The devil is in details. Change forest area into other use, e.g. residential, is hard AF. So forest-as-land-use is AFAIK not decreasing in Europe. But re-fore

The devil is in details. Change forest area into other use, e.g. residential, is hard AF. So forest-as-land-use is AFAIK not decreasing in Europe. But re-forested areas are commercial forests, thus they're cut down. And the first re-forested forests reached their peak condition. So a lot of them are cut down. Usually they're given time to naturally re-seed from remaining trees (unless it was clear-cut, which are not advised in most cases nowadays), re-planting takes time and it takes time for that fresh cut to look like a forest again. Trees take in much more CO2 while they're growing. So if we keep cutting down trees at their prime age, don't burn them and replant new trees in their place... That's pretty efficient. If that wood replaces some concrete in construction, which is terrible for CO2, double win! We had a very heated debate about this in my country. Forest-land-use area is growing. But there're lots of clearings out in the forests. Cutting permits allow significantly less than theoretical yearly lumber growth. So sheer mass is growing too. But people see a clearing and think of that as deforestation. Another issue when old and bio-diverse forests are cut down and then commercial mono-culture forest is re-planted in it's place. But from CO2 side - that's better than keeping the old forest in place. Not so good from eco diversity perspective though.