Nearly 1300 participants took part in the tenth session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF10) in Istanbul from April 8th – 19th 2013. For the first time, the biannual conference took place away from the UN Headquarters in New York. Over 50 ministers and high-level officials participated in the main negotiating topics:
- Forests in the post-2015 development agenda,
- Forests in a green economy,
- Payments for ecosystem services (PES),
- Introducing a sustainable development goal (SDG) on forests or natural resources, and
- A global legally binding instrument on forests.
The Forum agreed on measures to improve sustainable forest management (SFM) and recognized the necessity to set up a global fund to provide the required financial resources for implementation. Concerning the first resolution –…
Findings from a Promising Initiative for Investors, Rights-holders, Governments, and Donors
Forests for People – this slogan has circled through the United Nations particularly since the International Year of Forests 2011. Human wellbeing and healthy forests are directly linked through the various ecosystem services that we humans rely on. Forests are home to 300 million people around the world and 1.6 billion people’s livelihoods depend on forests. Yet, these people are often poorly involved in decisions that affect their very basis for survival.
The Forests Dialogue (TFD) provides a platform to discuss the most pressing issues concerning forests and people in a multi-stakeholder setting. As such, TFD has launched an initiative to find out how to best enable local people to control their valuable resources. Investing in Locally…
Cross-sectorial linkages and data gaps identified as opportunities for progress
Forests are complex. So it comes as no surprise that a major point of deliberation at the 10th UN Forum on Forests will be how to reconcile the tensions between landscape and community approaches, economic growth and social justice goals, and tradeoffs of lifestyle and equity inherent in sustainable development.
So, how will heads of state make their positions known? And, will official declarations bring much needed thought innovation and financial commitment to combat global deforestation? The first day of the conference, April 8th, set an ambitious, at times heart-felt, but non-specific, intangible tone.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan opened the conference with a note on personal responsibility in promoting sustainability. P.M. Erdoğan emphasized that we…
