We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL for a smooth virtual TFM with 76 participants from 28 countries, including presenters from other bodies under the Convention and external guests.

Major results/developments:

• Adoption of the revisions of all parts of the new ICP Forests Manual 2020.
• Re-establishment of the Quality Assurance Committee.
• Serious effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the forest monitoring activities only in very few countries.
• New “Data Availabilty Reports" to identify gaps and inconsistencies in the database.
• New "…

Because of the severe restrictions many countries have imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19, the organizing team of the 9th Scientific Conference and 36th Task Force Meeting of ICP Forests have decided

to hold the 36th ICP Forests Task Force Meeting as a video conference on 11-12 June 2020, and

to postpone the 9th ICP Forests Scientific Conference to 7-9 June 2021

with a post-conference excursion on 11-12 June 2021.

We deeply regret these circumstances but will be happy to welcome you to Zurich in 2021.

Best wishes
Alexa Michel
on behalf of the ICP Forests Programme Co-ordinating Centre

Due to the current situation of the COVID-19 spreading over Europe, the Swiss organisers of this year's 9th Scientific Conference and 36th Task Force Meeting, scheduled for 8 - 13 June 2020, published the following statement (Link).

We thank the local organisers and the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL for the up-date and hope the situation across Europe relaxes soon!

Unfortunately, the Combined Expert Panel Meeting in Kutna Hora, Czechia, next week was cancelled due to the increased risk of infection with COVID-19.

This was decided by the EP chairs and co-chairs on Meteorology, Phenology and Leaf Area Index; Forest Growth; Ambient Air Quality; Biodiversity and Ground Vegetation, the local organizers and the PCC of ICP Forests after an intensive discussion in the last two days.

We want to express our sincere gratitude to our colleague Vít Sramek and the whole organising team from the Czech Forestry and Game Management Research Institute for all their hard work and efforts in preparing and organising this meeting!