In early October, CIFOR made its presence felt at the fourth World Conservation Congress in Barcelona.
The event was spearheaded by the International Union for Nature Conservation (IUCN), and brought together over 5,000 participants to discuss solutions for the world’s most pressing environment and development issues
For CIFOR, it was an important opportunity to showcase key project activities and communicate vital research findings.
CIFOR kicked off its involvement with a Forest Pavilion event to discuss the recommendations from a recent, somewhat controversial, report - “Conservation and Use of Wildlife-Based Resources: The Bushmeat Crisis.” The report was co-published by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and co-authored by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Overseas Development Institute (ODI). The event involved several authors of the report discussing the practical implementation of these recommendations.
The following day, CIFOR hosted events on “Participatory Modelling for Sustainable Landscapes” and “Tracking Outcomes in Forest Landscapes,” before collaborating with The Samdhana Institute on two events that sought to find sustainable forestry solutions in some of the world’s most biologically rich, yet economically poor regions on earth - the Congo Basin (“Poverty in the Midst of plenty”) and Papua.
During the Congress, CIFOR’s Director General, Frances Seymour, moderated several events on behalf of CIFOR’s partners and collaborators, including the launch of the World Resources Report 2008, hosted by the World Resources Institute (WRI), and a popular session hosted by the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) on “Illegal Logging, Timber Trade and Climate Change: Making Connections and Identifying Solutions.”
Currently, a growing number of conservation approaches revolve around strengthening the land tenure rights of local communities, in order to provide the incentive and framework for these communities to manage their natural resources sustainably. In conjunction with IUCN and the Commission on Environmental, Economic, and Social Policy (CEESP), CIFOR hosted an event that explored the “Issues and Opportunities in Rights-Based Approaches to Conservation.”
The Fourth World Conservation Congress may not have solved all the world’s problems, but it provided the opportunity for like-minded individuals and organisations to join hands and take a step in the right direction.
Story by Tim Cronin, CIFOR