News

The ASEAN Ministers on Agriculture and Forestry (AMAF) have adopted the ASEAN Guidelines for Sustainable Harvest and Resource Management Protocols for Selected Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) during its 42^nd annual meeting last October 21, 2020. The guidelines serve as a primary reference for NTFP management protocols in the ASEAN region and help guarantee the sustainable management of NTFP resources for markets and relevant stakeholders.

This Sunday, 21 March, is the United Nations International Day of Forests (IDF), intended to celebrate and raise global awareness of the importance of forests. The theme is "Forest restoration: a path to recovery and well-being", a cause that Fern championed in our recent report looking at how rights-based forest restoration can empower communities, recover biodiversity, and tackle the climate crisis. It also explained that forest restoration must never be used to greenwash other sectors' lack of action towards climate objectives.

Milieudefensie worked with a team of researchers to investigate the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) stakeholder consultation processes. We report on general findings and a case study on the current certification process of Socfin, a Luxembourg-based plantation company, in West Africa. We found critical gaps in the RSPO practices and policies of consultation processes, which undermine the credibility of the certificates.

IUCN NL is proud to work with many female leaders across the world who choose to challenge their patriarchical societies and are advocates for women’s rights and social inclusion. On International Women’s Day, we are celebrating these strong women who stand up for their territories, their forests and their rights, even though faced with increasing risks and gender-based violence.

Since 2018, our partner Forest Foundation Philippines has been promoting participatory multi-stakeholder dialogues in landscapes across the Philippines. These dialogues contribute to inclusive and well-informed decision-making on land and water governance and link landscape actors to national decision-makers.

The native indigenous territory of Guarayos (Tierras Comunitarias de Origen – TCO) has a titled area of 1,343,646 ha, of which 90% are forests that are still in a good state of conservation, thanks to the 111 Community Forest Organizations (OFC) that execute their General Forest Management Plans in an area of 1,274,614 ha of forest.

Three global manufacturing companies—BMW Group, Tetra Pak and Schüco International—have signaled concern over the use of bauxite sourced from Ghana’s Atewa Forest for aluminium if mining has catastrophic and irreversible effects on the people and wildlife that depend on the forest. More than 5 million Ghanaians depend on Atewa Forest as their source of clean drinking water.

WECF is excited and proud to officially start our work as gender-partner of the Green Livelihoods Alliance (GLA), as part of The Netherlands governments civil society partnership program “Power of Voices”. The aim of the GLA is to halt deforestation and promote sustainable forest governance. With GLA we will strengthen participation of women, especially from Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in decision-making and policy making on forest conservation.

Civil society organisations, including IUCN NL, are sounding the alarm after the brutal murder of 46 pygmies in a village in the Ituri province in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The group was brutally murdered on January 14 for unknown reasons. The victims also included women, children and the elderly.