The Forestry Department of FAO has task manager functions for forests (Forest Principles and Chapter 11 of Agenda 21) and for Chapter 13 (Sustainable mountain development) and faces the challenge in both subject areas of how to be seen as a neutral forum, and a technically competent agency with the capacity to facilitate information exchange, encourage and support initiatives, propose joint action and report to the CSD. FAO is also expected to be an effective primary adviser to CSD and to provide a channel for feedback. This is a continuous effort, of which milestones such as the April 1995 session of the CSD and the major overall evaluation of UNCED follow-up, which is scheduled to take place in 1997, are only a part.
The forest principles and Chapter 11, combating deforestation
To facilitate collaboration, FAO convened (4-5 March 1993) an ad hoc meeting which led to the establishment of the informal interagency network of forest focal points (known as the "E-mail group"). The purpose of this group is to cooperate in maintaining the momentum of UNCED on forest issues and to keep its members mutually informed on programmes and initiatives in this field.
An important task for FAO has been preparing the sector progress report to be used as a basis for the UN Secretary-General's report to CSD. An encouraging sign of post-UNCED progress in partnership and openness is that FAO's Task Manager's Report on Forests has been broadened and enriched by information from 34 governments, 20 NGOs, five private sector associations, 14 UN agencies and six non-UN intergovernmental organizations.
FAO has also supported or participated in many intergovernmental follow-up initiatives such as the Bandung initiative for global partnership, the Indo-British Workshop, the Malaysia/Canada initiative, and the Helsinki and Montreal processes on criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management, the latter being followed by an FAO/ITTO workshop to promote harmonization among initiatives. To help in the preparations for CSD 1995, FAO convened a meeting of the bureaus of its Regional Forestry Commissions in Rome in September 1994, meetings with NGOs and the private sector in March 1995 and the first global meeting of ministers responsible for forestry in connection with the March 1995 session of the Committee on Forestry (COFO). To help identify long-term priorities, in October 1994 FAO convened a high-level panel of external experts on forestry [Ed. note: for more information on these initiatives, see Unasylva, 46(181)].
Chapter 13, Managing fragile ecosystems: sustainable mountain development
The E-mail network on mountains, which was established during the first ad hoc interagency meeting on Chapter 13, convened by FAO in Rome in March 1994, has developed an ambitious set of proposals for action by UN agencies as well as international NGOs involved in sustainable mountain development. It was generally agreed that a special effort would be needed to move the "Mountain agenda" higher up on the international and national development agendas. The NGOs, for their part, feel that action is now more urgent than further negotiations and have agreed that the text of Chapter 13 as approved by UNCED be recognized as a basis for action and that they will participate in mountain development programmes in a spirit of cooperation with governments. With the encouragement and participation of the interagency network on mountains, a global IGO/NGO conference took place in February 1995, in addition to the series of regional intergovernmental consultations which started in December 1994 in the Asia and the Pacific Region and which will continue in Latin America and the Caribbean in May 1995. Consultations in Africa, Europe and North America could take place later in 1995 and in 1996. This series of consultations should lead to the organization, by 1997, of a World Conference on Sustainable Mountain Development.