This event explores the different impacts of climate variability and water insecurity for women and men in rural areas, with case studies from Malawi and Ethiopia.

With 2.5 billion people worldwide struggling to obtain water to meet their basic needs, global research efforts must aim at exploring all ways of addressing this critical situation. Forest science plays a crucial role here: After all, forests and forested landscapes are recognized for their importance to maintaining the quantity and quality of the world's freshwater resources, and climate change is expected to have considerable impact on these abilities of forests, especially in dry regions.

There are still knowledge gaps about the interactions between forests, trees, soils, water resources and climate change, and the effects of human use of forest resources. The International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) has therefore made "Forests, Soil and Water Interactions" a priority research area to tackle uncertainties on the feedbacks between climate, forest management, soil conservation and water supply.

Worldwide collaboration of forest, water and soil researchers

The IUFRO Task Force on Forests, Soil and Water Interactions (http://www.iufro.org/science/task-forces/forests-soil-water/) has developed a worldwide network of forest, water and soil researchers and research organizations to produce new knowledge and identify novel and emerging issues in and around the theme. The Task Force mainly aims to provide the basis for coherent management responses that build on an enhanced understanding of forests, soil and water interactions. Importantly, these responses will be informed by consideration of economic and cultural factors that affect adoption of new approaches and technologies.

The Task Force also supports the goals and objectives of the Five-year Forests and Water Action Plan, which is an initiative of the 'Forests and Water Agenda', a partnership of international organizations, academia, civil society and the private sector. (http://www.fao.org/forestry/watershedmanagementandmountains/90328/en/). At its next meeting at the 2016 EcoSummit conference in Montpellier, France, Task Force members will showcase cutting-edge research on forest ecohydrological processes ( http://www.iufro.org/science/task-forces/forests-soil-water/activities/).


Future scientific assessment report on "forests and water"

In light of the recently agreed 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the defined Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the topic "forests and water" is also rising rapidly on the political agenda. In order to cope with the related challenges, what is urgently needed is a global systematic approach including efficient policies that are based on the relevant scientific information. Therefore, and following the decision of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF), IUFRO will initiate and coordinate a global scientific assessment on "forests and water" in the frame of the CPF's Global Forest Expert Panels (GFEP) initiative, starting formally in 2017. The initiative will systematically assess and synthesize existing scientific information on the role of forests for the provision of water resources and will produce a comprehensive report that will support discussions in international policy forums and guide future political decisions.
Photo credit: Photo No. 1: Neil Palmer, CIAT
Photo No. 2: IUFRO-SPDC

Food security depends on water security, and, in turn, water security depends on forests, an International Day of Forests event at FAO HQ in Rome heard today.

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva highlighted the major role of forests in the water cycle, from recharging groundwater, contributing to precipitation and acting as natural water filters. Forested watersheds and wetlands supply 75 percent of the world’s accessible fresh water for domestic, agricultural, industrial and ecological needs.

Today the world will celebrate the International Day of Forests under this year’s theme of Forests and Water. As the climate continues to change, FAO’s Forestry Department recalls the contribution of forests and their increasingly important role to provide and regulate water.

Forests are rich in biodiversity and valuable for recreation, water regulation and soil protection. As well as for providing timber and other non-wood forest products, forests are important for mitigating

Around 35 acres of forest was destroyed on Saturday in a fire that erupted in the protected areas of the Castlereagh reservoir and Devon Falls. Police suspect that the fire has been deliberately caused

The Australian government ended its push to log World Heritage-listed forests on the southern island state of Tasmania on Sunday, after the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO issued a report calling

After taking a beating from decades of logging, China's forests have begun to regenerate, but the problem of deforestation might have shifted to other nations exporting wood to the world's most populous

Society for Conservation and Protection of Environment’s (SCOPE) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the country’s prominent environmentalist, Tanveer Arif, said on Sunday that bad governance was behind

The Forestry Sector Support Department (FSSD) under the ministry of Water and Environment has received a grant worth $250,000 about (sh850m) to help the sector develop the investment plan. This was revealed

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Republic of Korea was one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. Deforestation had stripped the country of half its forest cover, contributing to severe

This is a synthesis report from the Social Protection in Asia (SPA) policy-research and network- building programme, 2007-2010, funded by the Ford Foundation and IDRC. It presents research findings and draws out policy lessons from the 11 research projects, with three key elements: tracking the politics that leads governments to invest in social protection agendas; showing social protection to be not purely a state activity or a civil society activity, but drawing on the strengths of both; and presenting our conscious efforts to study ourselves as researchers within research to policy pathways.

Until European leaders come up with a safer, more organised system for dealing with refugees and migrants, people will keep coming – and trafficking will remain profitable.

The programme, focused specifically on the close relationship between forests and water, will start off by looking at ways to improve water security in eight West African countries: Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Sierra-Leone.

Rural female farmers are becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate variability and water insecurity.

El Niño has already had devastating impacts on countries in Africa that primarily rely on agriculture. Drought, loss of livestock and failed harvests push poor households into food stress and result in children being removed from school or families migrating. 

Policy and programme implementation for water insecurity must consider social norms around gender and other drivers of inequality. Too often, policies and programmes on agricultural water management are gender blind and don't consider women's unique needs and experiences.

This paper explains how and why improved water management on the farm matters for women and girls, and what can be done to better support opportunities for them, as well as for men and boys, in the face of climate change.

The authors identify three areas where gender-focused programming needs to address the unique vulnerabilities of women to water (in)security:

• Women are often at the pinch point of water-related tasks in the home and on the farm, with pressure intensifying around seasonal periods of scarcity in many developing countries.
• Compared to men, women may have less access to or control of assets that can be used to buffer against the effects of rainfall variability.
• Women often have fewer opportunities to pursue off-farm work or migrate to urban areas as a temporary coping strategy for seasonal food and income shortages, or for shortages caused by droughts and floods.

Evidence from ecological studies, eddy flux towers and satellites shows that many tropical forests ‘green up’ during higher sunlight annual dry seasons, suggesting they are more limited by light than water.

A review of recent literature on the theory and practice of shock-responsive social protection initiatives and their effectiveness.

A review of recent literature on the theory and practice of shock-responsive social protection initiatives and their effectiveness.

This rapid desk based study is commissioned by DFID. DFID is interested to identify evidence of factors that are deterring investment in renewable energy (RE) in most developing countries in Asia. In our understanding, DFID proposes to use this evidence, along with information on the opportunities and risks in this sector, to commission more indepth studies in the future. These different studies will support the scoping of the potential establishment of one or more investment platforms through which DFID could deploy investment capital in order to catalyse private investment in south and central Asia. It’s been proposed that the platform(s) should focus on clean energy, inclusive agribusiness and financial services.

This rapid study has been conducted based on the review of existing literature and related databases. As mandated, the study adopts a political economy assessment framework. Asia is the general focus. However, examples, wherever applicable, have been drawn only from a selected set of Asian nations. China and India have generally not been considered in this study. It is found that although most countries in developing Asia have RE potentials and plans for mainstreaming renewables in their energy systems, they have mostly under performed with regard to attracting investments and capacity build up in the RE sector. Given the existing scenario, these

Despite dense forests, protected parks & villagers' refusals, project could get nod today The Forest Advisory Committee, the statutory authority of the environment ministry, is slated to appraise the