The viability of the climate pledges made by Brazil at the COP21 in Paris, 2015, heavily depends on the success of the country policies related to forest governance. Particularly, there are high expectations that the enforcement of the Brazilian Forest Code (BFC) will drive large-scale forest recovery and carbon mitigation. In this study, we quantified the potential role that ongoing forest regeneration may play in offsetting deficits from private properties with less vegetation cover than determined by the BFC, considering different law implementation settings.

Community land, crucial to rural livelihood around the world, is increasingly targeted by commercial interests. Its loss can lead to environmental degradation, increased rural poverty and land disputes that last for years. Without formal legal recognition of their land rights, communities struggle to protect their land from being allocated to outside investors.

As the global community looks for ways to move to a greener economy, it is increasingly clear that forests, forestry and forest products must play a central role. This tenth edition of State of the World’s Forests explores the role of forests in human history, finding strong links between forest use and economic and social development and between unabated forest destruction and economic decline. It suggests that forest production has an important role to play in a sustainable future in which consumption and production are connected in a closed cycle.

Did you know that forests cover nearly 1/3 of land globally?
That’s 4.06 billion hectares.
In other words, there is around 0.52 ha of forest for every person on the planet.

More than half (54 percent) of the world’s forests are in only five countries –the Russian Federation, Brazil, Canada, the United States of America and China.

Ninety-three percent of the forest area worldwide is composed of naturally regenerating forests and 7 percent is planted.

The ninth biennial issue of State of the World’s Forests, published at the outset of 2011, the International Year of Forests, considers the theme ‘Changing pathways, changing lives: forests as multiple pathways to sustainable development’. It takes a holistic view of the multiple ways in which forests support livelihoods.

By declaring the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, the UN has recognized that there are only 10 years left to restore the world's degraded land. Countries are striving to fight climate change by 2030 through their Paris Agreement commitments and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But in many cases, their climate and development agenda are disconnected, even though sustainability and development go hand in hand – especially for rural communities. The divide is particularly severe when it comes to restoring degraded land.

In light of the urgency for policy action to address climate change, this report provides the first detailed global catalogue of targets and policies for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector. It covers 20 countries which collectively account for nearly half of the world’s AFOLU emissions. Most of these countries have recently set targets within their AFOLU sector as part of national climate mitigation strategies and commitments, although these targets are only legally-binding for two countries.

The report, “Forests, Trees and the Eradication of Poverty: Potential and Limitations,” shows that forests and trees support human well-being and are critical to end poverty. It finds that forest-poverty dynamics are affected by a range of social, economic, political, and environmental context factors, such as rural outmigration, gender norms, remittance flows, and elite capture. The report’s key messages are highlighted below. Forests and trees can help the poor face global changes such as climate change. Benefits from forests and trees to human well-being are unevenly distributed.

Mapping Together helps people use Collect Earth mapathons to monitor tree-based restoration. Collect Earth enables users to create precise data that can show where trees are growing outside the forest across farms, pasture, and urban areas and how the landscape has changed over time. Building on WRI and FAO’s Road to Restoration, a guide that helps people make tough choices and set realistic goals for restoring landscapes, Mapping Together takes this process one step further.

Many drylands in the world suffer problems of land degradation and desertification derived from human activities and exacerbated by drought. Too often these degradation processes have been endured by the ecosystems for a long time, and, according to forecasts of climate change, are likely to worsen in the future. Ecological restoration combined with adaptive management can be effective tools in response to this environmental and socioeconomic problem.

In a world grappling with the challenges of food insecurity, climate change, landscape degradation, and rural poverty, regreening offers a path forward, especially in dryland areas. The transformation of degraded landscapes—restoring productivity and increasing resilience through the widespread adoption of agroforestry and sustainable land management practices—can deliver food, climate, and livelihood benefits.
Table of contents:
Part I. Introduction
Part II. How and Where is Regreening Happening?
Part III. The Impacts Of Regreening

These guidelines have been developed based on FAO’s and WOCAT’s extensive experience. The book draws, in particular, on WOCAT’s network and its database of SLM knowledge - as well as on WOC AT’s first overview book entitled ‘Where the land is greener’. These guidelines were implemented in the framework of the TerrAfrica partnership, whose main objective is to mainstream and upscale SLM in SSA, through the leveraging and harmonising of multisectoral investments at the local, country, subregional and regional levels.