Forests sustain life

It is estimated that over 2.4 billion people worldwide depend on forest goods and services for the direct provision of food, wood fuel, building materials, medicines, employment and cash income, making forests fundamental to the livelihoods of about one-third of the world’s people – rural and urban, women and men, young and old. Forests are not only important for the people who live in them, but also for those living in adjacent landscapes.

Objectives

• Raise awareness on the contributions that community-based forestry and forest-and-farm producer organizations make to sustainable forest management, climate-change adaptation and mitigation, sustainable livelihoods, food security and nutrition.

• Discuss the key challenges and opportunities facing community-based and farm forestry in realizing tangible social and economic benefits for local communities.

• Generate innovative policy and practical recommendations, including multi-stakeholder platforms, to address the bottlenecks and explore emerging institutional best practices.

• Develop a roadmap containing clear strategies by which governments and stakeholders can scale up community-based forestry and develop the next generation of truly people-centred forest-and-farm management regimes.

Sessions
Monday 7 September 2015	Session 1: Building enabling policy environments for communities and forest farm producers
Tuesday 8 September 2015	Session 2: Forests for food security and nutrition
Wednesday 9 September 2015	Session 3: Ensuring enabling environment to enhance multiple social benefits Small & medium forest enterprises as drivers for sustainability Sharing benefits equitably - learning from experience Investment for forests and people
Wednesday 9 September 2015	Session 4: Building effective forest and farm producer organizations: primary actors for a sustainable future