Background Forests are under very significant pressure worldwide and in the Mediterranean region. The loss and degradation of forested land has wide-reaching consequences for biodiversity, health and the economy. Currently, several planning and evaluation tools, particularly in the form of criteria and indicators, have been developed to address the assessment of sustainable forest management. In the EU, the best tools have been translated by the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE) into criteria and indicators. EU Member States are committed to use these to assess, monitor and certify sustainable forest management. However, in many Member States (including Greece) problems persist with the estimation processes for the MCPFE criteria and indicators. These are related to the lack of clarity in the linkages between the spatial and aggregation scales and the decision-making levels, lack of data, lack of integration, lack of consensus between stakeholders and lack of comparability between areas. Objectives The project's general objective is to establish a knowledge base for national forest policy development and implementation, based on MCPFE criteria and indicator estimates, including impact assessments on forests related to climate change. The knowledge base will be compatible with EU initiatives and legislation on Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) assessment and implementation monitoring. The project will use the MEDMONT impact-evaluation system, previously developed by project team members through past EU projects, as a basis. This system will allow the following: Collection, analysis and dissemination of information required to estimate the MCPFE criteria and indicators at national, regional and local level, particularly the information required on forest impacts from climate change, biodiversity and protective functions of forests (soil, water and infrastructure); Integration of SFM assessment and implementation monitoring processes at different spatial scales and levels of aggregation; and Updating of forest management plans by incorporating social participation tools and impact-evaluation tools for SFM assessments and implementation monitoring. The project will produce the following outputs: a forest policy handbook for SFM assessments and implementation monitoring; policy guidelines for mitigating the impacts of climate change on forests; a good practice handbook for social participation in SFM; a pilot SFM plan; and a number of training events, workshops and seminars.