May 2021

Forests newsletter

Welcome back to IIED’s Forest and Prosperity work programme's forests newsletter. We plan to make this more regular going forward as we have lots of upcoming news and events to share. Please do encourage your contacts to subscribe to the newsletter.

Many of our highlights from late 2020 and early 2021 focus on IIED's leadership on knowledge, monitoring and learning for the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF). We welcomed David Kaimowitz as the new manager for FFF and are excited to share his recent International Day of Forests blog, as well as the FFF annual report for 2020.

Read how IIED is involved in Jamaica's aspirations to ensure its forests are sufficiently restored and sustainably managed, through supporting their preparations for Reducing Emissions for Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+).

Forest team's Duncan Macqueen delivered the final webinar in the Yale Forest Forum's series on The Promise and Practice of Community-Based Forestry.

Looking forward we have two exciting events coming up: the Forest Harvest CBNE Forum focusing on ‘community based non-timber forest product enterprises’ (CBNEs) on 1-5 June. Followed closely by an international dialogue on Diversification - Building food security and resilience into climate change mitigatio n on 9 June. We also wanted to share that the XV World Forestry Congress has reopened its call for abstracts and proposals.

Charting a “path to recovery and wellbeing” on 2021’s International Day of Forests

David Kaimowitz is the manager of the Forest and Farm Facility at FAO. In his recent guest blog for IIED he explained why global ambition to restore the world’s forests will only be achieved if the huge potential of forest and farm producers is realised.

Read the blog, Charting a “path to recovery and wellbeing” on 2021’s International Day of Forests.

Forest and Farm Facility 2020 Annual Report

The report looks at two full years of FFF Phase II activities: 58 policy changes driven by, and in favour of, organised forest and farm producer organizations (FFPOs); some 80 new or enhanced value-adding activities within FFPO businesses emerging from 259 business-related training events, as well as FFPO climate action scale up across more than 70,000 hectares of forest landscape restoration.

It also describes examples of adaptation to COVID-19 realities, such as a series of webinars with a total of 2780 participants, sharing best practices on climate resilience, nature-based solutions and grassroots responses to the pandemic.

Read the Forest and Farm Facility Summary Report 2020.

Support for REDD+ readiness in Jamaica

IIED have led a consortium with the Government of Jamaica to support their preparations for Reducing Emissions for Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+). A successful first phase of work has led to improving geospatial land use change, stakeholder and policy analysis with Jamaican experts, the University of Edinburgh and CIVITAS.

Find out more about the project Support for REDD+ readiness in Jamaica.

IIED's Duncan Macqueen closes the Yale Forest Forum webinar series

Watch the Yale Forest Forum's final webinar in the series: The Promise and Practice of Community-Based Forestry. Duncan looks at organisational innovations that make community forestry prosperous with examples from across his work with FFF.

Watch the presentation, Organisational innovations that make community forestry prosperous.

The Forest Harvest CBNE Forum

IIED, through FFF, is supporting an extensive virtual forum for forest enterprises in the ASEAN region from 1-5 June hosted by NTFP-EP.

IIED's Duncan Macqueen and Anna Bolin will be speaking along with Forest Farm Facility (FFF) colleagues.

View the the full schedule and register for CBNE FORUM 2021.

Food Systems Summit 2021 Dialogues Gateway.

Diversification - Building food security and resilience into climate change mitigation

As part of the UN Food Systems Summit, IIED is working with farmer organisations to introduce and showcase five compelling stories through this webinar. They show how diversification is a solution, both to climate resilience and to climate change mitigation.

The webinar will take place on 9 June at 10.00am (BST).

Register to attend Diversification - Building food security and resilience into climate change mitigation.

XV World Forestry Congress call for abstracts

The XV WFC will take place 2–6 May 2022 in Seoul, Republic of Korea. The Secretariat invites authors working in the forestry and land use sectors to submit abstracts for papers, posters and videos as well as proposals for side events which are relevant to the Congress theme "Building a Green, Healthy and Resilient Future with Forests".

The submissions platform will be open until 30 June 2021 for abstracts for papers and posters, to 30 July 2021 for side events, and until 3 September 2021 for videos.