Silva Mediterranea

Over 90 years of Mediterranean forest management

Sixth Mediterranean Forest Week – Joint Organizing Committee Meeting updates

The Sixth Mediterranean Forest Week (MFW) will be held on 1-5 April 2019 in Brummana, Lebanon. The Week will focus on the role of Mediterranean forests in the Paris Agreement, the challenges to face and opportunities to seize, by addressing the following:

• How Mediterranean forests can contribute to the fulfillment of global climate change commitments?
• The role of Mediterranean forests in adapting people to climate change.
• The role of Mediterranean forests in facilitating sectoral climate change adaptation in areas such as water, agriculture and cities.
• The role of Mediterranean forests in helping to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The sessions of the Week will address

• the most recent advances regarding forest-related topics in the three Rio Conventions and the role of Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) in implementing the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs);
• specific case studies highlighting how forest-based solutions can be utilized to achieve goals of international commitments in relation to other sectors, or based on non-wood forest products, or using participatory approaches;
• forest monitoring as an enabling condition to implement forest-based solutions;
• climate financing as a way to scale-up forest-based solutions.

On 19 July 2018, FAO’s headquarters in Rome held the Third Joint Organizing Committee (JOC3) meeting to continue preparation of the Sixth MFW and 23^rd Session of the Committee of Silva Mediterranea. Participants included members from the International Association for Mediterranean Forests (AIFM), Saint Joseph University, European Forest Genetic Resource Programme (EUROFORGEN), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food, and Environment – Spain (MAPAMA), Ministry of Agriculture – Lebanon (MoA), United Nations Development Programme – Turkey (UNDP Turkey), Lebanon Reforestation Initiative (LRI), and Rural Development Programs (SEEDS-INT).

An exciting new topic discussed for the Sixth MFW is the presence of youth participation. With a call for youth already prepared, the ideal role of youth will be to prepare speeches, act as master of ceremony, provide logistic support, etc. This call is reserved only for Lebanese students and will open in January 2019.

Sessions of the Sixth MFW will be complemented with side events. As a result of a call for side events, eight proposals have been made. The following six have been selected:

1. “Biodiversity for resilience in the restoration of Mediterranean forests”, proposal by Jouzour Loubnan NGO, Fs-USJ, FERI;
2. “Developing national strategies for the conservation of forest genetic diversity”, proposal by EUFORGEN – EFI;
3. “Prevention and restoration on forest fires. Linking actions before and after fire”, proposal by the DGF of the Spanish MAPA;
4. “Integrated Landscape Restoration Management: Optimization of land use value for people”, proposal by the Lebanon Restoration Initiative
5. “Network of forested areas of High Ecological Value”, proposal by AIFM;
6. Cost-benefit analysis of forest and landscape restoration, proposal by FAO/FLRM.

The next meeting of the Joint Organizing Committee of the Sixth MFW and 23^rd Session of Silva Mediterranea will be organized in the second half of November 2018.

For more information on the Sixth MFW visit the website: https://vi-med.forestweek.org/content/6-mfw-toolkit.

(Victoria Fleitz)