Forestry

Today, indigenous people across Peru are celebrating President Ollanta Humala’s decision to approve the Prior Consultation Law. This is an important step forward for indigenous rights in the country.
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The Philippine National REDD-plus Strategy and Current Status (PDF)

The decision by leaders of the Sub Central of the Indigenous Territory and National Isiboro Secure Park (TIPNIS), to initiate a 500-kilometre protest march on Bolivia's capital of La Paz capital has ignited much debate about the nature of Bolivia’s first indigenous led-government.

It is urgent to act internationally to protect forests, which are guardians of the climate, protect soils and biodiversity, and play a crucial role in the water cycle, according to participants in a conference on ‘European and global forests: Which way for the future?’.

How do you value an ecosystem? Putting a dollar value on natural systems such as forests has long beset economists.

Forests provide “non-use values,” such as the pleasure of knowing that a natural system exists, and recreational values, such as hunting, fishing and wildlife viewing. But recently, ecologists have also sought to value a broader set of “ecosystem services,” or the goods and services that ecosystems provide to a market economy.