16 June 2015, Telesurtv news - Forest experts from the public and private sector of 20 Latin American countries met again in the town of Tarapoto, Peru to define criteria and indicators (C&I) for sustainable forest management in the Amazon. They had met there 20 years ago with the similar objectives.
Swaths of forest the size of Panama are lost every year due to deforestation. | Photo: Reuters
The C&I must become essential tools for forestry companies and licenses, indigenous communities and other actors that enjoy a direct benefit from the woods, as well as for government agencies of the sector, stated the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), one of the main organizers of the event.
Various international initiatives have already developed criteria and indicators, like in Tarapoto two decades ago.
These C&I can only be correctly applied if the various actors find a direct benefit in implementing them when they are designing and monitoring their management plans," said Jorge Malleux, regional consultant of the FAO, expert in evaluation of forestry resources.
This event is part of a series of regional workshops organized in Africa, Asia and Latin America by the FAO, with the support of the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture. The recommendations that will result from them will be discussed in the 11th World Forestry Congress in South Africa in September 2015.
Forests, when sustainably managed and protected, can play a key role in climate changemitigation, adaptation, maintenance of biodiversity, and economic development. Latin America and the Caribbean is one of the most important forest regions, with nearly one-quarter of the world's forest cover according to the FAO.
