Dear Dr. Powell,
Thank you very much for positive suggestions on forests’ contribution to food security, which is definitely covered inadequately by the Global Core Set, especially as Global Forest Target 2.3 specifically refers to “the contribution of forests and trees to food security”. The question is actually “can we supply meaningful information, in a simple indicator, for use at the global level, in the short term?” This is not my area of expertise, but the indicators you propose seem to be more the building blocks than the big picture: they are all measurable at the survey level, but can they be scaled up to the national level, and how do you combine them to cast light on the question of how much forests contribute to food security? You say “Without better, systematic/ globally comparable data we will remain unable to accurately estimate the contribution of forest foods to diet quality, nutrition and food security”. (Incidentally, it seems to me that forests’ contribution to food security is wider than forest foods.) To me, this means that, regretfully, at this stage, we cannot propose an indicator on food security for the Global Core Set, but that work is urgently needed, in the right circles, to generate such an indicator with supporting methodology and definitions. Perhaps such work could start from your proposals?
Thank you again
Kit Prins
Facilitator
Sr. Christopher Prins