Through the FOREST EUROPE commitments, the concept of Sustainable Forest Management has been defined and continuously developed at the pan-European level. One of the steps in this progress has been the development of guidelines that prioritize issues and aspects that need to be addressed to achieve and implement SFM.
The first two sets of guidelines, “General guidelines for sustainable forest management” and “General guidelines for conservation of biological diversity of forests in Europe” were developed in Helsinki in 1993 (Resolution H1 and H2 respectively). They were elaborated as general political guiding principles to be implemented in an integrated manner to be reflected in national guidelines and local technical solutions.