If they travelled a little way to the Cairngorm Mountains and the Abernethy Forest Reserve, they would see one of Europe's Natura 2000 sites, covering 13 000 hectares of ancient Caledonian pinewood, moorland, lochs and mountains, which is the habitat for rare species such as the capercaillie and the black grouse.

As Mr Crowley has mentioned, in Ireland we have introduced a reserve fund where 1% of GDP is set aside each year, and there are some billions in this fund now; in fact there is so much money in it that people are beginning to fight over how and where it should be invested. Nevertheless it is an attempt to ensure that there is a fund there for the future.

There can be absolutely no doubt that Member States’ national, regional and local land-use plans should make provisions for forestry reserves, scheduling initiatives for protecting indigenous species, preventive schemes and natural reforestation schemes, in the interests of safeguarding the character and quality of life of communities in a given area.

The report also reflected other concerns: taking account of other indicators than GDP to determine eligibility for Structural Fund assistance; improve the consistency of employment policy, the common agricultural policy, environmental policy, transport policy and economic policy with a view to sustainable regional development; increasing the administrative capacity of the applicant countries; defining the more flexible methods of implementing assistance with a view to gradual decentralisation of the management of the Funds, subject to effective and rigorous monitoring; raising the assistance for regional competitiveness; allowing th ...[+++]e regions to implement their own development strategies; introducing the principle "one programme - one Fund", by giving more responsibility to the regions for implementation.

In addition to gas, Russia has, for example, the world’s largest forest and mineral resources.

Furthermore, the accession of Sweden, Austria and Finland meant that the EU’s forest resources immediately doubled.