The threat to European forest due to air pollution has reached unacceptable proportions. The Inter Action Council composed of former presidents and premiers from some 30 countries took the initiative in 1988 and established the European Forum on Forest Protection. The Forum was formally organized at a meeting convened jointly by the Inter Action Council and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow, Poland, in 1989. Its overall objective is to evaluate scientific findings and, based on the consensus achieved, to formulate policies and recommendations for policymakers and policy organizations. The first meeting of the Forum was held in Stockholm, 3-5 July 1990, hosted jointly by the Inter Action Council and the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry. Participant came from 18 countries and included high-level politicians, scientists, and representatives of trade, industry, and international agencies. The Forest Study of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and affiliated collaborators were responsible for presenting the latest scientific background information about the causes and effects of air pollution, the extent of forest decline, and projections about future developments and socioeconomic consequences. The scientific team presented nine papers, which are published together in this book. Chapter 1, "The Critical/Target Load Concept," explains the concept used to quantify the relation between deposition of air pollutants and forest dicline. This concept is the basis of quantifications and projections presented in later chapters about Western and Eastern Europe and the European part of the USSR. Further development of this concept is continuing, as Chapter 2 indicates. This chapter also confirms the conclusions drawn in the first chapter, using a different approach to the critical load concept. The concept presented in Chapter 1 was employed in quantitative analyses that show the long-term effects of air pollution on wood supplies in Western and Eastern Europe. The results from these quantitative analyses are presented on the third paper, entitled "Forest Potentials and Poicy Implications for Eastern and Western Europe." The European part of the USSR, with forest resources as large as the rest of Europe, requires special analyses. Chapter 4 is a quantitative description of the pollution problem in this part of Europe. By employing the cause- effect concept presented in Chapter 1, the quantitative wood supply methodology presented in Chapter 3, and the pollution conditions discussed in Chapter 4, it has been possible to obtain tentative quantifications of the effects of air pollution in the European part of the USSR (Chapter 5). The quantifications achieved in Chapters 3 and 5 deal with volume losses of wood. In Chapter 6, an economic valuations is attached to the losses. The quantifications presented....
