Committee on Forestry 2012
Last week the 21st session of the UN’s Committee on Forestry (COFO) met in Rome.
One of the outcomes of Rio+20 discussions was agreement that forests have a significant role to play in addressing many sustainable development challenges. The 21st session of COFO focussed on translating the results of Rio+20 into actions, with the subtitle Forests: a green pathway for human development.
The key topics were:
- Integrating forests with environmental and land use policies at all levels;
- Forests, trees and people together in a living landscape: A key to rural development;
- Broadening the financial basis for sustainable forest management: wood and non-wood products, services, innovations, markets, investments and international instruments;
- Sound information and knowledge base for better policies and good governance.
Sylva’s CEO Dr Gabriel Hemery was invited to speak at the meeting – addressing ministers and leaders of forestry organisations from across the world. He called for a global effort to revive a wood culture and proposed an innovative project. Good interest was shown from a number of possible partner countries, and the Forestry Department of the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) is supportive of the concept.
