In the Act on Forests, a forest is defined as land containing forest trees in the form of a stand or other woodland fulfilling any of the functions of a forest. According to this act, any areas reverting to natural vegetation that have been classified as a forest in the spatial part of the Forest Management Plan are considered as forests.

In the FAO Global Forest Assessment 2005 (TBFRA) the following definitions are listed:

Forest: Land with tree crown cover (or equivalent stocking level) of more than 10 percent and area of more than 0.5 ha. The trees should be able to reach a minimum height of 5 m at maturity in situ. Young natural stands and plantations established for forestry purposes and areas normally forming part of the forest area which are temporarily unstocked as a result of human intervention or natural causes are also included. This definition also includes forest nurseries and seed orchards that constitute an integral part of the forest, forest roads, firebreaks, etc.

EUROSTAT defines the forest as follows:
Forest: A forest area is made up of forest and other wooded land. Forest is defined as land with tree crown cover of more than 20% of the area. Forest is continuous and the trees reach a minimum height of 7 m and are able to produce wood. Other wooded land is defined as area that has some characteristics of forest, but does not belong to the above definition. It includes open woodland and shrubs and may or may not be used for pasture. The manner of determining the forest area is defined by the Regulation on the forest management and silviculture plans.

Forest area is relatively easy to measure, which is why we already have extensive information reaching back to 1875 when forests represented only 36% of the territory. Since then (for more than 130 years), the forest area has been increasing constantly. Despite this trend, however, we cannot be satisfied with the distribution of forest areas.

According to the FAO Global Forest Assessment, Slovenia has a large percentage of forests in comparison with the rest of Europe; however, the absolute percentage is much lower. The total surface area of forests in Europe (including Russia) in 2005 was 192,604 ha (1,001,393,000 ha), which is 44.3% of the entire territory. In the period between 2000 and 2005, the surface area of forests has increased by 756,000 ha (661,000 ha), or 0.40% (0.07%).

Similar trends have been noted in the past decades on the European scale. A large share of afforestation was performed immediately after World War II, and this trend has settled in the last decades. Areas appropriate for afforestation are shrinking and the cost of this type of work is increasing. The share of managed forests is increasing at an even slower rate, as a result of the growing number of protected areas.

Assessment of the trend:
The assessment of the trend in Europe for the coming decades (TBFRA 2005) is that forest area will continue to grow moderately. A similar assessment has also been made for Slovenia (a more detailed review was presented in Section Goal(s)). We expect the indicator to develop towards reaching the set objective.