This outlook study focuses on the Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS), comprising 14 countries in the Pacific region – Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu (Melanesia); the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, and Palau (Micronesia); and the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa, Tonga, and Tuvalu (Polynesia). It examines the future prospects for forests and trees in the Pacific, providing insights into potential pathways of change and options for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The study was prepared by FAO in response to a request from the Pacific Ministers of Agriculture and Forestry and incorporates information from country outlook papers, thematic studies, and various published and unpublished sources.

This catalogue aims to improve the dissemination and outreach of FAO’s knowledge products and overall publishing programme. By providing information on its key publications in every area of FAO’s work, and catering to a range of audiences, it thereby contributes to all organizational outcomes. From statistical analysis to specialized manuals to children’s books, FAO publications cater to a diverse range of audiences. This catalogue presents a selection of FAO’s main publications, produced in 2023 or earlier, ranging from its global reports and general interest publications to numerous specialized titles. In addition to the major themes of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, it also includes thematic sections on climate change, economic and social development, and food safety and nutrition.

The years 2021 to 2030 have been designated as "The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration". Ecological restoration and biodiversity conservation efforts face unprecedented challenges, especially in developing countries and areas, such as the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region. This huge HKH region, which includes areas in eight separate countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, India, China, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan), is a biodiversity hotspot with a vast array of ecosystems, landscapes, peoples and cultures. It is known as one of 'the pulses of the world'. However, the HKH is also the world's largest and poorest mountain region, where landscapes and environments have been severely damaged as a result of climate change and human activities. Coordinating conservation and restoration policies, sharing knowledge and funds, and maintaining livelihoods are major challenges and are in urgent need of improvement. This book details the past and current ecological problems in the HKH region, and the threats and challenges that ecosystems and local people face. It pays special attention to developments of transformative adaptations and presents examples of sustainable conservation and ecological restoration management practices. This book is essential reading for ecologists and conservation biologists involved in large-scale ecological restoration projects, along with practitioners, graduate students, policy makers and international development workers.

India’s forest area has come down below one fifth of total geographical area, due to indiscriminate alienation of forest land for non-forestry purposes and deforestation leading to rapid loss in biodiversity and forest natural resources. An outdated Indian Forest Act, 1927, the most important legal instrument for forest management and administration, with a colonial mindset, influenced by Locke and monetization of forest resources for financial profiteering by the British colonial administration, has been found to be inadequate for conservation of valuable forest environment and resources and alienated local stakeholders in natural resource management. Higher judiciary has started intervening by issuing several judgements and orders, keeping in tune recent developments in the field of international environment law, to save forest land and forest resources, in absence of a strong legal frame work. Global initiatives for conservation of natural resources and mitigation of damaging effects of Climate Change, Sustainable Development Goals etc. have catalysed swift action on part of the government and other stake holders towards achieving conservation goals. A paradigm shift in the system for forest conservation and management, supported by a new law, based on sound scientific forestry, such as landscape level management etc. is the need of the hour.

Dire reports of surging deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon appear often in international headlines, with commentators decrying the destruction of tree-covered habitats as an act of environmental vandalism. Although forest losses are alarming, broader trends are bending in the direction of forest recovery. In this book, Brent Sohngen and Douglas Southgate address the long-term recovery of forests in Latin America. The authors synthesize trends in demography, agricultural development, and technological change, and argue that slower population growth and increasing crop and tree yields—in conjunction with protecting local ownership of natural resources—have encouraged forest transition. This book explores how market forces, ownership arrangements, and the enforcement of property rights have influenced this shift from net deforestation to net afforestation. Forest transitions have happened before, such as the recovery of tree-covered habitats in Europe and the United States. Signs of a similar transformation in land use are now present in Latin America. Ending deforestation requires a strengthening of forest dwellers' property rights while ensuring that biodiversity conservation is no longer treated as a value-less externality. The resulting forest landscape, actively managed for ecosystem services, will be more resilient, as is needed to overcome climate change.

Land use and land-use change (including related policies) interact with climate and climate change (including related policies) in multiple ways. Land-use sectors are among the most affected by climate change. They are also a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, agriculture, forestry and other land use are the second source of GHG emissions after fossil fuel use and account globally for about 23 percent of total net anthropogenic GHG emissions. However, the land use sectors are not only part of the problem, but also part of the solution. They are key to adaptation. The global potential of land-based mitigation options is evaluated at about 30 percent of the global mitigation effort required in 2050 to meet the 1.5 °C target of the Paris Agreement. This publication, resulting from a collaboration between FAO and the Center for International Forestry Research, lead centre of the CGIAR research programme on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry, aims to recall those complex interactions and to explore the opportunities to enhance the role of land use under theUnited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to advance climate change mitigation and adaptation.