Talks focused on saving forests around the world and safeguarding the livelihoods of the millions who depend on trees began Monday at the U.N. headquarters.
The United Nations Forum on Forests will meet for two weeks to discuss international arrangements to control deforestation, promote sustainable forest management and acknowledge the ways that forests play a key part in economic development.
"Given the impact on forests of population expansion, economic growth and environmental instability, it is not surprising (forest issues) have been at the center of several international negotiations," Jose Antonio Ocampo, undersecretary general for economic and social affairs, said at the opening of the forum's sixth session.
Ocampo said the alarming rate of deforestation poses a major threat to sustainable development and affects some of the world's poorest people.
Noting that the global trade in primary and secondary forest products takes in some $200 billion annually, he said, "Sustainable forest management has become a major policy objective for many countries."
Proposals for action at the UNFF session evolved from meetings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests from 1995 to 1997 and the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests from 1997 to 2000, both under the auspices of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development.
For more than 15 years, forest issues have increasingly played a more prominent role in international policy and political agendas and were a controversial topic at the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro.
The forum concludes on Feb. 24.Kyodo News via Yahoo News
