Forests comprise a critical resource for the poor. Approximately 30% of the world’s land area is covered by forests, which contain about 80% of the Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity. Forest products and services provide energy, construction materials, water purification, carbon sequestration, health benefits, environmental stability and innumerable other means of support to the rural impoverished. Forests also serve as a primary source of income for tens of millions of rural poor, and as an important supplementary income source for hundreds of millions more.

It is imperative that the many important services that forests provide be preserved and enhanced. However, at present there are many threats to the sustenance of critical forest resources, as tropical deforestation progresses at a rapid pace. Pressure from competing land uses and inappropriate institutions drive much of this loss of forest cover. In many areas of the world, control of forest resources is limited to an elite few, due to restrictive and exclusive tenure regimes. Even where management modalities and rules may be appropriate, limited institutional implementation capacity often results in unsustainable management and inequitable benefit distribution.

Opportunities for improved products and services to the poor are often missed by existing research and development efforts. While the bulk of tropical forestry research concerns silvicultural methods that are appropriate to large-scale timber plantations, there is persistent underinvestment in appropriate techniques and opportunities for the production of forest products by smallholders. As a result, there is inadequate attention to novel marketing and production methods that can make a difference in the lives of hundreds of millions of forest-dependant people.

CIFOR, as the forest centre of the CGIAR, is oriented towards identifying and exploiting opportunities for forest management that better serves the long-term interests of the poor. It does so by: identifying improved modalities, procedures, and tools for collective resource appraisal and management; identifying insights that can better target forestry-sector development interventions; and identifying and developing opportunities for the poor to derive improved incomes from the production of forest products. CIFOR targets dissemination of research on these topics towards the main global forestry organizations and processes, the international media, the international scientific community and the world’s leading forestry decision-makers and practitioners.

Full version:  Medium Term Plan: 2007 - 2009 (size 600 KB)