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A website with information and contact details for individuals and organizations interested in the Global Landscapes Forum has been launched and can be visited through www.landscapes.org.
The organizers are also happy to announce that the Forum is anticipated to take place on the beautiful campus of the University of Warsaw. The Forum is held on the sidelines of the UNFCCC COP19 in Warsaw, from 16-17 November 2013.
Beyond providing the venue for all sessions of the Forum, the University will join as Host Partner and will be actively involved throughout the two days. There are various opportunities for organizations from around the globe to contribute to the Global Landscapes Forum, for example by hosting exhibition booths or leading Technical and Networking Sessions. Detailed information and guidelines for application are available online.
The University of Warsaw is strategically located in the city center and a short walk away from the UNFCCC COP conference venue.
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 The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and CIFOR co-hosted a policy seminar in Washington, DC, on 24 June 2013. CIFOR Director General Peter Holmgren and Geeta Sethi (representing Rachel Kyte, Vice President for Sustainable Development at the World Bank) offered their perspectives on a landscape approach to sustainable development and how it can be used to simultaneously address multiple challenges, while Shenggen Fan (Director General of IFPRI) focused on sustainable intensification for food and nutrition security.
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 Negotiators at the Bonn climate talks have advanced on controversial policy details related to verifying carbon emissions, paving the way for major progress on REDD+ at the U.N. climate summit in Warsaw in November, said Louis Verchot, Director of Research on Forests and Environment at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
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 In 2013, CIFOR will mark 20 years of working for forests and people. During that time, the organization has made significant contributions to research and practice in the field, writes M. Hosny El Lakany, chair of CIFOR's Board of Trustees. CIFOR's early research in the underlying causes of deforestation; alternatives to slash and burn; reduced-impact logging; and community forest management have changed the way we protect, conserve and sustainably manage this critical resource. CIFOR has looked not only at the natural environment through its work, but also at the concerns of people who rely on the forest for their livelihoods: CIFOR research on non-timber forest products, gender, human rights and tenure has helped some of the world's poorest people. This annual report showcases both CIFOR's role in empowering decision makers for forests across the globe as well as its ability to innovate and respond to new knowledge and challenges.
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 How can nutritious, affordable food be supplied to the 9.6 billion people who are due to occupy the Earth in 2050 without accelerating deforestation and climate change, destroying biodiversity, hurting rural livelihoods and disrupting water supplies? How can agriculture and forestry contribute positively to social, economic and environmental progress? To address these issues, a new direction is needed for policy on forests and food security. Researchers, policy-makers and everyone in between must think of forests and agriculture as inextricably linked—parts of a greater "landscape" that comprises not just the dynamic relationship between forests and farms, but also the socioeconomic, gender, cultural and political drivers that characterize it.
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 Proposed transformational shifts included in the global development framework are an improvement on the Millennium Development Goal targets due to expire in 2015, writes Peter Holmgren, CIFOR’s Director General. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include concrete objectives and targets that will enhance the aims of CIFOR and CGIAR. In this DG’s Blog entry, Peter shares some thoughts on the report of the U.N. secretary general's high-level panel on the post-2015 development agenda.
Follow the DG on Twitter: @pholmgren
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 Upon its projected completion in 2015, Belo Monte will be the third-largest hydropower dam in the world, writes CIFOR’s Amy Duchelle. Its construction has been the subject of local, national and international protests over the predicted harm to aquatic ecosystems and local people — including high-profile indigenous groups — along with its questionable economic viability.
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Land conflicts between palm oil companies and communities in Indonesia. Squatters with no documentation of land rights in Brazil. Local leaders exploiting customary practices to gain favors in Tanzania. Encroachment into a national park by an agro-industrial company in Cameroon. Unclear rights to carbon in Vietnam. These are just a few of the many complex land tenure issues that proponents of REDD+ projects around the world are working hard to address. But their best efforts alone may not be enough to resolve tenure security, according to a study by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).
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Organizing the 14th conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) in Fujiyoshida city at Mount Fuji, Japan, was the first time local commons residents both planned and hosted the IASC in their common lands. For researchers primarily concerned with commons in poor countries, the multiple plenary sessions focusing on Japan’s commons as well as a field trip to actual commons enabled us to find overlaps and differences across the "developed-country" and “developing-country” commons divide.
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 When indigenous people migrate from forest communities to towns, they leave behind their traditional diet of fish and game and switch to chicken, eggs, sausages or canned meat — a menu that is sapping the nutritional diversity from people’s diets, according to surveys of schoolchildren in the western Amazon. The number of people who depend on game animals is not high, but it is an important source of diversity in people’s diets, says Nathalie Van Vliet, who is conducting a study of game or “bushmeat” consumption for CIFOR.
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 Brazil-nut gatherers in northern Bolivia must play a greater role in overseeing commercial logging being undertaken in their forests, a study warns, or they risk losing control and income as logging operations increase in the region. While there is evidence to show that informal logging in Bolivia has had little impact on the regeneration of Brazil-nut trees, scientists do not yet know how selective logging affects the trees' annual fruits production — a relationship being investigated by CIFOR in neighboring Peru.
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 They had hoped to incite debate. Instead, the authors of a report on oil palm development in Cameroon discovered that they had spurred a national strategy. That message was heard, Patrice Levang learned while at CIFOR’s Sustainable Forest Management in Central Africa conference. The report, co-authored with WWF, called for the creation of such a strategy to be used as a road map in Cameroon and as a potential model for other parts of the Congo Basin. It recommended addressing multiple components, starting with ways to increase yields.
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6th Africa agriculture science week and FARA general assembly
15 – 20 July 2013, Accra International Conference Centre, Accra, Ghana. More information »
26th International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB)
21 – 25 July 2013, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. More information »
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CIFOR advances human well-being, environmental conservation and equity by conducting research to help shape policies and practices that affect forests in developing countries. CIFOR is a member of the CGIAR Consortium. Our headquarters are in Bogor, Indonesia, with offices in Asia, Africa and South America.
Go to CIFOR’s website
Go to CIFOR’s blog
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