FAO activities in the area of planted forests
Planted forests play a critical role in supporting both sustainable forest management and the proposed action plans of international processes, including the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (including the Kyoto Protocol) and the United Nations Forum on Forests. In this regard, FAO provides technical support, guidelines and advisory services to member countries (in both the public and private sectors) to implement afforestation and reforestation programmes for both protection and production purposes. Assistance is provided to governments to establish legal, policy, planning, regulatory and institutional frameworks to support planted forest development and secure funding support for planted forest development. Field projects are implemented to demonstrate participatory processes, operational techniques and the social, environmental and economic benefits of planted forests. FAO collaborates with a wide range of international, regional, national and local partners in these tasks. 
One of the important responsibilities of FAO is to collect, analyse and disseminate data at national, regional and worldwide levels. FAO activities with respect to planted forests include numerous studies on the environmental, social and economic effects of planted forests, agroforestry, afforestation and reforestation. Attentive focus is placed on developing countries, particularly those in arid and semi-arid zones with low forest cover. Information is shared through international, regional and national meetings, a range of publications and papers, the Internet and networks. Each decade since 1980, Forest Resources Assessments have provided valuable natural and planted forest data at the international, regional and national levels. However, a planted forest database in more detail will be made available on this site in the near future, in order to assist in providing policy-makers and planners in forestry with specific and more up-to-date information in preparing outlook studies and in carrying out resource planning.
All work undertaken at FAO with respect to planted forests is in response to priority needs of member countries, reflected in the FAO Strategic Plan for Forestry.