16 August 2013: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has released the latest edition of its Infosylva newsletter, which highlights FAO and forestry related news and events.

Items featured in this edition include the release of FAO publications on examples from the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Support Programme for African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP-FLEGT Support Programme), and experiences with the Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA) process in Central and West Africa.

The newsletter also focuses on FAO achievements in forest data mapping technology in Uganda that allows for the low cost processing and interpretation of satellite information. Other forest-related news from around the world mentioned in the newsletter include the success of a deforestation ban in Costa Rica, and threats to forests in Canada, Fiji, India, Myanmar, Turkey, and the US. The newsletter also takes note of a dialogue in Germany on the sustainability of tropical timber supplies, a dividends payment from forest conservation in New Zealand, and the launch of a communal forest management programme in the Philippines.

On upcoming events, the newsletter reports on the International Boreal Forest Research Association, celebrations of the 20th Anniversary of the European Forest Institute (EFI), the World Congress on Agroforestry 2014, and the second European Forest Week. [Publication: Infosylva No.15/2013]