XIV World Forest Congress 2015

Integrating forests and other land uses

©FAO/Joan Manuel Baliellas

Integrating forests with other ways of using land is vital for sustainable development

Land use reflects people’s demand for products and services from natural resources. The demands are ever growing. The world will be home to 9 billion people by 2050. Today over 800 million people suffer from hunger; to feed the world’s population by 2050, food production must increase by 60%. Global demand for wood is expected to continue to grow.  Global demand for energy is increasing, and, with it, the demand for renewable energy. Over one billion people live in extreme poverty.  How can the world’s needs for food security, poverty alleviation, renewable energy, wood and non-wood forest products all be met on a finite land base? A quarter of the world’s land is, or is in the process of becoming, highly degraded and the rate of biodiversity loss globally is alarming. How can we meet these challenges and also avoid or reverse degradation of the very resources upon which sustainable development is built?

This sub-theme explores these issues and highlights successful approaches to meet these challenges. It examines the agriculture/forest interface in the landscape. It highlights innovative investments and public-private partnerships in forest and landscape restoration that seek to achieve the “triple-win” – economic, social and environmental. It looks at the roles of planted forests in meeting a range of needs.  The sub-theme highlights experiences in multipurpose forest management, the application of the landscape approach and agroforestry. It also underlines the importance “green infrastructure” to building sustainable cities in a rapidly urbanizing world.  

Topics


The role of forests in sustaining landscapes

  • Addressing the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation
  • Forests and landscape restoration
  • Planted forests versus forest plantation - a new era of forest management

Integrating approaches to landscape management

  • Finding synergies between forestry, agriculture, water and energy
  • Agroforestry and trees outside forests
  • The role of urban forests in fuelling and feeding cities and providing environmental and social services