During COP 26 country leaders declared that deforestation must be halted by 2030 and climate investment for forest conservation will go up significantly. Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) of tropical forests is one of the key strategies to ensure tropical forest conservation. SFM is recognised as one of the best approaches for managing multipurpose and production forests; with 25-50% of all forests the most dominant tropical forest category (more prominent than protected areas). SFM provides multiple benefits for conservation, communities and biodiversity, but faces uneven competition from unsustainable forest use and deforestation, which hampers further adoption of SFM. Climate finance is much needed to tip the balance in favour of SFM, but thus far climate finance does not find its way to SFM projects. In this report Form International provides a technical overview to foster improved understanding of the subject, analyses the problem, current status and ways forward. The study was conducted for the Precious Forests Foundation (PFF) and provides the first overview on the state of affairs, benefits, the potential, and the importance of carbon finance to support SFM in tropical forests.
Form International and PFF will continue to promote this theme through knowledge development, by making available tools for operators and by supporting SFM projects to connect to climate finance. Forest owners, carbon investors or other parties interested in this theme are invited to contact Rik (r.sools@treevive.nl) or Liesbeth (l.gort@treevive.nl) for more information.
Do you want to read more? Please find the public version of the report here.