Its purpose is to share information, to develop joint strategies and a wider European perspective on forest issues.
The FME also supports NGOs and Indigenous Peoples Organisations in the South in their activities to protect forests.
Its focus was no longer Japanese companies but tropical rainforest protection and support for forest peoples in general.
Meetings were held twice a year, hosted by one of the participating groups and coordinated by Saskia Ozinga of FERN.
It was mainly due to the activities of the groups that participated in the ERM that the tropical rainforest campaigns in Europe took off, imports of tropical timber into several European countries declined and the struggle of forest peoples, e.g. in Sarawak, Malaysia and the Amazon were headline stories.