Towards an enhanced regional cooperation to restore Mediterranean landscapes: improving resilience for the benefit of people and environment

The fifth Mediterranean Forest Week will focus on Mediterranean forest and landscape restoration and be hosted by Morocco in Agadir from 20 to 24 March 2017.

Mediterranean Forest Week (MFW) brings together a diverse set of actors to take part in one of the most vital fora on Mediterranean forests. Held biennially, MFW facilitates cooperation between the research community, policymakers and other relevant stakeholders, by providing a common regional platform for dialogue. It also provides a key space to promote the relevance of Mediterranean forests in global processes and initiatives, while raising awareness of the specific challenges these forests face. Participants include forest administrators, representatives of the scientific and academic communities, the private sector, funding partners, civil society, environmental agencies and non-governmental organizations. 

In Agadir, Morocco in March 2017, MFW 5 will specifically promote forest and landscape restoration and its centrality to the ongoing initiatives of the Rio Conventions on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Desertification. It will also call for an ambitious agenda in Mediterranean countries that mobilizes technical and financial partners from across the Mediterranean to support sustainable actions on the ground. 

MFW5 will also advance a new approach to forest restoration, one that encourages cross-sectoral cooperation that focuses on engaging with local actors and building their capacity to sustainably manage productive and multifunctional landscapes from which they can derive greater economic, social and environmental benefits. This approach is premised on increasing the synergies between the three Rio Conventions, thereby contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement targets.

The MFW5 agenda will thus encourage discussions that lead to feasible ideas and concrete action to:

• strengthen exchanges and synergies between global stakeholders in the restoration of Mediterranean forests and landscapes;
• help achieve SDG 15, especially target 15.3, by supporting efforts on the restoration of degraded lands in the Mediterranean;
• contribute to Aichi target 15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), by facilitating the conservation and restoration of biodiversity in Mediterranean forest ecosystems;
• facilitate the mitigation and adaptation of Mediterranean forest landscapes in the face of climate change, as well as the achievement of non-carbon benefits in order to support the implementation of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), in line with the  provisions of Article 5 of the Paris Agreement; and
• reach the land-degradation neutrality goals set by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), by actively promoting forest restoration.

More information on the Fifth Mediterranean Forest Week are on the website of the Week: http://www.5.medforestweek.org/ 

Nicolas Picard