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Achim Steiner, UNITED NATIONS Under-Secretary General
and UNITED NATIONS Environment Programme Executive Director
In 2011, we celebrated the International Year of Forests and these celebrations could not have occurred
during a more appropriate time.
Climate change and biodiversity loss have brought forests to the attention of governments, global leaders
and millions of people across the world. New kinds of economic analysis of forest ecosystems, from services
such as water regulation and soil stabilization to nutrient recycling for agriculture and carbon capture, have
also been emerging and attracting the attention of the finance sector and the development community.
By some estimates these services are worth trillions of dollars a year and in many developing country
communities they are part of the natural asset base, worth up to 90 per cent of the GDP of the poor.
For the large majority of terrestrial biodiversity and for the 1.6 billion people that depend on forests for their
daily livelihood or the various industries that rely on wood or other forest services and goods, it is imperative
that forest destruction and degradation is stopped and reversed.
Some countries are now building on the United Nations Environment Programme-hosted partnership –
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity – to assess the rich and wide-ranging value of forests as the
first step towards factoring them into national accounts and perhaps a broader indicator of wealth beyond
simple GDP.
During the International Year of Forests, 2011 and in the lead up to RIO+20, we have a golden opportunity
to place forests in the centre of the necessary and urgent transition towards a green economy while capturing
the rich and varied value of one of humanity’s key life support systems.
I would encourage countries and communities to see how intelligent public policy allied to smart
mechanisms can be designed and deployed to accelerate and scale up sustainable forestry within a green
economy as a key strategy towards sustainable development and poverty eradication worldwide.
Achim Steiner
United Nations Under-Secretary General and
United Nations Environment Programme Executive Director