Once blanketed by forest, Europe and Russia have both lost virtually all of their temperate frontier forest. Most of Europe's forests were leveled centuries ago. Although forest area within the region has increased since 1950, nearly all of it consists of plantation or highly managed forest. [57]

Europe's last few large tracts of relatively natural forest are in Sweden and Finland. Significant portions of this frontier fall outside parks and reserves, and all frontier forests are threatened by road development, fire suppression, grazing, logging, and other activities.

Containing Earth's largest expanse of frontier forest (mostly in Siberia), Russia's boreal forests are still largely intact. The country houses almost three quarters of all boreal forest and nearly one fifth of the world's total forest area. [58] An immense storehouse of living carbon, the nation's frontier forests cover more than 4 million square kilometers. Clearing them could contribute significantly to global warming. Russia's Far Eastern frontier is also the last habitat for such highly endangered species as the Amur tiger, the Far Eastern leopard, the Far Eastern forest cat, the red wolf, and the sikha deer. [59]

Endangered frontier forests in Russia are threatened mainly by logging, named by WRI's advisors as the chief risk in about 85 percent of the region's threatened frontier forest. Mineral and energy exploration and set fires also impinge.

Already, portions of Russia's Far East and much of European Russia (west of the Ural mountains) have been heavily logged. Until now, lack of infrastructure and outmoded harvesting practices kept much of Siberia's frontier forest undeveloped. Recent economic and political liberalization may change the situation, however. International timber and trading corporations, particularly Asian companies, are looking to Siberian forests as a new source of supply as burgeoning global demand for timber strips other regions of valuable, accessible trees. [60] Over the next decade or two, foreign capital, machinery, and road-building could open much of Siberia's forest to logging, mining, and other damaging activities.