Primary forests are among the world's most irreplaceable assets, anchoring food security, climate resilience, and the livelihoods of the Indigenous Peoples and local communities who steward them, yet they continue to be lost or degraded. These forests are irreplaceable: their biodiversity sustains water regulation, nutrient cycling, and pollination, while their carbon stocks buffer climate change. Because these ecological and cultural functions take centuries to develop, their loss is irreversible. 

Co-organized by FAO, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and the United Nations Forum on Forests Secretariat, this side event highlights the contribution of primary forests to food security, resilience, and livelihoods, and how the GEF partnership and the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) are working to conserve them.

A panel of diverse voices from across the world's key forest biomes will showcase the different entry points being used to safeguard primary forests, followed by a segment from the CPF Joint Initiative on Primary Forests on Indigenous leadership and partnerships. The event closes with perspectives on primary forests in the international agenda and the launch of the SEAP Forests Regional Knowledge Hub, a new regional platform for knowledge exchange on primary forests in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Zhimin Wu
Assistant Director-General
Director Forestry Division
FAO

Preetcha Ongprasert
Director of the Foreign Forestry Bureau,
Royal Forest Department of Thailand
Chair of the Asia-Pacific Forestry Commission 

Fabio Chicuta
General Coordinator of Forests
Ministry of Environment and Climate Change
Brazil

Zebulun Otaigbe Ojo
Environmentalist and Youth Leader
International Forestry Students Association
Nigeria

Puyr Tembé
Indigenous Leader of the Tembé People
Brazil

Chetan Kumar
Global Head
Forest and Grasslands Team
IUCN

Jeffrey Griffin
Executive Coordinator
GEF Coordination Unit, Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and the Environment
FAO

Hossein Meybodi
UNFF Secretariat