How to integrate forests across policies to advance the SDGs

From providing clean water to sustaining agriculture and regulating the climate, forests have an important role to play in advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were designed to be interdependent.

“Forests are essential to the SDGs, but the nature-based solutions they offer haven’t been made explicit in the 2030 Agenda,” says researcher Joleen Timko from the University of British Columbia (UBC).

Progress on the process of managing landscapes
As the 2020 deadline for intra-goal targets such as protecting and restoring forests comes closer, scientists from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and UBC have explored how forests can be better integrated into policies – of all levels, all across the world – so SDGs can achieve more benefit from, and provide more support for, these ecosystems.

“We want governments, industries and local communities to consider more holistically how their actions impact forests, and how forests can be better integrated into their policies, plans and strategies, especially where competing priorities may lie,” says Timko, who is the lead author of the resulting paper.

FORESTSnews - CIFOR - INDONESIA - 13 agosto 2018