Forests are a vital element in a sustainable development and contribute in addressing global, regional and national concerns including issues related to forests in a changing environment. This includes issues such as forests and climate change, reversing the loss of forest cover, preventing forest degradation in all types of forests and combating desertification including low forest cover countries as well as forest and biodiversity conservation, including protected areas – all of which will be addressed at the UNFF8.

The workshop participants recognised that several of these issues are closely interrelated. As a result of the workshop priority issues were identified and proposals for concrete actions for further consideration were identified and clustered as follows:

1. Promoting and communicating the role of forests in sustainable development
2. Mainstreaming of sustainable forest management
3. Strengthening coordination and collaboration
4. Improving forest governance
5. Promoting forest products and bioenergy
6. Addressing climate change impacts, risks and adaptation
7. Improving monitoring and terminology
8. Developing economic valuation of the multiple products and services of forests

More detailed elaboration of the main issues is presented in the workshop report