New expert panel assesses linkages between forests and food security
Forests play a major role in achieving Millennium Development Goal 1 to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and in striving for food security. Globally, millions of people depend on forests for their food security and nutrition, directly through the consumption or sale of foods produced in forests, indirectly through forest-related employment and income, forest ecosystem services, and forest biodiversity.
Current approaches to increasing food security tend to concentrate on agricultural solutions, ranging from intensification of agricultural production outside of forests to promoting agroforestry systems. Policy recommendations to establish a framework for promoting food security from forests, however, have so far been rather general and no framework addresses the relationship between forests and food security directly.
The “International Conference on Forests for Food Security and Nutrition”, held at FAO Headquarters in Rome in May 2013, inter alia conveyed the key message that forests, trees and agroforestry systems demand greater attention in strategies for food security and nutrition and in the fight against hunger. It also called for improved data collection at national and international levels.
Adding a gender perspective helps to better understand future challenges of small-scale and community-based forestry
Report from the IUFRO 2013 Conference on Future Directions of Small-scale and Community-based Forestry, Fukuoka, Japan, 8-13 September.
Community-based forestry and small-scale forestry are of key importance for sustaining sound forest management in both developed and developing countries. Small-scale forestry provides important environmental protection, landscape conservation and rural development benefits as well as timber production in many countries. However, small-scale forestry faces major challenges in developed and semi-developed countries, especially associated with aging, declining birthrates, depopulation, and unemployment in rural districts.
In many countries, small and fragmented forestland ownership is quite common. In some countries, communal forest ownership as a residue from feudal eras is still alive and has been managed by rural communities.
Afforestation of Subtropical Grasslands for Climate Change Mitigation
All year round, IUFRO (www.iufro.org) scientists hold or participate in meetings to present results and exchange knowledge in all fields of research related to forests. Quite recently, only a short time before the Global Landscapes Forum in mid-November on the sidelines of the Warsaw Climate Change Conference, IUFRO scientists were again discussing issues of great relevance to this upcoming event, namely at the:
1st International Symposium on Afforestation of Pastures in Subtropical Regions
The Ecosystem Service Concept – an Integrative Framework for Land-use Planning
All year round, IUFRO (www.iufro.org) scientists hold or participate in meetings to present results and exchange knowledge in all fields of research related to forests. Quite recently, only a short time before the Global Landscapes Forum in mid-November on the sidelines of the Warsaw Climate Change Conference, IUFRO scientists were again discussing issues of great relevance to this upcoming event, namely at the:
RegioResources (RR) 21-2013 conference: A cross-disciplinary dialogue on future perspectives for a sustainable development of regional resources