Accounting for 20% of global carbon emissions, tropical deforestation and forest degradation also affect 89% of all threatened birds, 83% of mammals, and 91% of threatened plants. Realizing the prominent role of tropical forests in global climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development, managing forest resources for multiple ecosystem services is widely recognized in the international climate change conventions, especially in the Copenhagen Accord reached in December 2009. Furthermore, the Convention on Biological Diversity also recognizes the important linkages between protecting biodiversity and full ecosystem services for reducing poverty in developing countries and mitigating climate change.

The conference brings together international and local academia, policy makers, representatives of forest communities, donors, NGOs, and companies to advance the management of forest ecosystems. The main objective of this conference is to discuss the timely important topics on avoiding deforestation and forest degradation, assessing forest ecosystem services and managing forest resources in the robust and fragile environments with national and international scholars, policy makers, and forestry practitioners. With total forest cover of about 59%, Cambodian government has committed itself to bringing remaining forests under sustainable use and management taking advantages of anticipated climate change agreement on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) financial mechanism. This conference provides a good opportunity to share experiences with senior government officials and leading scholars in the aforementioned fields.