Posted on June, 21 2017

How do we find the balance between conserving and restoring the world’s forests for social and environmental reasons, while also increasing sustainable production of forest products for a range of uses? How can we do this while also adapting to climate change and increasing the resilience of our landscapes? And what role can planted forests play?
 
These are the questions the WWF’s New Generation Plantations (NGP) platform will feature as it celebrates its 10th anniversary in London and Edinburgh on June 21-25. The celebration and annual Encounter is co-hosted by WWF-UK and the UK Forestry Commission.
 
The NGP platform aims to share and promote the highest standards of plantation management around the world. It is based on the premise that well-managed planted forests in the right places can help conserve biodiversity and meet human needs, while contributing to sustainable economic growth and local livelihoods.

 While the Encounter is celebrating the achievements of the past 10 years, the focus is on the future –participants from all over the world, representing environmental groups, local communities, forest companies and government bodies, will be exploring a number of issues connected to forests, plantations and climate change.
 
The coming decades will bring profound changes and challenges for forests and plantations. Climate change will have significant impacts on the world’s forests, their productivity and the biodiversity they support. Global demand for forest products is set to triple by 2050, potentially increasing the risk of illegal and unsustainable logging. Forests continue to be lost and degraded at an alarming rate, but at the same time restoration is planned on an unprecedented scale – the Bonn Challenge, for example, aims to bring 150 million hectares of the world’s deforested and degraded land into restoration by 2020, and 350 million hectares by 2030.
 
“The need for the NGP approach has never been greater, if we’re to face the 21st century’s most urgent planetary challenges on poverty, biodiversity and climate. Success will depend on how intelligently and sensitively we integrate a world of different cultures and values, where cities, infrastructure, industry, agriculture and forestry, coexist with nature”, says Luis Neves Silva, NGP lead.

"We are delighted to welcome NGP back to the UK, 10 years after its launch here. NGP participants now manage around 12 million hectares of forests worldwide, and this week’s events will bring people together from around the globe. NGP promotes well-managed planted forests as an economically sound solution to the world’s growing demand for forest resources. These forests can help tackle illegal logging, combat forest degradation and mitigate climate change as well as relieving the pressure on natural or high conservation value forests. These are all aims we share in the UK”, says Sir Harry Studholme Chair of the UK Forestry Commission.
 
Learn more about the event here: The role of planted forest in combating illegal logging and climate change  Encounter London-Edinburgh 21st - 25th June, 2017