Collaboration key to strengthening forest governance
Boosting collaboration between international forest-related initiatives can strengthen forest governance, helping to address climate change and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
As countries step up their efforts to fulfill commitments made under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and Agenda 2030, the cross-cutting theme of improved forest governance is at the centre of efforts to halt deforestation and forest degradation as well as action to achieve Nationally Determined Contributions and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Speaking during a panel discussion of the European Commission’s high-level conference “Our Forests, our Future, sustainable forest management to address societal challenges”, Tiina Vähänen, Chief of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) Forestry Policy and Resources Division, spelled out FAO’s well-established commitment to address forest loss and forest degradation. The conference, convened under the initiative of the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Phil Hogan, gathered stakeholders to analyse and discuss opportunities to increase coherence in forest-related policy issues and the associated challenges.
FAO’s support to countries to strengthen forest governance encompasses a number of activities, including the FAO-EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Programme (FLEGT) and initiatives to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), such as the United Nations REDD UN-REDD Programme, a joint programme of FAO, the United Nations Development Programme, and United Nations Environment Programme, the Central African Forest Initiative and the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility.
Continue reading at: http://www.fao.org/forestry/news/95681/en/