CIFOR-ICRAF scientists will join the global forestry community at the World Forestry Congress to discuss the state and future of world forestry, particularly in the context of the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, while striving to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The Congress will focus on defining the role of forests in the global developmental agenda (2030 Agenda) and other major agreements including the Global Forest Goals, Paris Agreement and post-2020 global biodiversity framework, and identify key measures necessary for the forest sector to adjust to the new reality and help ‘build back better’.
Agenda
se.plan is a spatially explicit online tool designed to support forest restoration planning decisions by restoration stakeholders. It is a tool available in SEPAL (System for Earth Observation Data Access, Processing and Analysis for Land Monitoring), a component of FAO’s free and open-source software suite, Open Foris.
This year represents a critical moment for the global community to accelerate action and deliver on commitments to collectively reduce deforestation and forest degradation – and to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change.
This will be a high-level and strategic reflection about forests in the broader landscape context – ‘forests beyond forestry’. The strategic importance of cooperation with all its dimensions will be highlighted to bring forestry prominently into the discussions of global and regional frameworks of the development agenda.
Drylands represent over 50% of Asia’s land surface. Despite the growing challenges of land degradation on biodiversity conservation, food security, and climate change mitigation and adaptation, few transboundary initiatives exist to restore degraded drylands drought-prone areas in Asia.
To address the series of critical challenges facing humanity, we need collective global action. In recent years, countries have stepped up their collaborative efforts to mitigate climate change and address widening inequalities in income, livelihoods, human health, and access to food. To achieve the global development and climate objectives enshrined in the Paris Agreement, the Sustainable Development Goals, and other international agreements, sweeping transformational changes must take place.
A high-level dialogue between the heads of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) agencies with representatives of Major Groups Forests sequester carbon, support the livelihoods of billions of people and act as vital reservoirs for biodiversity. However, as a valuable resource, sometimes multiple stakeholders have divergent priorities for the same forestland. When one group – whether inadvertently or deliberately – withholds access to a forest resource or to the decision-making process from another user group, non-violent or violent conflict may occur.
Agroforestry is an intensive land management system involving the integration of tree management into crop and animal farming. It can provide diverse ecosystem goods and services by bridging agriculture, forestry and husbandry to offer environmental, economic, and social benefits from local to global scales. In order to improve the benefits of agroforestry systems to contribute to international climate, biodiversity and development goals, a systematic approach is necessary for understanding agroforestry practices, designing related policies and outcomes.
Session recording available
The lack of baseline data, and consistent information on the costs and benefits of ecosystem restoration, hinders further investments into restoration activities, weakening capacity to achieve the global restoration goals. To fill this gap, FAO has initiated the Economics of Ecosystem Restoration (TEER) initiative with the CGIAR Research program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA).
Session recording available
Tropical peatlands are highly significant to global efforts to combat climate change, as well as wider sustainable development goals. As such, the protection and restoration of peatlands is vital in the transition towards a low-carbon and circular economy.
This hybrid event will be opened with a keynote speech, followed by key messages from the upcoming FAO-CIFOR forestry paper ‘Mainstreaming biodiversity in forest management’. Next, a moderated panel discussion will highlight experiences in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, in support of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
Session recording available
Young people have shown their capacity to generate and spearhead trans-national mobilization to address environmental challenges such as climate change, and advance sustainable development. They can be instrumental in shaping a sustainable future, including by taking leadership roles and generating momentum through collaboration and social media; by transforming rigid institutions from within; and by participating in the uptake and upscale of innovative technologies in the forest sector.
Population growth and economic development drive a significant increase of demand for agricultural commodities. Despite some progress in productivity, agricultural land expansion has been a frequent solution to respond to this demand, causing considerable loss of forests, particularly in the tropics.
Innovation increases effectiveness, competitiveness and resilience with the goal of solving a problem. In the forest sector, innovation is needed in science and technology as well as in cooperation models to move forward effectively in meeting a wide range of SDGs, from sustainably managing forests (SDG15) to sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth (SDG8).
Session recording available
In November 2010, the Central Africa Forest Observatory (OFAC) became a specialized unit of the Executive Secretariat of the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC), a regional organization comprising ten Member States, which aims to promote regional coordination and cooperation on forest governance, conservation, and sustainable use of natural resources.
Our global forests hold the key to some of the most timely and topical challenges of our time – a rapidly changing climate, an expanding human footprint, global food security, and sustainable development. Young forest professionals are driving change, and are at the forefront of the new face of forestry: one that embraces innovation, complexity, and collaboration.
Session recording available
Building a green, healthy and resilient future with forests and trees requires strong knowledge to anticipate future changes and shocks, and their impacts on ecosystems, economies and livelihoods. Such knowledge also provides a basis for the development of strong, systemic, and better-coordinated policies to prepare for and address these changes.
The vision of the UN Decade Task Force on Monitoring is that a science-based restoration movement should be informed by the best available technology and data for planning and monitoring restoration actions on the ground. And, that the latest innovations should be broadly accessible to restoration stakeholders – this can help turn commitments into actions and can help scale investments in restoration.
Session recording available
Bioenergy plants grown on degraded peatlands can serve the double function of restoration and providing a sustainable source of energy. With demand for sustainable energy growing significantly across the world, including in the global South and tropical peatland regions, there is an urgent need to rebuild resilient landscapes with multiple functions.
Session recording available
Natural rubber is a strategic commodity predominantly produced by millions of small farmers that sustains around 40 million people around the globe, with a supply chain worth generating more than 300 billion dollars. Natural rubber is emblematic of the opportunities offered by renewable materials for green economy growth and the benefits they provide for sustainable development.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many aspects of our lives, posing significant disruptions tohealth systems, livelihoods, global supply chains, and financial and commodity markets. It has also had serious impacts on the forest and trees sector.
Energy lies at the heart of both the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement. Itis intricately connected to climate change – and to almost all the other sustainable development goals (SDGs), including poverty eradication, food security, health, education, gender equality, water and sanitation, and ecosystem protection and restoration.
Around 80% of Peru’s deforestation is due to unsustainable practices by small-scale (1-5 ha) family farmers living in the agricultural frontier of the Amazon, who lack secure land tenure rights. The country’s new Agroforestry Concessions (AC) system was specifically created by Peru’s recent forestry legal framework to provide these family farmers with an avenue for land tenure formalization in the agriculture-forest landscape, through long-term, renewable contracts that are conditional on avoiding clearing more land, and employing other sustainable practices for soil and water conservation.
Forests cover around half of Southeast Asia’s land mass and contain many of the world’s biodiversity and carbon hotspots. Good forest governance is crucial to conserving biodiversity, overcoming climate change, and ensuring the health and well-being of people. A new study shows how rapidly the region’s vital peat forests are being cleared, drained, and dried; they are sinking and emitting carbon at alarming rates, regardless of how the land is being used.
Large areas of the world’s forests have been depleted and degraded over the past decades. To respond, several international policy approaches and instruments have emerged. Although many of them are being widely implemented, there is less agreement and a lack of systematic knowledge about their effects and impacts.
Session recording available
The multiplication of sustainability initiatives has been driven by the growing complexity and diversity of conditions under which agri-food and timber supply chains operate. They involve many different types of actors who can all have an indirect influence on land-use decisions. There is, typically, a lack of articulation between the different initiatives.
Session recording available
This side event will be a dynamic and informative exchange on options for woodfuel management and collaboration within wider forest-agricultural landscapes. Considering the high demand for woodfuel in most sub-Saharan countries, its management requires solutions beyond forest boundaries, with wood being sourced from different wood production systems, and value chains affecting various sectors (including agriculture, energy and health).
Session recording available
Virtual collaborative platforms promise many benefits for knowledge exchange. However, they frequently fall short on this promise, as mutual collaboration agreements need to be set up, and decision makers need to adapt to the platforms and technologies to bridge any gaps. Ideally, a collaborative platform should perform as a ‘game changer’ in its field.
To meet the sustainable development goals, we need to transition to a circular bioeconomy that is based on sustainably-sourced renewable bioresources . As our most important piece of biological infrastructure, forests are the main source of renewable biomaterials and bioenergies, and are central to realising the new and necessary paradigm of a circular bioeconomy.
Session recording available
The Third Asia-Pacific Forest Sector Outlook Study (APFSOS-III), launched in June 2019 at the Asia-Pacific Forestry Week in South Korea, highlighted two important areas of concern for the forest sector in the region: primary forests and forest technologies.
