New Haven, Connecticut  : The Forests Dialogue, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, 2008. 64p.

Summary and Recommendations from TFD’s IMPF Initiative June 2005 – June 2008

Intensively managed planted forests (IMPF) provide 40% of the world’s industrial wood supply. Growing at 2% per year to meet demand, how do we ensure that the economic, employment and infrastructure benefits they deliver outweigh the social and environmental concerns they raise?

To find out, The Forests Dialogue (TFD) initiated a 3 year consultation process (or Dialogue) which began with an IUCN hosted scoping meeting in 2005. Subsequent IMPF site visits to China in April, 2006, Indonesia in March, 2007 and Brazil in April, 2008, resulted in a dialogue with over 140 people representing the business, social and environmental sectors. The goals of the process were firstly, to understand how the growth in demand for forest products, the depletion of the world’s natural forests and the increase in forest protected areas was fueling IMPF expansion in some regions and secondly, to learn how IMPF projects might best be structured and implemented to deliver environmental, social and economic benefits.

This edition of the TFD Review, entitled “Intensively Managed Planted Forests: Towards Best practice”, summarizes the conclusions and lessons learned from this Dialogue process, including how participant’s understanding and perceptions of IMPF evolved, and offers a series of practical actions that those engaged with IMPF investments and activities should implement.

The Forests Dialogue’s mission: To address significant obstacles to sustainable forest management through a constructive dialogue process among all key stakeholders. The Forests Dialogue’s approach is based on mutual trust, enhanced understanding and commitment to change. www.theforestsdialogue.org