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It is important to think of forests not just as a source of clean air; forests offer a flourishing habitat to thousands of species and commonly act as a natural filter for drinking water, most importantly, forests provide income via various means to a vast amount of people, thus contributing heavily to the world’s socio-economic cycle. This is why forests are so valuable to us, and provide us with multiple reasons to protect and rebuild them.
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With the help of governments, communities and organizations, the GEF has been implementing holistic forest conservation measures around the globe for the past two decades. Recently, a revamped strategy for Sustainable Forest Management was put in motion by the GEF which entails an approach focusing on forest management across institutional, sectoral and commercial boundaries.
This new approach adopted in the GEF-6 cycle hopes to target the drivers of environmental degradation and find long lasting solutions to the quickly diminishing amount of forests around the globe.
The International day of Forests and the Bonn challenge push the GEF each year to review and improve the work that we have done, and are currently doing, to keep this essential part of our global landscape alive and thriving.
One of the major efforts the GEF has participated in to help secure commitments for the Bonn Challenge, was to develop with UNEP and WRI the “Building the Foundation for Forest Landscape Restoration at Scale” project.
Another effort undertaken by the GEF has been to introduce Integrated Approach Pilots. One of these pilot programs looks to take Deforestation out of Global Commodity Supply Chains. This program intends to reduce deforestation at the commercial and policy level as well as on the ground. The program just published its second progress report that outlines the direction of future work of the GEF in this field.
With an available amount over 750 mil. USD in the GEF-6 Cycle, including new incentives for financing projects that deal with sustainable forest management the GEF plans to continue saving thousands of hectares of forest land around the globe.
Please find below a quiz and video developed by one of our partners, FAO.
QUIZ
English: http://bit.ly/1H26wKk
French: http://bit.ly/1H59WPR
Spanish: http://bit.ly/1xi4fLv
VIDEO
English: http://bit.ly/1Cp7ZuY
French: http://bit.ly/1Fvi5Lt
Spanish: http://bit.ly/1DwmfDL
Our colleagues at the World Bank have also prepared a blog on the occasion of the intl. day of Forests:
Andre Rodrigues de Aquino prepared this blog on the recent South South Knowledge Exchange. It is published on the Bank’s Voices – Perspectives for Development.