Protecting forests, protecting biodiversity, protecting our world

What are the challenges that forests face and how do we best protect and restore them? That was the question which European Commission, European Parliamentarians, International Organizations, governments, civil society and private sector representatives gathered to answer at the 4-5 February International Conference on Forests, Biodiversity and Climate, organized by the European Commission.

FAO’s Assistant Director-General for Climate, Biodiversity, Land and Water, René Castro-Salazar and Thaís Linhares-Juvenal, Team Leader for Forest Governance and Economics, participated in the conference. During a session entitled, “Equipping the EU with necessary forest information – Launch of the Forest Information System for Europe,” Mr Castro-Salazar said, “FAO data show that from the 1.7 billion hectares of land available for restoration, 900 million can be restored.” Mr Castro-Salazar also referred to the Global Forest Observations Initiative (GFOI) - a recently launched, FAO hosted, comprehensive platform - to track international capacity development support to developing countries in forest monitoring for climate action as an example of succesful collaboration and open information sharing. In an earlier session the same day, Ms Linhares-Juvenal talked about how we can best work in partnership with producing countries to reduce the pressure on forests.

During his visit to Brussels, Mr Castro-Salazar also met with European Commission counterparts from the Directorates-General for Environment (DG ENV), Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI), Climate Action (DG CLIMA) and International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO).