6 October 2014
UN-REDD Newsletter Touts Climate Summit Commitments
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The UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation (UN-REDD) released the October 2014 edition of its newsletter, which highlights the New York Declaration on Forests and commitments made during Climate Summit 2014.

unreddOctober 2014: The UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation (UN-REDD) released the October 2014 edition of its newsletter, which highlights the New York Declaration on Forests and commitments made during Climate Summit 2014.

The Declaration aims to cut the loss of forests in half by 2020 and end deforestation by 2030. Commitments made at the Summit in support of the declaration included a mix of private sector, provincial and country-level actions, including a pledge by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Uganda and several other countries to restore over 30 million hectares of degraded lands, more than doubling the 20 million hectares already pledged to date under the Bonn Challenge. The New York Declaration mobilized over US$1 billion in funding, according to the newsletter.

It addition to its headline story, the newsletter also welcomes the partnership between the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for the restoration of 150 million hectares of forest landscapes by 2020. The restoration will contribute to the Bonn Challenge with initial efforts focusing on pilot countries such as Cote d’Ivoire, Indonesia and Nigeria.

The bulletin also notes the expansion and improvement of forest monitoring in Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific, and capacity building on tree volume and biomass modeling. The newsletter features national REDD+ events, including a national meeting on preparing for the Warsaw Framework in Cameroon, and requests for targeted support for legal preparedness by Cote D’Ivoire, Kenya, Madagascar and Nepal.

The newsletter also focuses on the participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in REDD+. Features include a meeting for civil society organizations and Indigenous Peoples observers to share experiences on REDD+; civil society consultations on REDD+ in Uganda; and REDD+ awareness raising for Cambodian school children. [Publication: UN-REDD Programme Newsletter – October 2014]