The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has released its “The State of the World’s Forests 2024: Forest-sector innovations towards a more sustainable future” report. The report provides updates on the world’s forests and examines innovations for scaling up forest conservation, restoration, and sustainable use.
The report outlines that while deforestation is slowing, including a significant reduction in some countries (Indonesia, Brazil’s Legal Amazon), climate change is making forests more vulnerable to stressors, and product demand is rising, putting pressure on forests.
Indeed, the report notes that wildfire intensity and frequency are increasing, while global wood production is now at record levels.
The report subsequently notes that more innovation is needed in the forest sector, and notes five types are enhancing the potential of forests and trees to address global challenges: technological, social, policy, institutional and financial.
That said, it also flags four factors forming barriers to scaling up innovation, including a lack of innovation culture, risk, limitations in various forms of capital and unsupportive policies and regulations.
It notes that five key enabling actions include:
- Raising awareness of the importance of innovation and creating a culture that fosters innovation to bring about positive change,
- Boosting skills, capabilities and knowledge to ensure that forest-sector stakeholders have the capacity to manage innovation creation and adoption,
- Encouraging transformative partnerships to de-risk forest-sector innovation, provide opportunities for knowledge and technology transfer, and build appropriate safeguards,
- Ensuring more and universally accessible financial resources to encourage forest-sector innovations, and
- Providing a policy and regulatory environment that incentivizes forest-sector innovation.
For the full report, head here.