August 2014: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has released the 65th volume of its Unasylva journal, which focuses on forestry and forest industries in the Mediterranean.

The journal notes that there are 25 million hectares of forests in the 31 countries that make up the Mediterranean region, along with 50 million hectares of other wooded land. Articles in the journal discuss a number of threats to these forests, including from over use and habitat destruction, climate change, water stress and wildfires. They also present a number of case studies on forest management that address, inter alia, payments for ecosystem services (PES) in cork oak landscapes, improved fire management in protected areas, and the establishment of model forests.

This edition of Unasylva also reports on major, on-going forest management initiatives in the Mediterranean that are supporting the science policy interface in forest decision-making, addressing REDD+, and focusing on climate change adaptation. The journal announces that the fourth Mediterranean Forest Week will be held from 17-20 March 2015, in Barcelona, Spain, and will focus on the role of Mediterranean forests in the green economy. [Publication: Unasylva – Vol. 65, 2014/1]