Share
Print
August 25, 2011
Every day forests provide benefits vital to life on Earth and to the quality of human life in particular. Currently, some 410 million people are highly dependent on them for subsistence and income, and 1.6 billion people depend on forest goods and services for some part of their livelihoods.1 In a more general sense, the entire global population depends on forests for their carbon-sequestering services. Forests have always been crucial to human life and economies, and they will become increasingly significant as the global human population grows by another 30 per cent – to 9 billion people – by mid-century. At the same time, our forests face many threats as a result of unsustainable use. As we move forward, our forests must play a critical role in supporting the growth of a global green economy.2 Innovative solutions, however, must be found to ensure sustainable forest management in the face of the many threats at hand.
This policy brief seeks to outline how forests can be a key part of a green economy that provides opportunities for innovative solutions to forest management. Forests are key assets in the structuring of a green economy as they provide a wide variety of services, including ecological infrastructure, which comprises public goods such as water and carbon regulation and tradeable goods such as timber, fibre, biomass and non-timber forest products. They also act as a source of livelihood, natural insurance, adaptation, employment and health services. Focusing on forests helps draw attention to the importance of creating a green economy at the local, regional and global levels.
The emergence of a green economy provides an opportunity for the development of innovative market and policy solutions that assign appropriate value to forests for the wide variety of benefits that they provide to people while also promoting long-term sustainable forest management. Innovative policies that create markets and present forests as investment-worthy assets within the economic system will attract new investment in forest management and conservation from both the public and private
sectors.
In this brief we first provide an overview of the many values of forest assets before reviewing the complex issues that threaten forests globally and lastly looking at the emerging innovative market and policy solutions that can promote long-term sustainable forest management and contribute to a green economy.
Download the briefing here
Disclaimer: Ecosystem Marketplace is committed to giving our readers access the full spectrum of resources and voices engaged in the forest carbon world here on the Forest Carbon Portal. We have provided links to resources here because we believe they are likely to be of interest to our readers. Ecosystem Marketplace does not endorse or vouch for the content or views of third-party authors or organizations excerpted here or linked to from this site.
