REMINDER: There is one week left to register for the upcoming virtual launch of the refreshed NYDF on October 13, 2021 from 9:00 to 10:30 AM EST | 13:00 to 14:30 UTC | 21:00 to 23:00 UTC+8.

This event will:

• Summarize alterations to the Declaration and the NYDF Global Platform informed by the collaborative "refresh" process

• Review key findings from the upcoming NYDF Assessment Report

• Reflect on the value of this global, multi-stakeholder framework for forests and its coalition of endorsers as a driver of forest action in this next critical decade and beyond

Panelists and participants will include members of the NYDF Global Platform and NYDF Assessment, NYDF endorsers, senior officials from donor and forest countries, bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors, and senior staff from environmental organizations and companies.

RECORDATORIO: Queda una semana para inscribirse en el próximo lanzamiento virtual del renovado NYDF el 13 de octubre de 2021 de 9:00 a 10:30 AM EST | 13:00 a 14:30 UTC | 21:00 a 23:00 UTC+8.

En este evento:

• Resumir las modificaciones de la Declaración y de la Plataforma Global del NYDF, basadas en el proceso de colaboración de "actualización"
• Examinar las principales conclusiones del próximo informe de evaluación del progreso del NYDF
• Reflexionar sobre el valor de este marco mundial de múltiples partes interesadas para los bosques y su coalición de partidarios como motor de la acción forestal en esta próxima década crítica y más allá.

Entre los panelistas y participantes se encontrarán miembros de la Plataforma Global del NYDF y de la Evaluación del NYDF, avalistas del NYDF, altos funcionarios de países donantes y forestales, donantes bilaterales y multilaterales, y personal directivo de organizaciones y empresas medioambientales.

RAPPEL: Il ne reste plus qu'une semaine pour s'inscrire au prochain lancement virtuel du nouveau NYDF le 13 octobre 2021 de 9h00 à 10h30 EST | 13h00 à 14h30 UTC | 21h00 à 23h00 UTC+8.

Dans cet événement :

• Résumer les modifications apportées à la Déclaration et à la Plate-forme mondiale du NYDF suite au processus collaboratif de " rafraîchissement "
• Examiner les principales conclusions du prochain rapport d'évaluation des progrès du NYDF
• Réfléchir à la valeur de ce cadre mondial multipartite pour les forêts et de sa coalition d'adhérents en tant que moteur de l'action forestière au cours de la prochaine décennie critique et au-delà.

Les panélistes et les participants comprendront des membres de la Plate-forme mondiale et de l'évaluation du NYDF, des partisans du NYDF, des hauts fonctionnaires des pays donateurs et des pays forestiers, des donateurs bilatéraux et multilatéraux, et des cadres supérieurs d'organisations et d'entreprises environnementales.

LEMBRETE: Falta uma semana para a inscrição no próximo lançamento virtual do NYDF renovado em 13 de Outubro de 2021 das 9:00 às 10:30 EST | 13:00 às 14:30 UTC | 21:00 às 23:00 UTC+8.

Neste caso:

• Resumir alterações à Declaração e à Plataforma Global de NYDF informadas pelo processo de "atualização" colaborativa
• Revisar as principais conclusões do próximo Relatório de Avaliação de Progresso da NYDF
• Refletir sobre o valor desta estrutura global e multi-stakeholder para as florestas e sua coalizão de endossadores como um motor da ação florestal nesta próxima década crítica e além

Os membros do painel e participantes incluirão membros da Plataforma Global da NYDF e da Avaliação da NYDF, endossadores da NYDF, funcionários superiores de países doadores e países florestais, doadores bilaterais e multilaterais, e pessoal superior de organizações e empresas ambientais.

Thank you for attending the virtual launch of the refreshed New York Declaration on Forests!

The event was a tremendous success filled with critical insights from the outstanding panelists and speakers. We were joined by:

• members of the NYDF Global Platform and NYDF Assessment to provide an overview of updates from the collaborative "refresh" process;
• John Hixon, Yum! Brands and Sarah Lake, Feed The Truth who reflected on the collaborative refresh process and the impact of the updated Declaration on their continued efforts in this work;
• keynote speaker, Roberto Múkaro Borrero, with an essential reminder of the need to integrate a human rights framework into the NYDF and a call to respect and protect Indigenous Peoples as the rightful stewards of forests;
• several NYDF endorsers who shared on-the-ground progress and implementation of the newly revised NYDF Goals, continued challenges, and emphasized the need for collective action;
  • Edu Effiom, Cross River State Forestry Commission
  • Jennifer Koinante, Yiaku Laikipiak Trust
  • Silvia Llama, Pronatura Sur A.C.
  • Pablo Montoya Dávila, Grupo Éxito
  • Ms. Glenda Ortega, Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition of Ecuador
• and a passionate closing by Martha Isabela "Pati" Ruiz-Corzo on the need to go forth with bold new strategies in the fight against deforestation rooted in a deep sense of love and respect for the Earth and future generations.

You can find a full recording here and the PowerPoint slides from the session here.

To read more about the refresh process and updates to the NYDF Declaration, visit https://forestdeclaration.org/a-renewed-call-to-action/

The COP Presidency and the Nature 4 Climate Coalition have organized November 6th as Nature Day.
(See full COP26 programme here for more details.)

Emerging Policy Approaches For Intact Forest Conservation

Saturday, November 6 | 17:00-18:30 GMT
(Click here to register)

SDG 15 Event: High-level Dialogue of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests: Upscaling Actions to Turn the Tide on Deforestation
Saturday, November 6
(Click here for more details)
 
Marrakech Partnership: Land Use Action Event
Saturday, November 6
(Click here for more details)

Progress toward 2030 forest goals

Only eight years remain to achieve the twin global goals of halting and reversing deforestation by 2030. Despite encouraging signs, not a single global indicator is on track to meet these 2030 goals of stopping forest loss and degradation and restoring 350 million hectares of forest landscape.

The 2022 Forest Declaration Assessment sheds a stark light on the state of global forest commitments but offers hope that achieving the 2030 forest goals is possible. The Assessment is presented as series of four reports on Overarching forest goals (Theme 1), Sustainable production and development (Theme 2), Finance for forests (Theme 3), and Forest governance (Theme 4)—all summarized in an Executive Summary.

Overarching forest goals

To be on course to halt deforestation completely by 2030, a 10 percent annual reduction is needed. However, deforestation rates around the world declined only modestly, in 2021, by 6.3 percent compared to the 2018-20 baseline. In the humid tropics, loss of irreplaceable primary forest decreased by only 3.1 percent.

Globally, forests became more degraded in 2021, but more slowly than during the 2018-20 baseline period; if continued, this slowdown may in time put the world on track to meet the 2030 target.

Tropical Asia is the only region currently on track to halt deforestation by 2030. While deforestation rates in Tropical Latin America and Africa decreased in 2021 relative to the 2018-20 baseline, those reductions are still insufficient to meet the 2030 goal.

Notable progress in afforestation and reforestation efforts over the last two decades have resulted in new forest new forest areas the size of Peru, with net gains of forest cover in 36 countries. However, overall losses exceeded gains over the same period, resulting in a net loss of 100 million hectares globally.

The building blocks for progress

Forest goals enshrined in the New York Declaration on Forests, the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, the Bonn Challenge, and other pledges recognize that halting deforestation and restoring forests requires a wide array of actors and the need to balance environmental, social, and economic interests. These goals provide the most concrete statements of global ambition to protect and restore forests – which are critical to meeting the aspirations of the Paris Agreement, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and many other global ambitions.

The accompanying reports from this Assessment—focused on sustainable production and development (Theme 2); finance for forests (Theme 3); and forest governance (Theme 4)—highlight critical actions that a variety of stakeholders must enact to meet their forests goals. Governments, companies, and civil society must collaborate to accelerate forest action, supported by transparency and accountability. Governments must carefully consider whether voluntary action is a viable foundation to achieve the 2030 forest goals, and how the role of mandatory action, disclosure, and accountability should be increased. Meanwhile, companies need to urgently increase the scope and stringency of corporate action, whether voluntary or mandated. A variety of private sector actors—companies, financial institutions, and philanthropies—have not yet leveraged their significant power to steer development and commodity production onto a sustainable trajectory in line with forest goals.

Additionally, funding for forests will need to dramatically increase – by up to 200 times – to meet 2030 goals. Indigenous Peoples and local communities, who are the most effective stewards and guardians of their forest territories, receive far less funding than their estimated finance needs for securing tenure rights and preserving forest ecosystems. Financial institutions and companies across sectors must recognize and act on the inherent business risks presented by deforestation and forest degradation and put in place measures and policies to combat this risk. Public sector actors must take concrete and far-reaching steps to implement and expand their finance commitments and align fiscal and financial policies with forest goals. Where private sector actors choose to invest in nature conservation and restoration, they must ensure that they are supporting high-quality and high-integrity interventions in line with the mitigation hierarchy and science-based targets.

Translations of the Executive Summary into Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Indonesian Bahasa are now available!

About the Assessment:

The Forest Declaration Assessment is a continual and collaborative process achieved collectively by civil society organizations and researchers, known as the Forest Declaration Assessment Partners. Previously the NYDF Progress Assessment, the Forest Declaration Assessment has since 2015 published annual updates on progress toward global forest goals. All assessment findings undergo a rigorous peer review process conducted by experts across the globe. Click here to learn more about the Forest Declaration Assessment.

Only eight years remain to achieve the twin global goals of halting and reversing deforestation by 2030. Despite encouraging signs, not a single global indicator is on track to meet these 2030 goals of of stopping forest loss and degradation and restoring 350 million hectares of forest landscape.

The 2022 Forest Declaration Assessment sheds a stark light on the state of global forest commitments but offers hope that achieving the 2030 forest goals is possible. The Assessment is presented as series of four reports on Overarching forest goals (Theme 1), Sustainable production and development (Theme 2), Finance for forests (Theme 3), and Forest governance (Theme 4)—all summarized in an Executive Summary.

Effective forest governance results in clear policy and legal frameworks that are conducive to meaningful participation of all groups, holds governments accountable and promotes action toward the achievement of shared goals, such as forest protection and improved land tenure and access to natural resources.

The evidence shows that weak forest governance results in negative impacts, not just on forest landscapes and their ecosystems, but also on societies, and, in particular, those who are most dependent on forest lands, including IPs and LCs, poor people, and other marginalized groups. Where countries have successfully reduced deforestation, this success has resulted from robust governance systems.

In a world where voluntary pledges are increasingly used to communicate intent to work collectively toward the 2030 forest goals, effective forest governance remains the foundation to ensure that actions are aligned toward a common objective.

Findings

With only eight years left to reach the 2030 goals, governance of forests and forest lands is not yet strong enough to curb deforestation and degradation in line with those goals. Robust legal and policy instruments such as moratoria, strengthened enforcement capacity, smart conservation policies, and improved transparency and accountability are effective in protecting forests—as evidenced by remarkable reductions in deforestation in various periods since 2004 when these tools have been employed in Indonesia, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Guyana, and Brazil. Yet, some of these achievements have been reversed—notably in Brazil—or are at risk of being reversed as countries phase out or roll back policy gains through recent or proposed amendments.

In some countries, reforms and new initiatives have strengthened legal and policy frameworks governing forests and land use. Jurisdictions such as the Republic of the Congo and the United States have recently developed laws and policies to protect and sustainably manage their forests more effectively. Others, like the European Union (EU), Australia, Vietnam, and China are expanding on their demand-side regulations by developing laws addressing import of forest-risk commodities and enhancing traceability in the forest sector. However, most of these proposals lack sufficient detail, are in early stages of development, or have yet to be implemented at a sufficient scale to curb deforestation in line with the 2030 goal.

More inclusive approaches to policy development, implementation and enforcement have been adopted by a growing number of countries, reflecting both growing capacity and expertise within civil society and government recognition of the value of forest protection. This has resulted in improvements in policies and laws, and enhanced accountability of government and the private sector in, for example, the Republic of the Congo, Ghana, and Cameroon. 

Law enforcement has also improved in a few tropical forest countries, for example contributing to reducing illegal timber exports from Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and reduced deforestation in Indonesia. But there has also been a weakening of enforcement in some other countries and gaps in the existing legal frameworks, preventing effective enforcement. Furthermore, corruption is widespread in many forest areas, facilitating illegalities in forests and illegal trade in timber.

Finally, tenure insecurity is persistent in many countries, with at least 50 percent of the lands and territories held by IPs and LCs still not legally recognized. Reforms in Congo Basin countries such as the Republic of the Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have strengthened IPs and LCs rights’ recognition and protection. However, some other major tropical forest countries have weakened the legal protection of IPs and LCs’ rights through regulatory and legislative changes, or have not accelerated implementation of relevant policies and laws so that IPs and LCs still face violations of their territorial rights, as well as violence and marginalization.

Recommendations

Governments must take urgent steps to strengthen forest governance, including:  

• Address weaknesses, overlaps, and ambiguities in forest legal frameworks; clarify unclear and overlapping laws, regulations, and institutional mandates; streamline legal frameworks in the forest and non-forest sectors; and improving the enforcement authorities’ capacity to understand the law.  
• Halt and reverse the weakening of legal frameworks and institutional capacities. Governments should carefully assess the long-term implications of recent rollbacks for sustainable development and forests. This includes recent amendments and introduction of laws that undermine forest protection and reforms weakening environmental and social protections in the wake of COVID-19. 
• Secure IPs anf LCs’ land tenure rights by developing and implementing clear and coherent laws that formally recognize and protect these rights.
• Implement inclusive processes for forest governance, including by embedding the participation and inclusion of forest-dependent communities in forest decision-making into the legal frameworks, ensuring that IPs and LCs are consulted on and have consented to decisions around their forest lands through a process of FPIC.  More broadly, ensure participation of non-state actors in policy and law-making and implementation; land-use planning; law enforcement; and forest monitoring.  
• Address regulatory weaknesses and ensure the proper implementation of environmental and social impact assessments (ESIAs) and of legislations on protected areas. Proper implementation of ESIAs includes, considering all direct, indirect, and cumulative negative impacts on forests and the people dependent on them, and prioritizing their avoidance in accordance with the mitigation hierarchy. 
• Increase checks and balances to combat corruption in the land and forest sector. This requires, for example, limiting government officials’ discretion in approving concessions; adopting robust rules to avoid conflicts of interest; implementing robust timber legality assurance systems and due diligence requirements; and ensuring compliance with or the strengthening of transparency laws. 
• Strengthen enforcement by allocating sufficient resources to enforcement agencies, strengthening international cooperation, and empowering civil society and communities in monitoring.
• Strengthen land-use planning, including evidence-based spatial planning analyses and processes for allocation of concessions and ESIAs, in alignment with forest goals.

Only eight years remain to achieve the twin global goals of halting and reversing deforestation by 2030. Despite encouraging signs, not a single global indicator is on track to meet these 2030 goals of of stopping forest loss and degradation and restoring 350 million hectares of forest landscape.

The 2022 Forest Declaration Assessment sheds a stark light on the state of global forest commitments but offers hope that achieving the 2030 forest goals is possible. The Assessment is presented as series of four reports on Overarching forest goals (Theme 1), Sustainable production and development (Theme 2), Finance for forests (Theme 3), and Forest governance (Theme 4) -- all summarized in an Executive Summary.

Improvements in forest governance remain too slow to have a measurable impact on reducing deforestation. The 2018 NYDF Assessment report on Goal 10 examines progress on strengthening forest governance, transparency, and the rule of law; and empowering communities and recognizing the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Improvements in forest governance remain too slow to have a measurable impact on reducing deforestation. There is progress in increasing transparency around forests, improving law enforcement, and expanding demand-side measures to address illegal logging in a number of countries. However, these improvements fall short of what is needed to address the vast governance challenges that continue to allow deforestation and inhibit efforts to improve forest conservation and management. Areas of particular concern include the continued failure to grant indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ rights and decision-making power over their forests and the increasing violence against defenders of lands and forests. In addition, much deforestation is illegal, and corruption remains rampant in and around forests.

The 2018 NYDF Assessment report, "Improving governance to protect forests: Empowering people and communities, strengthening laws and institutions," examines progress to date on implementing NYDF Goal 10.

Improvements in forest governance remain too slow to have a measurable impact on reducing deforestation. The 2018 NYDF Assessment report on Goal 10 examines progress on strengthening forest governance, transparency, and the rule of law; and empowering communities and recognizing the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Improvements in forest governance remain too slow to have a measurable impact on reducing deforestation. There is progress in increasing transparency around forests, improving law enforcement, and expanding demand-side measures to address illegal logging in a number of countries. However, these improvements fall short of what is needed to address the vast governance challenges that continue to allow deforestation and inhibit efforts to improve forest conservation and management. Areas of particular concern include the continued failure to grant indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ rights and decision-making power over their forests and the increasing violence against defenders of lands and forests. In addition, much deforestation is illegal, and corruption remains rampant in and around forests.

The 2018 NYDF Assessment report, "Improving governance to protect forests: Empowering people and communities, strengthening laws and institutions," examines progress to date on implementing NYDF Goal 10.

The initial NYDF Assessment report, published in 2015, proposes a framework of indicators to track progress toward each of the ten goals of the NYDF.

The report, “Progress on the New York Declaration on Forests: An assessment framework and initial report” seeks to fill the gap of the original NYDF, which launched without a process or methodology that would allow monitoring progress toward achieving its goals.

One year after the adoption of the NYDF is too early to draw conclusions about progress in most areas. But in the past year, new initiatives have been launched, additional commitments have been made, and implementation of relevant programs has begun. These are important steps in the right direction and may help accelerate trends toward achieving the NYDF goals. Still, overall progress remains slow and more action is urgently needed.

Five years after the launch of the NYDF, there is little evidence that its goals are on track, and achieving the 2020 NYDF targets is likely impossible. The 2019 NYDF Assessment report assesses progress toward all ten goals of the NYDF, five years after the Declaration's launch.

In September 2014, a broad coalition of governments, companies, civil society, and indigenous peoples’ organizations endorsed the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF). 

Driven by the shared understanding that halting deforestation is essential to keep temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the endorsers adopted an ambitious declaration detailing ten goals. By committing to the ten goals of the declaration, endorsers have agreed to work toward halving tropical deforestation by 2020 and ending it by 2030. The NYDF also calls for the restoration of 150 million hectares of degraded landscapes and forestlands by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030.

Five years later, there is little evidence that these goals are on track, and achieving the 2020 NYDF targets is likely impossible.

The 2020 NYDF Assessment Report takes a stark look at trends across all ten goals of the NYDF and find progress to be wanting.

This report was supported by the Climate and Land Use Alliance (CLUA), the Good Energies Foundation, and the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag via the NYDF Global Platform.