Issues for Future Consideration.

 

The Global Forests Goals Report originated from Member States’ submissions of national data and information in the form of 52 voluntary national reports (VNRs) and 19 voluntary national contributions (VNCs), representing 75% of forests in the world. These updates on progress towards the Global Forest Goals and targets paint a vibrant picture of ambitious and inspiring action on the ground and around the world. These narratives, combined with the quality data of the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020, indicate that despite the many challenges that countries face, progress is being made towards all six Global Forest Goals and their associated targets. It is expected that as more countries participate in future reporting cycles, a broader overall assessment of progress will emerge. In their reporting, countries elaborated a number of obstacles they were working to overcome. Key challenges ranged from broader global issues such as the growing impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation to challenges like forest financing, illegal trade, and capacity building, all of which fell under the means of implementation for sustainableforest management. When it comes to tracking progress towards the Global Forest Goals, a lack of standardized and comparable data and statistics remains a challenge for some targets. For instance, while many countries recognize forest degradation as a major issue, there is no agreed-upon standard definition of what constitutes forest degradation. Similarly, while the resilience and adaptive capacity of forest ecosystems is a desirable characteristic, especially in the context of climate change, biodiversity protection, and for preventing future pandemics, there is currently no objective and quantifiable way of measuring “resilience and adaptive capacity.”  Furthermore, a lack of data related to the socio-economic benefits that forests provide to critical development issues such as poverty eradication and income generation, employment, health, and food security are compounded by the fact that, often, these forest-driven benefits accrue to informal sector – where they are even harder to measure. Lastly, there is a lack of reliable data on forest funding due to limited understanding of the financial landscape associated with managing all types of forests, including forest contributions to local, national, and regional development. With so much at stake, it is critical that countries continue to strengthen their capacities to capture data, and that they receive adequate and sufficient funding to do so. Towards this end, important data innovations are also taking place. For instance, work on the Global core set (GCS) of forest relevant indicators is an important development for the assessment of progress. The GCS, which includes SDG indicator 15.2.1,48 advances a common understanding of sustainable forest management by identifying key factors that need to be measured to assess global progress and trends toward sustainable forest management. It thus also helps provide a means for demonstrating the full contribution of forests to achievement of all the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda overall. Further, the adoption of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) by the UN Statistical Commission in March 2021 was a major step to ensure that natural capital like forests is recognized in economic reporting. A key aspect of ecosystem accounting is that it allows the contributions of ecosystems to society to be expressed in monetary terms so these contributions can be more easily compared to other goods and services, thus expanding the notion or moving beyond GDP as an inclusive measure of wealth. As a result, decision-makers will soon have an integrated way to value the ecosystem services that forests provide to the local economy, social well-being, and livelihoods, as well as globally with regard to carbon storage, biodiversity protection, water filtration, and disaster risk reduction. According to some estimates, these values could reach the trillions.49 Innovations such as these will support progress towards the Global Forest Goals, among many other environmental objectives. Against this backdrop of challenges and possible solutions, the world is still contending with the COVID-19 pandemic. The2021 Financing for Sustainable Development Report (FSDR) warns that COVID-19 could lead to a lost decade for development. The report notes that approximately half of the least developed and other low-income countries were at high risk of or in debt distress before COVID-19 – a situation set to worsen as tax revenues fall and debt levels rise due to the pandemic. In this context, developing integrated national financing frameworks (INFFs) can help countries to overcome impediments, manage risk, increase investment, and achieve longer-term sustainable development priorities.

While official development assistance rose in 2020 to help support pandemic responses in developing countries, there are growing concerns that the global recession, especially in donor countries, could eventually lead to reduced international public financing for forests. At the regional level, the pandemic is already creating challenges for forest financing in Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, and for some countries in Latin America, where limited public resources are being spent on the most immediate public health needs. Pandemic-related lockdown measures are also disrupting data collection on forests. Looking ahead, countries have underscored that the challenges to achieving the Global Forest Goals are both numerous and enduring – with the pandemic serving as the latest global threat. But in Nature there is always hope. Forests are a solution to climate change. Their management and preservation will restore biodiversity and help protect us from future disease outbreaks. Healthy forests will also ensure we will have the clean air, freshwater, shelter, and food that all life on Earth needs to flourish. The centrality of forests to global well-being has never been more evident – and now, above all, this recognition must be met with collective action. This report highlights a number of successes and positive trends towards achieving the Global Forest Goals – and this momentum must be accelerated and taken into the Decade of Action, because a more sustainable, equitable, and greener future must be one that is rooted in the world’s forests.