The FAO Forestry Roadmap – towards systematic and innovative solutions for global challenges

by Zhimin Wu, Director, Forestry Division, FAO

Forests are a vital force in the fight against climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, hunger and poverty. Covering a third of the world’s land, they provide food, fuel, fibre, medicine and wood and non-wood forest products to people worldwide. They are home to majority of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, and store more than half the global carbon stock in soils and vegetation.

Yet despite the importance of forests, an estimated 420 million hectares were lost to deforestation between 1990 and 2020. And although the deforestation rate is slowing, urgent and strategic action is still required to address the major drivers of continuous forest loss, including deforestation, pests and wildfires, and to restore degraded forest ecosystems. 

As the UN specialized agency in food and agriculture, including forestry, and with our comprehensive mandate to work globally on food security and nutrition, poverty elimination and the sustainable management and utilization of natural resources, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is well-placed to support Members to achieve forest-related goals. These include conserving and restoring forests, improving the livelihoods of forest-dependent people, and managing forests in a sustainable way. 

After participatory consultation with FAO Members and partners,  FAO has developed the FAO Forestry Roadmap - From Vision to Action 2024-2031 (the Forestry Roadmap) to guide its work in forestry to meet forestry-related goals and targets, and address major global challenges over the coming years. 

The Forestry Roadmap was endorsed by Members at the 27th Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry (COFO 27), which took place at FAO headquarters in Rome from 22 to 26 July, 2024. The Roadmap sets out forest-related contributions in line with FAO’s commitment to four betters – better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind.

The Forestry Roadmap has three objectives which highlight FAO’s dual emphasis on the protective and productive functions of forests, and the role of innovation as a driving force to shape the future of the world’s forest sector. 

• Objective 1 : Conserve and restore forest ecosystems to ensure life on land and support resilient agrifood systems.
• Objective 2: Enhance sustainable production and build sustainable and resilient livelihoods, value chains and bioeconomy.
• Objective 3: Scale up science- and evidence-based innovation to increase the forest sector’s contributions to global solutions and accelerate sustainable agrifood systems transformation.

The Forestry Roadmap sets out 16 priority actions to help navigate a path to meet these objectives, from halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030, to enhancing production and productivity of the forestry and agroforestry systems, and to scaling up innovation in the forest sector. 

With the Forestry Roadmap providing clear guidance on priority actions towards 2031, the contribution of forests in tackling global crises is distinctly strengthened. The endorsed Forestry Roadmap will be implemented at country, regional and global levels.