IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature

In March 2003, IUCN, in collaboration with WWF and the Forestry Commission in the UK, successfully launched the Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration, a network of governments, organizations, communities and individuals who recognize the importance of forest landscape restoration and want to be part of a coordinated global effort to promote it. Partners currently comprise several key international organizations including the UNFF Secretariat, FAO, ITTO, CIFOR, World Bank (PROFOR), ICRAF, UNEP (World Conservation Monitoring Centre), the Secretariat of the CBD; state agencies such as the Forestry Commission of Great Britain and the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana; the governments of Kenya, Finland, the United States, South Africa, Japan, Switzerland; and CARE International and the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC). Many additional governments and other convention secretariats are taking steps to join. The partnership is organizing a global workshop on forest landscape restoration, to be held in early 2005, as a country and organization led initiative of the United Nations Forum on Forests but which will also provide input to the conventions on climate change, biodiversity and desertification, as well as to relevant regional policy processes. The workshop will deliver increased political support and partnerships to support intensified and expanded FLR activity around the world. To know more about the GPFLR and the FCP's work on FLR, click here.

IUCN is a member of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF), an interagency group of 14 key international forest-related organizations and agreements and other major international players including the ITTO, CBD, UNEP, UNFCCC, UNEP, UNDP, UNCCD, FAO, GEF, World Bank, CIFOR, ICRAF and IUFRO who support the work of the UNFF and its member countries, particularly in the implementation of the IPF/IFF Proposals for Action, and foster increased cooperation and coordination on forests. For example, IUCN together with PROFOR and the World Bank (PROFOR), and in consultation with the Secretariat of the CBD and other CPF partners, has undertaken an analysis of the relationship between the ecosystem approach and sustainable forest management, pursuant to the decision of UNFF-3 and as a contribution to the work of the CBD.

IUCN, WWF and the Nature Conservancy (TNC) came together at the Vth IUCN World Parks Congress in Durban in September 2003 to launch the Global Fire Partnership. The Partnership, which aims to maintain or restore ecologically and socially acceptable fire in ecosystems that depend on it, and reduce the incidence of unwanted fires in ecosystems where it is harmful, will involve key actors in fire management and build awareness of fire issues among policy-makers to develop integrated fire management approaches and long-term sustainable solutions. To know more about the FCP's work on forest fires, click here.

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