Este dossier es un summary fiel del destacado informe de consenso científico publicado en 2006 por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y la Alimentación (FAO): "Evaluación de los recursos forestales mundiales 2005. Hacia la ordenación forestal sostenible" El dossier completo se encuentra disponible en: http://www.greenfacts.org/es/recursos-forestales/ Cerca del 42 % de los bosques primarios se encuentran en Sudamérica.

Every year, 13 million hectares of forest are lost worldwide; that is an area the size of Austria and Switzerland combined. 90 percent of this deforestation involves tropical forests. Forest loss has devastating effects on the climate and is the source of between 15 and 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. If global warming is to be kept below the critical threshold of two degrees Celsius, forest loss and degradation must be halted without delay

Carbon labels for food are a new strategy of industrialised countries to reduce climate change-relevant gas emissions in agriculture. However, not every label includes the measurement of all emissions and may disadvantage and even exclude exporting farmers from developing countries. Policy-makers should reconsider this approach or at least focus on fair and non-discriminatory labels.

Climate change is one of the major threats to the development of rural Africa, and without wide-ranging adaptation strategies the challenge it presents cannot be met. Although appropriate measures have been identi? ed, international funding for adaptation has not materialised at the rate that was pledged. This is irresponsibly delaying the implementation of adaptation measures.

The importance of forests for climate change mitigation and species conservation, as water stores and oxygen producers, soil protectors and humus providers, is well known. However, over 13 million hectares of forest are lost each year, mainly in the tropics.

The River Nile provides an invaluable source of livelihoods to over 160 million of people who dwell in its valley. The river valley is renowned for being a cradle of civilisation. As the populations grew and civilisation evolved, the demand for more water resources took a toll in the region. The more recent visible climate change effects have further compounded water management in the basin. Water and food security in the region is under threat, hence the need for robust transboundary water management. An effective institutional arrangement is a key factor in facilitating this process.

Water and soils are increasingly becoming a limiting resource for meeting the food requirements
of a growing world population. Integrated concepts for managing natural resources in a sustainable
and environmentally sound manner show encouraging impacts, if applied on a large scale and
over a long period like in Tigray, the northernmost regional state of Ethiopia.

Poverty in rural households have deepened in the past two years through world events: unprecedented rises in food and fuel prices were followed by global economic meltdown, all amidst growing climate uncertainty. Balancing water availability within and across growing seasons, water harvesting helps to buffer households against drought. Research on water harvesting in South Africa has focused on rural household livelihoods. Innovative results on appropriate water harvesting technologies and food security facilitation techniques are now being implemented in villages across South Africa.

Water is scarce in India's semiarid zones of Rajasthan. Climate change is putting additional pressure on the rare resources. Irregular or no rainfall forces many small farmers to abandon their fields, at least temporarily, and seek work in the towns. Participative water management projects as practiced in Bhipur village, growing crops with low water requirements and more sustainable farming practices are adaptation strategies that allow farmers to continue their activities despite climate risks.

Developing countries, as a group, are the ones most threatened by the hydrological impacts of global climate change. Water is a critical resource in development, and it is affected by climate change in multiple, complex ways ? through changes in temperature and rising sea levels, changes in precipitation patterns, and melting snowfields and glaciers.

Many adaptation measures urgently needed in agriculture today as a consequence of climate change concern water in agriculture and were already devised and implemented in the 1980s as a part of rural development activities. However, most of the experience and knowledge have sunk without trace. Systematic knowledge management at that time would have made it possible to benefit from this experience today in the planning and implementation of water-related adaptation measures, providing effective support for these measures and hastening their implementation.

The Himalayan region is not only tectonically active and ecologically fragile but is it also one of the most economically underdeveloped and most densely populated mountain ecosystems on the planet. These natural as well as human characteristics render the Himalayan region highly vulnerable to the impacts of development, degradation and climate change and in particular the impact of melting of glaciers and changes in the patterns of precipitation.