Cool forests

Overview

This event will showcase the critical role of forests in providing water-related services and the importance of these benefits for ensuring resilient food systems and communities. It will feature a keynote on the latest science on the forest-water-climate nexus and a discussion among policymakers from forest-rich countries to highlight a diversity of innovations being leveraged to promote the key water-related services that forests provide.  

The event will demonstrate that ensuring the functionality of forested landscapes and the delivery of ecosystem services requires effective management and monitoring that focuses on water. New management approaches are not needed.

Advancements in science and technology are increasingly playing a key role in informing decision making within existing management approaches to ensure that forest and water relationships are accounted for, while understanding synergies and trade-offs that may be generated in the provision of multiple services. Policies across sectors must increasingly recognize this. 

The novelty of this event is in highlighting developments in science, policies and practices related to the forest-water-climate nexus. The invited speakers are engaged in cross-sectoral actions in their respective governments to clearly show linkages between forests, water and agriculture. The event will feature innovations that are helping to spotlight the vital but under-recognized functions of forests.  

Objectives

• Present the latest science and tools on the forest-water-climate nexus.
• Discuss the policy implications of how the resilience of food systems and communities, especially in the tropics, depends on the climate regulatory functions and water-related benefits that forests provide.
• Feature innovations that are helping to spotlight the vital but under-recognized functions of forests.  

Tiina Vahanen
Deputy Director
Forestry Division
FAO

H.E Beatrice Atim Odwong Anywar
Minister of State for Environment
Republic of Uganda

Lifeng Li
Director
Land and Water Division
FAO 

Randy Moore
Chief
United States Forest Service
United States

Keynote video

Carlos Nobre
Earth systems scientist, Institute for Advanced Studies, University of São Paulo
Co-Chair of Science Panel on the Amazon 
Brazil

Sitwala Wamunyima
Director, Forestry Department
Ministry of Green Economy and Environment
Zambia 

Aida Bargués-Tobella
Researcher
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Sweden 

Cristina Goralewski
President
National Forestry Institute (INFONA)
Paraguay

Publication launch   
Bridging nature and climate through protection of primary forests with high ecological integrity

Amy Duchelle
Senior Forestry Officer
FAO 

Moderator

Sara Casallas Ramirez
Forestry Officer
FAO