The 19th session of the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF19) opened last week with focus on achieving Global Forest Goals and increasing progress towards sustainable development by 2030.
The UNFF serves as a body under the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and aims to support the goals of the International Arrangement on Forests (IAF) and to advance other international forest-related instruments, processes, commitments and objectives.
At the forum’s opening ceremony, Juliette Biao, director of the UNFF Secretariat, said the world currently faces numerous natural disasters, worsening climate change as well as conflict, growing poverty and unemployment, among other crises.
She said making a difference amid these global challenges can be achieved by meeting Global Forests Goals (GFG) by 2030. However, they remain off track.
To get back on target, Ms. Biao said countries need to “bolster political commitment and partnerships” in support of the GFGs.
“We want a world where all types of forests are sustainably managed. A world where healthy forests are recognized as powerful nature-based solutions to most of the sustainable development challenges we face today,” she said. UN News
Peter Gondo, inter-regional adviser of the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), said this year’s session would include a high-level segment and a review of the IAF in hopes of “assessing progress and identifying gaps” in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the 2030 deadline.
“The key outcomes will be a high-level segment declaration and an omnibus resolution, which will include the outcome of the midterm review and the Quadrennial Programme of Work of the Forum for 2025-2028,” Gondo said.
UNFF19 precedes the fourth session of the Small Island Developing States Conference (SIDS4) occurring from May 27 to 30 in Antigua and Barbuda.
Each SIDS conference focuses on assessing the ability of sustainable development in small islands.
Gondo said forests and trees are important for SIDS’s wellbeing.
He said forests play a critical role in the availability and quantity of freshwater, in coastal protection from waves caused by extreme weather such as hurricanes, in the conservation of biological diversity, in particular endemic species and genetic variability, and economic development through trade in wood and non-wood forest products.