Silva Mediterranea

Over 90 years of Mediterranean forest management

Sixth Mediterranean Forest Week – Call for Youth and 4^th Joint Organizing Committee Meeting Updates

Held every two years, the Mediterranean Forest Week (MFW) is a key platform for regional forestry cooperation and dialogue between the research community, policy-makers and other relevant stakeholders. It highlights the specific challenges faced by Mediterranean forests and calls attention to their global importance. Participants include forest administrators, the scientific and academic community, the private sector, donors, civil society, environmental agencies and non-governmental organizations. The key theme of the Sixth Mediterranean Forest Week this year will be the Role of Mediterranean forests in the Paris Agreement: challenges and opportunities.

The Sixth MFW will consider the important role Mediterranean forests can play in helping to mitigate climate change and implement the Paris Agreement 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.

An expected outcome of the Week is to support the integration of Forest and Landscape Restoration and Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry options within the Nationally Determined Contributions in the Mediterranean region.

A Call for Youth has been launched to select young people who are eager

• to give the main speech in the name of youth 
• to act as a master of ceremony during sessions
• to support logistics and communication activities during the MFW.

Young people who are interested should fill the application form before January 25, 2019.

The Call for Posters is still open.

The 6^th MFW is organized by a Joint Organizing Committee (JOC) that supervises all activities related to the preparation of the 6^th MFW and takes decision on all questions related to the 6^th MFW, including its objectives, agenda, and operational and logistical tasks. The Fourth Joint Organizing Committee (JOC4) meeting took place via Skype on 29 November, 2018, with the objectives of finalizing the sessions, organizing speaker support, preparing for the 23^rd session of Silva Mediterranea, consolidating side events, defining the implication of youth, and monitoring organizational arrangements with regard to communication materials for the 6^th MFW.

Representatives of the International Association for Mediterranean Forests (AIFM), Centro de Servicios y Promoción Forestal y de su Industria de Castilla y León (CESEFOR), European Forest Genetic Resource Programme (EUFORGEN), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Ministry of Agriculture of Lebanon (MoA), Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry – Turkey, Saint Joseph University (USJ), SEEDS – INT attended the meeting.

The provisional agenda of the closed 23^rd Session of Silva Mediterranea will be discussed among the chair of Silva Mediterranea, the hosting country of the 6^th MFW, the vice-chair of Silva Mediterranea, and the secretariat of Silva Mediterranea. A tentative agenda of the 23^rd Session could include follow-up on Recommendations of the Session of the Committee, discussing working groups’ activities, the election of officers and the Rapporteur of the Session, date and place suggestion of the 24^th Session of the Committee, and any other relevant matters. Depending on the outcomes of the 23^rd Session of the Committee Silva Mediterranea, a high-level segment will be open to the audience of the 6^th MFW and the media to ensure publicizing Silva Mediterranea’s strategy. A final possible outcome of the high-level segment may include adopting a declaration highlighting the pathway from the different weeks. This declaration may focus on forest and landscape restoration and LULUCF as an important option to implement the NDCs of Mediterranean countries.

For more information please visit the web site of the 6^th MFW at https://vi-med.forestweek.org/