December 2014: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) released the 24th edition of inFO news, its newsletter on forests, highlighting the efforts of the Wangari Maathai Award winner, Martha Ruiz Corzo, to protect the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve in Mexico.

Recognizing additional efforts to conserve forests, the newsletter takes note of the EU funded Visión Amazónica, a collaborative effort among eight Amazon countries to support local communities in enhancing the resilience of forests and forest ecosystem services under changing climate conditions.

The newsletter also highlights a FAO workshop on forest product statistics for Southern Africa and the launch of the Open Foris software package to support national forest monitoring. FAO is also supporting a new strategic programme for forest sector development in Central America and the Dominican Republic. The strategic programme will, according to the newsletter, recognize the multiple values of forests and seek to mainstream forest management within conservation, climate change, agriculture, energy and rural development plans and policies.

Finally, the newsletter reports on the outcomes of November meetings of the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) Summit on ‘Bamboo and Rattan for Green Economies,’ and the 13th meeting of the UN-REDD Policy Board. The first meeting emphasized the importance of bamboo in green construction and its potential for small and medium enterprise development. The second meeting welcomed REDD+ pledges of US$11.6 million and considered the future of the UN-REDD Programme beyond 2015. [Publication: inFO news No. 24]