The forest sector is complex given the diverse social, economic, and environmental values of forests coupled with the competing demands for use placed on forests. The Bank’s Forests Strategy is built on three equally important and interlinked pillars that are some of the most important topics for the forest sector today: harnessing the potential of forests to reduce poverty, integrating forests into sustainable economic development and protecting global forest values. Ensuring that economic development is carried out in a sustainable manner is essential and the Bank’s suite of safeguard policies, including the forests operational policy (OP 4.36), ensures that Bank operations with potential impact on forests take forest outcomes into consideration. OP 4.36 is proactive in both identifying and protecting critical forest conservation areas and in supporting improved forest management in production forests outside these areas, with strong certification requirements.
Another pressing issue closely related to the Forests Strategy’s pillars is how to address the destruction of forests, the loss of livelihood opportunities, and the undermining of economic development opportunities as a result of poor forest sector governance and associated illegal logging and corruption.
|
RSS