The Interlaken Workshop on Decentralization, Federal Systems in Forestry and National Forest Programmes (the Interlaken Workshop) convened in Interlaken, Switzerland from 27-30 April 2004.

This country-led initiative in support of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) brought together over 150 participants representing local, state, provincial and national governments, international and non-governmental organizations and the private sector. Participants sought to find ways to improve the quality of “on the ground” forest-related activities and discussed questions regarding the balance between centralization and decentralization, with a special focus on problems that occur during transitional phases of the decentralization processes. Based on input from six working groups, participants drafted and revised a report of the meeting, which was forwarded to UNFF-4 at its 3-14 May 2004 meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. Full coverage of the Workshop can be found at: http://enb.iisd.org/crs/forest/sdlak