Legal and justice officials from 22 countries spanning Africa and Asia-Pacific today advanced their common understanding of the key elements and provisions needed for effective legal frameworks and coordinated efforts to tackle the multi-billion-dollar illegal trade in wildlife and forest products.

Over 90 participants held two days of deliberations in Thailand at the Africa-Asia Pacific Symposium on Strengthening Legal Frameworks to Combat Wildlife Crime.

A United Nations meeting on sustainable management of forests today discussed the importance of mobilizing resources from a diverse range of actors to ensure broad ownership as well as to advance the overall sustainable development agenda.

“By far the greatest source of forest financing has been – and will continue to be – from commercial private sector investments in sustainable forest management,” Manoel Sobral Filho, the Director of the UN Forum on Forests secretariat, said in a briefing on the importance of diversifying resources.

In the UN Strategic Plan for F

Kick-starting action on the recently-adopted Global Forest Goals to protect, sustainably manage and increase world’s forest area will be a key focus for delegations gathered in New York for the twelfth session of the UN Forum on Forests, which opened today at United Nations Headquarters.

The six forest goals and 26 associated targets, all to be achieved by 2030, the deadline set by UN Member States for broad attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), were adopted late last week by the General Assembly as part of the UN Strategic Plan for Forest 2017-2030, which

Until the advent of fossil fuels, for thousands of years, wood was the primary source of energy for human populations. Today, over 2 billion people worldwide, in rural and urban areas, still rely on wood for their primary energy needs. Wood constitutes the primary source of energy for cooking and heating in many developing countries, where nearly 90 per cent of fuelwood and charcoal is consumed.

Regions with the greatest incidence of poverty, most notably Sub-Saharan Africa and low income households in Asia, are also the most dependent on fuel wood.

Countries reached agreement last Friday on a plan that would significantly improve the outlook for the world’s forests, including a target that would expand the world’s forests by 120 million hectares—an area about the size of South Africa—by 2030.

Safeguarding forests is essential for sustainable management of global freshwater resources and avoiding water shortages, according to United Nations officials and forest experts at an event today marking the International Day of Forests.