Forestry and Conservation Policies Are Failing The Global Poor. Economic Development and Conservation Must Thrive Together.
According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 250 million people living in and around tropical forests or savannahs subsist on less than $US 1.25 per day – with millions more worldwide living in poverty in rural forest landscapes. Helping to lift those people out of poverty should be a ‘paramount cause’ of forestry, says Nambiar – who believes that increasing and supporting sustainable wood production is one important way to do just that.
How to design a forest fit to heal the planet
One of the key principles of the Forest Landscape Restoration approach is that projects should enhance human as well as environmental wellbeing.
Human livelihoods are interlinked with forest landscapes and should not be excluded from their restoration but supported, so that the intertwined problems of climate change, biodiversity loss and poverty can all be tackled together.