In progress at UNHQ

Environmental issues and sustainable development


ENV/DEV/1355
ISTANBUL, 20 April — The 197 country members of the United Nations Forum on Forests concluded their two-week session in Istanbul, Turkey, with agreement on a series of measures aimed at improving sustainable management of forests and ensuring that forest issues will continue to have priority in the process to define the United Nations development agenda after 2015.
ENV/DEV/1354
Calling on Governments to recognize that forests and the socioeconomic benefits they provide were essential to human development, the United Nations forum working to build global consensus on implementation of forest-related agreements concluded its tenth session late this evening, also deciding to consider setting up a voluntary global fund to support sustainable management of all types of forests and trees.
ENV/DEV/1353
ISTANBUL, 19 April — With crucial negotiations on global forestry issues headed into the final stretch, the chief of the United Nations Forum on Forests told reporters today that the intergovernmental body would wrap up its work in Istanbul having “broken new ground” on a range of measures to improve sustainable forest management.
ENV/DEV/1351
While welcoming a 75 per cent increase in donations to the voluntary trust funds supporting the work of the United Nations Forum on Forests, the Director of that entity’s Secretariat stressed today that contributions needed to be scaled up in the coming year so the Forum could carry out its expanded mandate and take steps to remedy its “precarious” staffing situation.
ENV/DEV/1349
ISTANBUL, 11 April — With preparations under way to elaborate a post-2015 global framework and a set of ambitious sustainable development goals, participants at the tenth session of the United Nations Forum on Forests today stressed that woodlands must have a rightful place in those policy-designing processes, while they also tackled the matter of new financing options for managing those vital natural resources.
ENV/DEV/1346
Five seemingly ordinary people who have done extraordinary work for their communities and forests are being recognized as “Forest Heroes” at a special “Forests for People” award ceremony that will take place on Wednesday in Istanbul. The awards are being presented as 197 member States meet at the tenth session of the United Nations Forum on Forests.
ENV/DEV/1347
ISTANBUL, 9 April — Forestry and woodland management were critical to tackling a number of key sustainable development challenges and the most effective way to integrate related issues into the post-2015 international development agenda would be to create a cross-cutting goal on natural resources, the United Nations Forum on Forests heard today as it continued the Ministerial Segment of its tenth session.