Items tagged:
International Year of Forests (IYF)
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REDD+: Learning from participatory forest management
As policymakers prepare to discuss REDD+ at UN climate talks in Durban, they should heed the lessons learned from years of experience in participatory forest management across the developing world.
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REDD+ in Mozambique: new opportunity for land grabbers?
Land is cheap and is perceived to be abundant in Africa. A scramble for its land, following the food and fuel crisis three years ago, is on. European and North American companies have been acquiring land to grow export and biofuel crops and to supply their need for pulp and paper. Now they’re being joined by newly emerging economies – in particular Brazil, India and China – which are also increasingly acquiring large tracts of land and searching for other natural resources, in particular water and minerals.
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Delivering REDD+: can past lessons help in tempering optimism and making headway?
The International Year of Forests is celebrating the importance of forests and raising the profile of challenges and opportunities. The perceived value of forests has been raised by the recognition of their role in mitigating climate change. But the International Year of Forests is a momentous reminder that there are still unresolved issues.
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Setting fire to outdated thinking on biomass energy
Energy shortages and rising fuel costs are nothing new to the poor in developing countries where 1.6 billion people lack access to electricity and 2.4 billion use biomass as their primary cooking and heating fuels. What is new, is the idea that renewable biomass energy itself could enable developing countries to fight poverty and climate change, create jobs and gain energy independence.
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Nepal: space to debate, opportunities to act
A first visit to a country is often the time when we ‘see’ the most, and our recent brief visit to Nepal certainly afforded some lasting impressions. High Himalayan ranges glistening in the sun contrasting with the air pollution and traffic congestion of Kathmandu; immense cultural, religious and architectural wealth side by side with acute poverty; roads without streetlights or traffic lights, and shops in the city centre lit by candles, (power cuts were increased from 12 to 14 hours per day during our visit).
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Forest Connect: championing local forest enterprises
Last week (16–18 February), I joined the Forest Connect alliance at a meeting in Ethiopia to learn from the country’s experience in locally controlled forestry and reaffirm our vision that poverty reduction and forest conservation can go hand in hand if locally controlled forest enterprises can be made profitable and sustainable.
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Lumbering illegality: how to make timber sustainable and pro-poor
The European Union is closing its doors to illegal timber exports. But unless we tackle unsustainable logging to satisfy domestic timber markets, their actions will little benefit forests, or the millions of poor people that live within them. Making timber sustainable requires the use of both trade and climate strategies in unison to bring about locally controlled forestry.
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Local voice, global forest, local forest, global voice
Who had heard of G3 eighteen months ago? Nobody, because it didn’t exist.Yet an alliance known as The Three Rights Holders Group has had a strong presence at COP 16 in Cancun, manning an information booth and participating in various panels.The group’s message was a simple one, advocating for sustainable forest management and locally controlled forestry as a vital component in any realistic strategy going forward to address climate change mitigation and adaptation.So who is this group and where has it come from?
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Tick tock — it’s the year of forests
The UN has declared 2011 as the international year of forests — although more than a billion forest-dependent poor will probably not see it that way. Spiralling global demand for food, energy, fibre and water spell trouble for these people’s forests.Schemes for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) may have been agreed at last month’s climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, but without locally controlled forestry this, in itself, will not stop the pressure on our forests. If you listen carefully you can still hear the forest clock ticking down…
