Issue 3 2020

In Switzerland, forest area and growing stock have continued to increase and forests have become even closer to nature since the last inventory eight years ago. This and much more is shown by the results of the fourth Swiss National Forest Inventory (NFI4), which were published in June 2020.

An extensive report on the current state and the development of the Swiss forests over the past 30 years was written. The report is structured according to the European Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management and is available as a download in German and French www.lfi.ch/publikationen/publ/lfi4.php.

In addition to the report, about 99 000 result tables and maps on the Swiss forests were made available online. Each table or map can be queried interactively in four languages German, French, Italian and English www.lfi.ch/resultate/anleitung-en.php.

NFI4 was conducted in the years 2009-2017. The previous inventories took place in the years 1983-1985 (NFI1), 1993-1995 (NFI2) and 2004-2006 (NFI3). A special feature of the Swiss NFI is the use of Interviews in addition to remotes sensing and field surveys. In the frame of the Swiss NFI, all local forest services are interviewed, providing additional data on forest functions, planning or harvesting techniques.

The Swiss National Forest Inventory (www.lfi.ch) is a joint project of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL and the Swiss Federal Office of the Environment FOEN.

The executive summary of the state of Italy’s forests report is now available. The document is an important snapshot about the status of forests in Italy.

The forest sector is explored in multiple aspects: information, trends and statistics about evolution of forest area, wood and paper industry, ecosystem services, forest enterprises and much more.

This executive summary is not just a brief recap of the previous document (“The state of Italian forests report 2017 – 2018”) but it’s also a useful update.

Thanks to its numerous charts and tables, it’s a dissemination and educational tool. All the information are both in English and Italian.

The document is available here.

Today, the Green Climate Fund Board approved a project in Armenia, formulated with FAO support, to enhance climate change adaptation and mitigation, promote rural green growth, and increase the resilience of forests.

Climate change threatens over 15 percent of Armenia’s higher plant species with extinction. Semi-desert and desert areas are projected to expand by 30 percent, accelerating desertification. More frequent summer droughts and water stress will reduce the growth rate of trees and increase susceptibility to pests and diseases; at the same time, the frequency and intensity of wildfires may increase, leading to an estimated 14 000 to 17 000 ha of forest loss by 2030.

The eight-year Green Climate Fund project, with a total budget of USD 18.7 million, will be implemented by FAO and the Environmental Project Implementation Unit in close cooperation with the Ministry of Environment of Armenia. The effort will be further supported financially by the Government of Armenia, the Austrian Development Agency, the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, and WWF Armenia.

Read more here.

Joint UNECE/FAO Forestry and Timber Section and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) organized a webinar on Financing Forest Landscape Restoration on 16 July 2020. Recording of the webinar is available here: www.unece.org/index.php

The webinar provided an overview of the opportunities for financing the implementation of forest landscape restoration pledges in Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. The practitioners and institutions were invited to share their insights on the available funding and sources of financing for scaling up Forest Landscape Restoration in the region. These insights also emphasized the role of public, international and private finance in forest landscape restoration.

It featured speakers from Global Environment Facility(GEF), Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Zukunft – Umwelt – Gesellschaft (ZUG) gGmbH (on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU)) and the European Investment Bank. Furthermore, the representatives from International Organizations as UNECE, FAO, IUCN, UNFF  highlighted some of the opportunities for financing forest landscape restoration.

This webinar on Financing Forest Landscape Restoration was organized in support of the preparations for the Ministerial Roundtable on Forest Landscape Restoration and the ECCA30/Bonn Challenge in Eastern and South-East Europe (to be hosted by Turkey, 2021).

More information available here.

The virtual hackathon started July 7 and ran through August 31. The task was to find technology solutions to enable remote audits of FSC companies. This is one of FSC’s most technologically challenging problems: how to conduct audits in a world where auditors can’t be there in-person. Audits ensure the integrity of the FSC system, and it is therefore crucial to find innovative ways to continue doing them during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unique to this hackathon is that all participants are working together, because multiple apps working concurrently are needed to ensure that FSC’s high standards are maintained in a virtual audit. They are writing good code that does good for forests.

The winners of the hack will be announced September 22nd, so stay tuned! More info here: www.fsc.org/en/newsfeed/the-good-code-hackathon-is-helping-fsc-innovate-during-the-global-pandemic

FSC has launched its forest carbon monitoring tool. This Microsoft Excel-based tool provides FSC forest management certificate holders with a cost-effective, practical and robust solution to assess carbon stocks and fluxes related to responsible forest management. Based on inventory data and management practices, forest managers can use the tool to calculate the tons of carbon that are stored in their forest and – if desired – include a simulation for the future changes in carbon stocks.

This tool can also be used by FSC forest management certificate holders who are applying the FSC Ecosystem Services Procedure (FSC-PRO-30-006) to demonstrate the positive impacts of their forest management on carbon in order to access ecosystem services markets and/or other benefits.

Both the forest carbon monitoring tool and the user’s manual can be accessed via the ecosystem services for forest managers webpage. More here: fsc.org/en/for-forests/ecosystem-services/ecosystem-services-for-forest-managers

FSC is joining 100+ NGOs supporting the #Together4Forests movement urging citizens to take part in a European Commission public consultation on deforestation to push for a strong EU law to keep products linked to deforestation, forest fires, nature destruction and human rights violations off the European market.

FSC is pushing for a law which also protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities as they are recognised stewards of their lands and their knowledge is crucial to preventing biodiversity loss.

In this context, FSC also believes that a new efficient law will also make certification schemes more effective in tackling deforestation and the biodiversity loss. Mandatory approaches (law) and voluntary ones (schemes) are not mutually exclusive – but rather mutually supportive. Support the campaign here.

How to prevent the loss of biodiversity remains one of the hot policy issues in the EU and globally.

Healthy and green livelihoods are also among society’s main expectations. European forests have a crucial role to play in answering these concerns and demands. The European State Forest Association (EUSTAFOR) and the Confederation of European Forest Owners (CEPF) co-organised the virtual conference titled “European Forests: Hotspots of Biodiversity”. Co-hosted by MEPs Jessica Polfjärd and Adam Jarubas of the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, the conference offered insights into the role of sustainable forest management practices in environmental conservation and how these practices can support the EU in meeting its long-term biodiversity and climate objectives.

The event gathered high-level speakers, ranging from EU officials to forest owners and managers and researchers, together with around 300 participants from all corners of the forest-based sector and beyond. 

Opening the conference, MEP Jarubas stated that, “We need healthy and resilient forest ecosystems to reach the goals of the European Green Deal. Adequate financing is needed to make sustainable forest management economically sound and to ensure that environmental and socio-cultural benefits continue to be provided to the society at large. The future European legal framework must take into account the opinions of those who will ultimately be responsible for its implementation”.  

Reinhardt Neft, CEO of the Bavarian State Forest Enterprise and President of EUSTAFOR, stressed that, “Management practices applied in European state forestry clearly show that the ecological functions of forest ecosystems and biodiversity can be maintained in managed forests along with all other functions”.

During two panel discussions, the speakers discussed their views and provided practical examples concerning the the way in which daily forest management practices currently support forest biodiversity. Future opportunities and actions to ensure that European forests remain hotspots of biodiversity were also explored. The wide range of forest types which can be found throughout the different regions of Europe, makes it necessary to include a variety of approaches and measures, at both EU and national levels, when planning Europe’s common effort to maintain and enhance forest biodiversity.

Read the whole press release here and see the agenda here.

Planted trees are in our homes as part of a wide array of products, ranging from perhaps surprising (barbecue sauce, ice cream, dog food, medication capsules) to more widely known, such as paper, packaging, wood panels, and laminated flooring.

Besides being the source of these products, growing trees preserves the environment, helps mitigate climate change, generates jobs and income in places far from the major urban centers, and brings foreign trade into Brazil.

It’s a forest of possibilities! Today and to the future.

The cultivated tree sector has invested in research and innovation to develop new sustainable products to serve this new conscious consumer who seeks alternatives from the bioeconomy.

This is the theme of a new series of video from Ibá, the Brazilian Tree Industry; this month the different possibilities in products that come from planted trees is the future. See it here.

Brazilian paper goes beyond just paper. Do you know why?
•    100% of paper comes from trees grown for industrial purposes
•    There is no connection to illegal deforestation
•    Careful use of water in the forest as well as in the factory
•    Paper manufacturing generates 73% of the energy it consumes. And even better, it’s renewable energy.
Brazilian Tree Industry launches a new campaign, #teampaper.

The planted tree sector is directly linked to the bioeconomy, and is a better option for people who want to care for the earth. It’s truly renewable, recyclable, and biodegradable! Watch the video that introduces this sector, and over the next three months follow the joint efforts on the social networks of 15 industry associations that are working together on this campaign: Abigraf, ABTCP, ANAP, EmPapel, Ibá, Two Sides, and nine state associations (ABAF, ACR, Ageflor, AMIF, APRE, Arefloresta, Cedagro, Florestar, and Reflores MS).

Watch the video that launches this campaign and follow these activities over the coming months on the feeds and accounts on the Facebook and Instagram of all these organizations.

The International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation, INBAR, has started a free online events series about bamboo, rattan and sustainable development.

Bamboo and rattan are two of the world’s most valuable non-timber forest products, which grow locally to some of the poorest rural communities in the tropics and subtropics. Countries around the world already use bamboo and rattan as tools for poverty alleviation, land restoration, carbon storage and other sustainable development priorities.

Continuing from 22 September, INBAR’s webinar series brings together experts to discuss bamboo and rattan’s contributions to a variety of areas, particularly environmental management, poverty reduction, health and welfare, and construction. All webinars are free to join.

More information about the webinar series, including videos of past events, can be found here.

A research group dedicated to multidisciplinary research into bamboo has been launched, as part of the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia (UBC), in Canada. The group, which is the first of its kind to be established in North America, was established by UBC in collaboration with the International Centre for Bamboo and Rattan and Zhejiang A&F University in China.

Bamboo is already a widely used non-timber forest product, particularly in developing countries, but more research is still needed to understand its properties and expand its applications.

The research group aims to collaborate with industrial and academic key partners across the world, to provide high-quality research into the structural properties, industrial applications and innovative uses of bamboo as well as its social, environmental and cultural potential. Preliminary areas of research include round pole bamboo construction, laminated bamboo composites, and sustainable bamboo management.

More information about the study group can be found here.

The Spanish communication corporation Atresmedia, broadcasted PEFC certified sustainable fashion in Hazte Eco (BeEco) news TV programme. The #ForestsForFashion initiative was highlighted standing out renewable forest-based fibers as a solution to support fashion into a more responsible industry.

Spanish designer María Lafuente showed different face masks and outfits made with PEFC fabrics from well-managed forests produced at Textil Santanderina. The face masks are the perfect fashion accessory for this COVID period and they are made under WHO recommendations and they protect in a wide sense, as they cover all the health issues but they also care for the environment as they are made of PEFC certified and traceable Tencel fabric from well-managed forests demonstrating that forests products are the result of the global resilience.  The designs demonstrated the commercial viability of these materials and the aesthetic and functional possibilities for making them suitable as part of our everyday clothing. Ana Belén Noriega Bravo, Secretary General of PEFC Spain, talked about the environmental advantages of this material, as they have lower impact by using 60 time less water and 1/3 less energy consumption compared to other synthetic or cotton fabrics.

Likewise, the recording took sustainability as a cornerstone to deal with different aspects in a transversal way, also showing the work of PEFC to achieve gender equality and equity in social rights. María Lafuente is well-known not only for her creativity but also for working with women at risk of exclusion, people with disabilities, so she generates a network that promotes personal development and local production.

The textile industry employs over 75 million people worldwide and is aware of its environmental and social effects. This is why more and more factories, small companies, designers and consumers are opting for sustainable alternatives such as PEFC-certified fabrics.

Choosing forest-based materials contributes to CO2 accumulation which means these textiles works as carbon sinks for reducing climate change and they are part of inclusive and sustainable economic growth through decent work, thus reaching the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

For any further information, please contact [email protected] // +34 91 591 00 88.

The ATIBT association had opted for 3 levels.

First processing : squared edge timber or sawn timber from stumps, forks or limb, square-edged lumber, boules, beams , sawdust, wood shavings, wood chips, paper pulp, charcoal (in bulk), sliced or peeled veneers.

Secondary processing : treated wood, artificially dried wood, dried sliced or peeled veneers, moulded, planed or sanded wood, semi-finished solid wood strips, turned wood, windows and doors frames glued laminated and/or finger-jointed, pellets, briquettes and other bulk fuels.

Third processing : carved objects, musical instruments and parts of musical instruments, furniture and parts of furniture, joinery (frames, doors, windows and parts of frames and windows…), finished strips and profiles (parquet flooring, cladding…), marquetry, panels (solid, of particles, fibres, OSB, plywood, blockboard plywood, …), pallets and boxes, glue laminated boards, industrial frames, piles and fence posts, shaped railway sleepers (drilled, notched or chamfered), paper, cardboard, bagged charcoal.
Regarding the third transformation, it seems essential to add hydraulic wood.

Indeed, they are produced within the framework of “list cuttings”, i.e. specific and high-value orders. The vast majority of these hydraulic woods are produced from: Bilinga, Niové, Azobé (Ekki), Okan and Tali. Moreover, they cannot be dried.

NB : The promotion species or those lesser known (LKTS or LUTS) to the markets must, for their part (Andoung, Igaganga, Eveuss, Gombé, etc.) benefit from a special arrangement.

Veon has announced today 2ndSeptember 2020 that it has entered intocollaboration with Simosol, the Finnish based global leader in providing solutions for optimized forestry, dynamic forest carbon modelling, and forest data acquisition.  The collaboration involves the deployment of Simosol's forest management planning software IPTIM across a range of Veon’s institutional clients’ managed forest portfolios in Ireland. Veon is utilising Simosol’s IPTIM software to create optimised management plans for the next decade for its institutional clients. IPTIM enables dynamic forest modelling capabilities and forest optimisation based upon each client’s portfolio objectives and facilitates time-series stress testing.

Veon partnered with Simosol earlier this year using their IPTIM software to develop the first carbon report in Ireland on an existing forest portfolio.Veon’s CSR project in sub Saharan Africa will also benefit from the collaboration with Simosol including solutions for asset inventories with Artificial Intelligence, forest asset modelling and simulation, increased supply chain visibility and optimisation, and assessing forest carbon balance and forecast scenarios. Veon’s primary CSR project in Africa is expected to exceed Ireland’s total annual national planting target by a factor of five in its first year of operation and Simosol’s software will play an important role in achieving this objective.

Read the full press release here.

Climate change is an important phenomenon that affects the entire planet with increasingly dramatic effects. Our cities are susceptible to this issue with consequences such as extreme weather events, urban heat island effect and long drought periods. In this scenario trees and green infrastructures represent the most effective tools to reduce the impacts of climate change in urban areas.

LIFE URBANGREEN project aims to implement an existing technological platform for urban green management developed by R3GIS (project coordinator) with different components; the main are: quantification of ecosystem services and optimized irrigation. LIFE URBANGREEN shows how an optimized and integrated management of vegetation can contribute to improve the ecosystem services provided. Studied benefits are: cooling by transpiration, CO2 assimilation and storage and air quality amelioration.

The cities chosen as a reference are Rimini and Krakow, whose different climatic and environmental settings allow a good transferability of the project actions in countries with similar features. A significant number of trees and shrubs belonging to the 10 most common species in either cities were selected. In situ measurement campaigns were carried out in 36 months, to investigate environmental benefits by collecting real data and to identify how they vary with species, age, location (street/park), canopy portion and different management practices (optimized pruning, irrigation, mulching, lawn mowing).

Measurement of eco-physiological and morphological parameters and laboratory analysis for PM dry deposition were conducted by UNIMI (scientific partner) in cooperation with Anthea and ZZM for municipal green management, and ProGea 4D for remote sensing data collection.

Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the industrial revolution fundamentally transformed our ability to manufacture products. Supported by scientific discoveries that simplified the extraction of raw materials and by the abundance of readily available labour, the transformation in manufacturing processes made it possible to produce goods on a mass scale for the first time in human history.

Ever since, constant innovations in the manufacturing and design of goods gave us access to products made in different parts of the world, at an affordable price. But the real cost of a product – social, political, environmental - is not reflected on its price tag. This model of the economy, which consists of taking resources, using them to make a product, which is then being consumed and discarded – also known as the linear model – is no longer viable. It is highly wasteful, polluting, and unsustainable in the long run.

The circular economy (CE), on the other hand, whose underlying principles include designing out waste and pollution, extending the lifespan of products and materials through re-purposing and reuse, and regenerating natural systems, has a potential to transform unsustainable production and consumption patterns. Globally, many countries and businesses have initiated circular economy strategies that aim to transform production chains and consumption habits. As those strategies differ widely among different stakeholders, so do the concepts and terms used to describe their underlying mechanisms: circular economy, bioeconomy, green economy, and others.

Interested in learning more about UNECE/FAO's work on the circularity? Please visit this page. 

The World Architecture Festival (WAF) celebrates architecture and highlights outstanding constructions with a variety of awards. In collaboration with PEFC, WAF will for the third time award the Best Use of Certified Timber Prize next summer.

The prize rewards architects and project teams for using certified timber as the main construction material for buildings outstanding in sustainability, innovation, quality or aesthetics.

Due to the current global pandemic making physical meetings difficult, WAF will go virtual in December, and be back as a live event in June. From 23 – 25 June 2021, WAF will be at the FIL exhibition centre in Lisbon, Portugal, where the Best Use of Certified Timber Prize will be awarded.

In the course of changing the date, the period for entering projects has been extended until 8 January 2021. For architects and project teams, this means that the chance to participate in the Best Use of Certified Timber Prize is not over!

Construction projects that have certified timber as their main material can be entered into the prize here.

[Best Use of Certified Timber Prize – New date and prolonged entry phase]
[Celebrating construction with timber – Enter your project into the Best Use of Certified Timber Prize!]

FAO has been monitoring the world’s forests at 5 to 10 year intervals since 1946. The Global Forest Resources Assessments (FRA) are now produced every five years in an attempt to provide a consistent approach to describing the world’s forests and how they are changing. The Assessment is based on two primary sources of data: Country Reports prepared by National Correspondents and remote sensing that is conducted by FAO together with national focal points and regional partners. The scope of the FRA has changed regularly since the first assessment published in 1948. These assessments make an interesting history of global forest interests, both in terms of their substantive content, but also in their changing scope.

A recently released FRA2020 provides harmonized information about world’s forests and their dynamics since 1990. The complete FRA 2020 data can be accessed now through the new  interactive platform and dashboards, which can be found here.

The database contains data on the production and trade in roundwood and primary wood and paper products for all countries and territories in the world.The main types of primary forest products included in are: roundwood, sawnwood, wood-based panels, pulp, and paper and paperboard. These products are detailed further. The definitions are available. The database contains details of the following topics:- Roundwood removals (production) by type of wood and assortment- Production and trade in roundwood, woodfuel and other basic products- Industrial roundwood by assortment and species- Sawnwood, panels and other primary products- Pulp and paper & paperboard.More detailed information on wood products, including definitions, can be found at http://www.fao.org/forestry/statistics/80572/en/

Forest products provisional data for the year 2019 are now available online at FAOSTAT www.fao.org/faostat/en/; These data were released August 18.

On July 15, 2020 a comprehensive global survey to assess the status of forest education was launched.

With forest education in many places outdated, insufficient and misaligned to the demands of the contemporary workplace, the survey will help shape a new international initiative to strengthen forest education.  The survey addresses forest education at all levels, from primary school to university and including technical and vocational institutions, gathering information on the scope of forest-related curricula, teaching methods, student competencies, digital readiness, resource availability, and employability.

Part of a broader collaborative initiative, results from the survey will help to inform global efforts to catalyze, accelerate and enhance forest education so the profession can better respond to increasing pressures on forest resources and changing societal needs. The Global Forest Education Project is jointly coordinated by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) and the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) and funded by the Government of Germany.

The questionnaire will take about 30 minutes to complete (computers are preferred). We kindly encourage you to share the survey with relevant colleagues, teachers, and students in your networks.
Your perspectives on how to improve forest education are invaluable. Take the survey and help us to  sustainably manage forests now and in the future.

Link to the survey: www.fao.org/forestry/news/97465/en/

For further information, please contact: [email protected]

The Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) will award a forest champion for his/her outstanding achievements at the upcoming XV World Forestry Congress, in May 2021, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Along with international recognition and prestige, the awardee will receive a cash prize of USD20,000 and travel support to participate in the award ceremony in Seoul.

Do you know a true forest champion, who made exceptional contributions to preserve, restore and sustainably manage forests and to raise awareness of the key role forests play in supporting local communities, rural livelihoods, women, youth and the environment? Nominate this person to receive the Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award 2021. More information and the application guidelines are available at the website.

The FAO Yearbook of Forest Products is a compilation of statistical data on basic forest products for all countries and territories of the world. It contains series of annual data on the volume of production and the volume and value of trade in forest products. It includes tables showing direction of trade and average unit values of trade for certain products.

Statistical information in the yearbook is based primarily on data provided to the FAO Forestry Department by the countries through questionnaires or official publications. In the absence of official data, FAO makes an estimate based on the best information available.

The Forest Products Yearbook with final data for 2018 is now available at www.fao.org/forestry/statistics/80570/en/.

Diverse environmental gradients in Central Asia and Mongolia, from high mountain forests to semi-desert lowlands salinized by past agriculture and water withdrawals, pose challenges to restoring degraded forests and landscapes.

Technical approaches in dryland forestry and agroforestry methods are available to overcome these challenges, but to be fully effective, require policy and institutional changes. Climate variability and natural hazards are features of the region and the future is projected to become more arid with more intense rainfall. Closed forests, open woodlands, and shrublands are features of the dryland landscape, and provide a variety of ecosystem functions and services to be restored.

In this work, steps in the restoration process are discussed, including halting degradation, conserving and rehabilitating existing forests, restoring dryland forests and agroforestry where trees are lacking, and adapting to climate change. (Photo shows restoration study in the dry steppe region of Mongolia over 9 years; credit National University of Mongolia).

A new publication is available that summarizes current approaches, and is available here.

Just as tree planting and restoring degraded landscapes garner headlines, the actual practice of implementing restoration remains complex due to nuances of local context.

To meet the need for a science-based approach to restoring degraded forests, IUFRO scientists produced a guide to implementing forest landscape restoration (FLR). Two guides are now available, in English and Spanish, and a French version is being produced. These publications are available for free download at the IUFRO website.

Adding further context, a group of IUFRO scientists looked at 17 FLR projects in 9 countries (3 each in Africa, Asia, and South America) and derived lessons learned from these projects. This report can be downloaded here.

Tree planting to combat climate change is wildly popular. Several countries and many organizations talk about planting billions or trillions of seedlings. Contrary viewpoints have also hit the popular press and scientific journals, pointing out that the need to reduce GHG emissions still remains the greatest challenge. Overlooked in many of these high profile news items is the reality that tree planting is not a simple activity. Read on here.

To meet the need for a science-based approach to restoring degraded forests, IUFRO scientists produced a guide to implementing forest landscape restoration (FLR). Two guides are now available, in English and Spanish, and a French version is being produced. These publications are available for free download at the IUFRO website.

Adding further context, a group of IUFRO scientists looked at 17 FLR projects in 9 countries (3 each in Africa, Asia, and South America) and derived lessons learned from these projects. This report can be downloaded here.

The registration for the sixth meeting of the European Network Integrate is now open! The webinar will take place on 28 September. This is the second of two meetings organised by the Danish Nature Agency, Denmark being the current chair of the European Network Integrate. The focus will be on how to integrate segregation in sustainable forest management and the tools, scale and processes involved.Experts will speak about the challenges of setting aside forests for conservation, the importance of data on species and their ecology in the selection of sites, forest restoration, the tools to stimulate old growth elements, and the diversification of even aged forest stands.The Integrate Network is an alliance of representatives of different European countries that promotes the integration of nature conservation into sustainable forest management at the policy, practice and research level. Forest management challenges related to nature conservation are rather similar across Europe. The Integrate Network promotes the exchange of successful management practices and experiences among its Members. The European Forest Institute (EFI) accompanies the process in its role as facilitator and scientific advisor.

Find out more here and register here.

Nature: digitale ou végétale ?

La communication virtuelle numérisée est omniprésente. Les heures de réunion à l'ordinateur sont la nouvelle normalité, et en compensation, une visite dans une forêt ou un parc voisin est recherchée. La question se pose de savoir comment la nature urbaine est perçue à l'époque de la numérisation. Peut-on  en  faire  l’expérience  via  des  espaces  virtuels  ou  dans  des  jeux  informatiques?  Quelle  est  la signification  de  l'immersion  dans  le  réel,  de  l'observation  directe,  de  l'expérience  sensorielle  et émotionnelle de la nature en contraste avec le monde numérique ? La numérisation de la nature crée-t-elle à son tour de la connaissance et de la compréhension? Renforce-t-elle les expériences dans la nature, pour les citadins, en particulier les jeunes ?

Programm.

While the Covid-19 pandemic is spreading human suffering, infecting the global economy and upending people’s lives, the important contribution of forests to human wellbeing, the economy and society needs more attention than ever. Therefore, the Joint UNECE/FAO Forestry and Timber Section will host the Forest Week, which will take place from 2-6 November 2020 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva and online, and will see a range of activities and events including:

- 2 November: SDG 15 Day: Focus on forests in the ‘super year’ for nature and more;

- 2 November: launch of two exhibitions: “Humans locked down, NATURE UNLOCKED” and “Forest biodiversity: too precious to lose” at the Palais des Nations and online;

- 4-6 November: 78th session of COFFI, including panel discussions on forest landscape restoration, forest products markets and building back better post COVID-19.

We invite you to register at indico.un.org/e/forest2020 not later than 30 October 2020.

How can we ensure that forest jobs are decent, sustainable and safe for people who choose to undertake them, and what does the future hold for green jobs in the forest sector?

How are employers, workers and governments navigating the occupational hazards seemingly endemic to the sector, and is the situation improving?

How to attract young people and women into forest work?

These and other burning questions on the status of the forest sector workforce will be at the agenda of the UNECE and FAO webinar which will be held on 14 October 2020.

Visit this page to find out more and to register.

Please save the date for this interesting discussion!

How to effectively integrate nature conservation in multifunctional forests is widely debated at national and European level but in other world regions alike. Discussions are often linked to questions on the area of set aside forests, improvement of habitat conditions for endangered species or balancing economic, ecological and societal needs. For such debates, it is essential to have available to all actors in forestry, nature conservation and policy making how integrative forest management can best support. Main ingredients are latest scientific knowledge, hands-on experiences, insight to good practice examples and lessons learned. Such will allow for better understanding and fact based dialogue on how to promote biodiversity conservation in multifunctional forests.

The publication “How to balance forestry and biodiversity conservation? – a view across Europe”, compiles state of the art knowledge from research and practice accompanied by numerous case examples. The book will be launched at a conference held in the border region of Switzerland and Germany (9-11 November 2020). The Conference takes place in the framework of the European Policy Network INTEGRATE and in the context of the German EU Presidency.

Participants will have the opportunity to discuss challenges for policy making and practical implementation, share own experiences and reflect on further needs for action. They will be able to do so not only in conference sessions but most importantly also during field visits.

More information on the event and registration details are here.