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If you’re coming to Rio+20 and you’re interested in forests, don’t miss the CIFOR-organised conference on 19 June: Forests: The 8th Roundtable at Rio+20. The event will include the world’s top speakers on the importance of forests to four key development issues: energy, water, food and climate change. Seats are limited so register now.
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We invite you to participate in a unique opportunity to highlight the contribution forests can make to sustainable development through the Rio+20 Sustainable Development Dialogues. The Dialogues are an initiative of the Government of Brazil to provide an online tool for civil society to discuss 10 key issues related to sustainable development. Conclusions and recommendations emanating from these forums will be conveyed directly to the heads of State and Government gathering in Rio on 20-22 June. The Government has appointed CIFOR, Yale University and the University of Sao Paulo/USALQ to moderate the online dialogue on Forests in Developing Countries. Sign up at www.riodialogues.org.
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Brazil’s vast tropical savanna, the Cerrado, is in trouble – over half of this area has been deforested to make way for cattle grazing land and other agricultural practices. Yet Brazil is well on the way to achieving its goal to reduce deforestation by 80 percent by overcoming the governance and transparency issues that other developing forest-rich countries are struggling with. Ahead of Rio+20, we explore the challenges ahead for Brazil to continue on its sustainable development path.
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Forests are a nutritional bounty — virtual natural supermarkets for 1 billion of the world's poorest people. And as the world's population is expected to balloon to 9 billion people by 2050, it is imperative that we figure out how to feed the global population while maintaining the world's very important forest cover. This multimedia feature talks about some of the interesting ways that people around the world are promoting forest conservation and food security such as using traditional stories, songs and recipes in the Amazon; planting small mango forests in Bangladesh; bush meat delicacies that are decimating biodiversity in Central Africa; and forest gardens in Latin America's coffee plantations.
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 The international community needs to help developing countries increase their ability to measure and monitor the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that they save by safeguarding their forests if the REDD+ mechanism is to attain its objective of cutting emissions, according to a new study.
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The Letter of Intent between Indonesia and Norway has been ‘the single most significant game changer’ for the Indonesian forestry sector in the past 25 years, commented CIFOR Director General, Frances Seymour, in a recent interview.
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Scientists are hoping to strike a cultural chord with Amazonian forest communities by combining in-depth research with traditional stories, songs and recipes as a way to promote forest conservation and food security in a recently published book. Two decades of contributions from a range of people, from policy makers to midwives, have been compiled into a unique volume full of forest management techniques, medicinal recipes, marketing tips and trade information, delivered in a series of easy-to-understand posters, jokes, theatre and songs.
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The relationship between people’s health and the forests in which they live has become increasingly clear in recent years. There is a pressing need to continue work on the links between people’s health and forests; yet no party has accepted this responsibility, said CIFOR scientist Carol Colfer in this science dispatch. If approached appropriately, attention to forest people’s health could both directly benefit forest dwellers and perhaps motivate the voluntary involvement of local communities in improving forest management and developing strategies for adapting to climate change.
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Our current food production model clears biodiverse forest ecosystems for agriculture, simplifying our diet so much that 98 percent of the world’s food is supplied from just 12 plant crops and 14 animal species. Experts are concerned that this simple diet is actually hurting our health and that of our environment. In this blog, CIFOR scientist Terry Sunderland explains that to feed the world’s growing population without compromising our current and future ‘natural capital’, we need to find innovative ways to combine biodiversity conservation and food production.
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Woodfuel overexploitation, resulting from high dependency on the resource in Africa’s Congo Basin, is causing degradation and deforestation near areas with high demand yet it remains a potential renewable energy supply, said a recent study. The study suggests that initiatives for woodfuel plantations and agroforestry systems that include trees for fuel can provide sustainable sources for wood energy.
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Despite decades of gender research, many of the problems identified in the 1970s and 80s persist: women’s forest-related work is still invisible; their voices are unheard in decisions, both at the policy-level and in their own households; and even well-meaning forestry programs can have inadvertent but adverse effects on women. In this POLEX, CIFOR scientist Carol Colfer explains why she believes the articles in a recent special issue of the International Forestry Review suggest that at last some progress is being made.
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World Congress on Water, Climate and Energy
13 – 18 May 2012, Dublin, Ireland. more
UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies session
14 – 25 May 2012, Bonn, Germany. more
13th Congress of the International Society of Ethnobiology
20 – 25 May 2012, Montpellier, France. more
International Conference "Tackling climate change: The contribution of forest scientific knowledge"
21 – 24 May 2012, Tours, France. more
Forests for People – International experiences and the vital role for the future
22 – 24 May 2012, Alpbach, Tyrol, Austria. more
Events calendar
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