Why should foresters concern themselves with issues of human health? There are at least two important answers to this question. First, and perhaps most fundamental, forestry activities affect human health and human health affects forests. Second, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (see Box), which the world’s countries have committed to meet by 2015, reflect increasing global concern about human health. Four of the MDGs (1, 4, 5 and 6) address health directly. It can also be argued that improvements in human health (as part of human well-being) are a prerequisite for accomplishing the seventh goal, which is the most pertinent for foresters.

Read more: http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0789e/a0789e02.htm

Reduce emissions. Consume less. Shift to renewables. Conserve forests. Save energy. Share technology. Take global action. These are the solutions President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono prescribed for Indonesia to pursue sustainable growth with equity.

The solutions were simple but were hard to achieve, thus the importance of political will to overcome the resistance to environmentally-sound policies, the President said in a major policy address at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Bogor on June 13.

Read more: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/06/24/building-redd-capacity.htm...

Living at the edge of Kenya’s massive Mau forest complex, Emmanuel Kosen, has been around long enough to see some dramatic changes in the local climate.

“There is a very big difference today compared to those (old) days,” says Kosen, a grey-haired resident of Eor-Enkitok village. “It is too hot nowadays, unlike those days when it used to be very cold.”

Read more: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/as-rains-change-kenyans-turn-to-plant...

Subsistence agriculture is the mainstay of the local communities, where peasant farmers grow corn and beans on infertile hillsides, and the harvests are steadily declining, due to climate phenomena.

El Salvador, and Central America in general, suffers heavy rain in winter - the rainy season - which almost inevitably leaves a trail of pain and destruction. In October, for example, the rains claimed 43 lives in the country and flooded 10 percent of the national territory.

Read more: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/energy-forests-the-feminine-art-of-re...

The International Institute for Environment and Development has today published a toolkit for those wishing to help small enterprises in the forestry sector fulfil their potential to reduce poverty and manage natural resources in a sustainable way.

The guidance is for international donors, nongovernmental organisations and national government agencies and extension workers who work to support small and medium forest enterprises.

Read more: http://allafrica.com/stories/201205010446.html

Forests are a nutritional bounty - virtual natural supermarkets for 1 billion of the world's poorest people. And as the world's population is expected to balloon to 9 billion people by 2050, it is imperative that we figure out how to feed the global population while maintaining the world's very important forest cover. We hope you enjoy this new multimedia feature that talks about some of the interesting ways that people around the world are promoting both forest conservation and food security

Read more: http://blog.cifor.org/forests-and-food-security-feature/

Brazil’s Congress passed legislation late last night that strips the Amazon and other key regions of critical environmental protections, and grants amnesty to individuals accused of past illegal deforestation.

Read more: http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?204443/Revised-Brazilian-Forest-Code-good...

Burma’s forests and unique fauna and flora will struggle to survive as the country opens up to foreign business investment.

That’s the warning from international organizations which say the threat comes from companies being squeezed in their own countries by environmental laws or land shortages due to palm oil and wood pulp production.

Decades of isolation have helped to keep Burma’s native forests relatively intact, but political reforms which are opening up investment opportunities are attracting Malaysian palm oil producers in particular.

Read more: http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/2282

The 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was held December 2009 in Copenhagen. The spotlight fell on forests, forestry and REDD+. After Copenhagen, forestry stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific have raised many questions about the meaning of COP15 for people, forests, and forestry. This FAO/RECOFTC report presents expert answers to a dozen key questions.

Read more: http://unfccc.int/files/methods_science/redd/application/pdf/recoftc_for...

Khat — a leafy plant used as a natural stimulant in the Horn of Africa — has become the backbone of the region’s economy, providing the main source of income for farmers, as well as jobs for thousands of others employed in the value chain.

“As households earn more income from khat cultivation, they have reduced their dependence on selling fuel wood — a major driver of deforestation in Africa,” said Habtemariam Kassa, CIFOR scientist and co-author of Khat and livelihood dynamics in the harer higlands of Ethiopia: Significance and challenges.

Read more: http://blog.cifor.org/8059/khat-cultivation-in-ethiopia-fuels-economy-re...