International Forest Governance: A comprehensive…

Considering that the international forest governance is a dynamic entity, many of the organisations that form the core of the international forest regime recognise the need for coordination, especially when taking into account that forests play a key role in any cost-effective climate change mitigation actions. While the role of nation states within intergovernmental organisations remains an important component of the forest regime, non-governmental actors, both for-profit and not-for-profit are also significant aspects of the governance complex. The vital role of these actors in international politics and policy should be taken into account when discussing the broader concept of forest governance. The inclusion of new actors and relationships is being institutionalised in a variety of ways, creating new structures of transnational policy networks and partnerships. Thus, a comprehensive assessment of the international forest regime cannot focus solely on the actors, but it also needs to consider the institutions and instruments found at the core of the governance complex. 

IUFRO's Science-Policy Programme has now finished a study based on IUFRO's assessment report published in 2010 on the topic of International Forest Governance. This new study provides an analysis of the latest available knowledge on global forest governance. This session will present the outcomes of this study, discussing the main aspects of the international forest governance context to improve the understanding of its increasing complexity, since new programmes and arrangements have emerged at all scales in the past years, and the interactions among them, including synergies and trade-offs, are often unclear. During the session, besides the presentations of outcomes and key messages of the assessment by some of the lead authors of the study, there will be interventions from policy-makers and implementing organisations to provide the scientific information presented with real world perspectives.