Experts from the UNFF Secretariat participated in a regional workshop in Peru on criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management. The workshop was the last in a series of regional workshops focused on developing criteria and indicators as a framework for promoting sustainable forest management. At the workshop, the UNFF Secretariat representative discussed monitoring and reporting progress on the UN Forest Instrument and global forest objectives, and emphasized the need for indicators and robust monitoring to measure forests' contributions to various UN sustainable development goals. The UNFF Secretariat is well-positioned to play a leading role in developing a global set of forest indicators that integrate reporting on various global forest-related objectives and targets.

1. United Nations Forum on Forests
Global Partnership: For Forests, For People
BRIEFING NOTE TO THE USG | 19 – 25 JUNE 2015
Experts confer in Peru for Criteria and Indicators on forests
This week, the UNFF Secretariat representative
participated in a regional workshop related to the
criteria and indicators for sustainable forest
management. This workshop was organized by the
FAO Forestry Department under the umbrella of the
project, “Strengthening Criteria and Indicators (C&I)
for SFM and their use in policy and practice”, from 17-
19 June 2015 in Tarapoto, Peru. The workshop was
the last event in a series of regional workshops held in
Asia, Africa, the Near East, and Latin America.
The UNFF and its predecessors have been actively promoting C&I following the Earth Summit
(UNCED) in 1992; C&I have emerged as an important tool in promoting sustainable forest
management (SFM). The UN Forest Instrument calls upon Member States to further develop C&I as a
reference framework for SFM. Other global initiatives and regional processes have developed criteria
as key thematic areas of SFM and strengthening monitoring and reporting on indicators.
During this workshop, the UNFF Secretariat representative delivered a presentation on monitoring
and reporting on progress toward implementation of the UN Forest Instrument and achievement of
the Global Objectives on Forests (GOFs). Moreover, UNFFS shared lessons learned from monitoring
the contribution of forests to the Millennium Development Goals, and underlined the necessity of
further work addressing data gaps in socio-economic aspects of forests. It was pointed out that, in
the context of the post-2015 development agenda, there is a need for indicators and a robust
monitoring framework to measure the contributions of forests, not only to SDG15, which directly
addresses terrestrial ecosystems, but also to SDG1 (poverty), SDG2 (food security), SDG7 (energy),
and SDG 13 (climate change). Additionally, it was suggested that the forest community should work
jointly on data collection to reduce the reporting burden on countries and to improve the consistency
and efficiency of collecting data.
The UNFF Secretariat is well-suited for this, has the mandate, and is willing to
play a leading part in developing a global set of forest indicators, integrating
reporting on the GOFs, forest-related SDGs and targets, and possibly others, e.g.
the Aichi Targets of the CBD.