The preservation of forests, sustainable forest management (SFM), forest landscape restoration (FLR) and the need to make the most of precious forest resources are priority issues in the policy and sustainable development agenda of the Asia-Pacific region. Innovation will be key in the coming decades to meet the increasing demand for wood and other forest products while halting and reversing deforestation, in line with the commitment taken at COP26 in Glasgow by the international community. However, uptake of innovative technologies has been slow and uneven in the Asia-Pacific region, and there remains a gap between political commitments and the investments – in education, capacity building, and infrastructure development – required to put them into practice. This technical report examines the potential and barriers to disseminating and deploying innovative technologies for SFM in the region and provides overarching recommendations and specific options for decision-makers. It delineates and informs the process by which decision-makers and actors can identify: the potential of innovative technologies to advance SFM; their potential impacts; constraints to technology uptake and scaling up, and how to overcome these constraints and facilitate adoption.

Young students and people, formally or informally engaged in the forest sector, will be the guardians and managers of tomorrow’s forests. Technology savvy, the youth can play an instrumental role in the uptake and scaling-up of innovative technologies (whether digital technologies, biological technologies, technical innovations on processes and products, or innovative finance and social innovations), able to advance sustainable development in the forest sector in the region. Young people can bring in the innovation debate forward-looking perspectives and out-of-the-box thinking. This is why FAO and CIFOR/FTA decided to strengthen their voice in the debate, relaying their experiences and propositions for sustainable innovation in the forest sector. This FAO and CIFOR co-publication gathers 13 youth contributions, carefully selected. These contributions illustrate, in various contexts, the potential of innovative technologies to advance sustainable forestry and sustainable forest management in the Asia-Pacific region.

The purpose of the roadmap is to delineate and inform the process by which decision makers and actors can evaluate the status, diversity and trends of primary forests in the region, identify priority areas for primary forest conservation, assess the threats they face, and explore possible ways to address them. This report suggests a practical process in four steps, through which the recommendations can be articulated at different scales (from regional to local) and adapted to the specific context, priorities and needs of various forest types, countries and categories of actors.