UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues - Saving Big Forests to Save the Planet: Book Launch and Discussion

Date: April 27, 2022

Time: 9:30am ET

Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, English, French

Registration: from a Zoom Link

Organizers: This event is sponsored by UNDP and Nia Tero, in collaboration with the Forests for Life Partnership.

Event Description:
The world’s intact forests are irreplaceable. They are natural solutions that can help address the climate crisis and extinction crisis. Intact forests - defined as unbroken woodlands of slightly more than 190 square miles - absorb around 1/3 of all carbon dioxide emissions. In the tropics, intact forests store an average of twice the carbon held in forests bisected by roads or otherwise disturbed by development.

Intact forests are also homes to scores of Indigenous peoples who have been protecting them for millennia.

In this event, we will present the just published book: Ever Green, Saving Big Forests to Save the World by John Reid and Thomas Lovejoy. The book underscores the importance of protecting intact forests to achieve climate goals.

We will hear from Indigenous peoples living in some of the 5 great intact forests on the challenges they face as well as their needs to continue carrying out their stewardship effectively.

We'll also discuss a policy-driven framework for high integrity forest conservation and restoration that recommends locations to maintain or add new protections, mitigate deleterious human impacts and restore forest structure, based on spatial analysis. Finally, we'll highlight practical efforts for policy impact at the global and national levels through the work of the Forest Declaration Platform.