme comprised the following tasks: - to interpret the basic elements and institutional and procedural requirements of NFPs, - to assess the effects of these elements and requirements on NFPs, - to assess the supporting and impeding factors for the development of substantive NFPs, - to evaluate the significance of NFPs in comparison to other policy means. The participating researchers represented many different scientific disciplines such as forest policy scientists, political scientists, forest economicsts, sociologists, lawyers, geographers, planners and others. Some of the civil servants involved in COST Action E19 have had key roles in the design and administration of the national NFP processes in their countries. Others were representatives of their countries in the expert level committee meetings of the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe and worked, among others, on the formulation of Vienna Resolution VI of 2003, "Strengthen Synergies for Sustainable Forest Management in Europe Through Cross-sectorial Co-operation and National Forest Programmes". All involved with COST Action E19 benefited from each other. The researchers found many opportunities to test their propositions against the empirical evidence provided by the civil servants, while the civil servants took advantage of the growing knowledge base on NFPs, including their constitutional elements and procedures. In this favourable atmosphere of co-operation between social scientists and knowledgeable civil servants the scope for a book of country reports on the formulation and implementation of NFPs in the participating countries was clean. David Humphreys declared his readiness to co-ordinate the contributions by elaborating a framework based on the work of the Action. The final result should enable the readers of this book to compare the NFP processes in the participating countries and to better understand their commonalities and differences. Furthermore, David Humphreys inspired the authors by his advice and commitment to the common European project on forest policy. His efforts and engagement cannot be suffciently acknowledged.
