Sustainable Development Goals: Their Impacts on Forests and People

Achieving Sustainable Development Goals on food security and nutrition: The impacts on forests and livelihoods

As the human population continues to grow, so does pressure to increase food production. Agriculture now dominates the global landscape and more food is being produced than ever before. Yet, our population is characterized by alarming rates of obesity and malnourishment.
Concomitantly, much of the agricultural expansion related to achieving global food security is at the expense of forest ecosystems, critical for biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services. SDG 2: Zero Hunger seeks to “End hunger, achieve food security and nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”. In this chapter we explore the potential impacts of achieving SDG 2 on forests and forest dependent people. We focus on five of the targets (2.1-2.5) under SDG 2 which are closely entwined with forests and forest related livelihoods. We discuss how the current food system polarises food production and forest conservation, when in fact, they should, and can be harmonised. Paying special attention to the role of maintaining genetic diversity (Target 2.5) and investing in small-scale food producers (Target 2.3) in sustainable food systems (Target 2.4) to reduce hunger and malnutrition (Targets 2.1 and 2.2). We close with observations on the potential tradeoffs and synergies between SDG 2 and the other SDGs, emphasizing the need for integrated land use management.

Taking SDG 5 Seriously

Taking SDG 5 seriously brings to the fore issues usually taken for granted in forest debates – people, their relationships to one another and to the forests, which together determine forest outcomes. We first analyze the forest context for SDG 5; second, we consider the impacts of taking SDG 5 and its targets seriously on forests and people’s livelihoods. Overall, little progress has been made in implementing these targets within the forestry sector. We will need a fundamental change in approaches to forests and the environment---one that incorporates systemic and contextual factors as well as the people’s relations outside of forestry (e.g., health, violence, unpaid care work, both in and outside the forest). Closer attention to SDG 5 can highlight the invisible labor and relations so crucial to good forest management and help to develop democratic and sustainable strategies so key to sustainable forest relations and of benefit to forest peoples. Politically we need to transform unequal relationships, to challenge privilege based on sex, class, ethnicity or caste and to destabilize inequitable micro and macro-economic structures (based on notions of private property, commodification, etc.). IUFRO has an important role to play in this context in questioning its own business as usual and also in undertaking gender research and analysis of forestry policies and programs to better understand gender dynamics. The welfare and dignity that achieving SDG 5 would bring to forest peoples and livelihoods is essential to ensuring better managed and sustainable forests.