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Forests offer people and planets immeasurable advantages, but we destroy them at an astonishing speed.
It was only last year that the tropics lost a record of 6.7 million hectares primary forest das is an area over the size of Peru and more than twice as much as in 2023.
The loss and preservation of the forest and the preservation will be a central topic at this year's UN climate change conference (COP30) in Brazil, but global change begins at the local level.
For this reason, almost 2,000 people from more than 120 countries gathered online and in Kemptville, Ontario, Canada to discuss how we can scale effective forest solutions centered by humans.
This hybrid event was part of the Global Forum 2025 of the International Model Forest Network (IMFN) and builds on the discussions at GLF Forests 2025.
Here are four steps to scale solutions that we have discovered Forests, people, planet: scaling of local solutions for global effects.
Focus on people
A strong topic throughout the event was the need to put people in the core of the efforts to do forest administration and landscape restoration.
“People have to be at the center of the restoration – the focus,” said Laura Mukhwana, coordinator of GLFX Nairobi.
And the voices, the knowledge and leadership of traditionally marginalized groups are of crucial importance for just and effective landscape management. These groups not only have to be included, but also actively involved.
“We have to raise the voices of women, young people, indigenous peoples and small farmers-not only as a stakeholder, but as a guide and decision-makers,” said éliane Ubalijoro, CEO from Cifor-ICRAF.
This approach is already implemented worldwide by model forests.
“A model Forest is based on integrative partnerships that include large landscapes,” said Pierre-Jonathan Teasdale, director of the department for commercial and international affairs at the Canadian Forest Service (CFS).
“These often bring local communities, indigenous peoples, government, landowners, science, NRO and industry together – all work together together by side.”
Build permanent relationships
The next step is to transform partnerships in relationships and projects into permanent changes.
“You need partnerships: You cannot address things in a landscape alone. You have to have a common goal and a common understanding,” said Richard Verbisky, head of the IWFN secretariat and Senior Advisor, International Affairs at the CFS.
This also begins with communities.
“If you want to go to a community and plant trees, you first have to start with the plants of trust – between communities, between governments and between communities and governments,” said Pragyan Raj Pokhrel, Senior Program Officer at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Without a common understanding and trust, the guidelines for the protection and promotion of forests cannot react to local needs.
“We have to link various government scales that change from international to national or subnational realities at the local level in order to create a better, fair, livable future for people,” said Victoria Rachmaninoff, research assistant at the World Resources Institute.
There must also be an engagement between different sectors – the 'triangle' of science, practice and politics, such as Bernhard Wolfslehner, head of the governance program at the European Forest Institute (EFI).
Imran Shaik, co -founder of Probheti Agrologics and a 2025 GLF Forest Restoration Steward, pointed out that investing in forest management is not a sprint, but a long -term endeavor.
“Stewardship is not a project – it cannot be treated as a project,” he said. “It is a relationship, and with active communication and holding the communities in the center we can keep this relationship alive with people for a long time.”
Integrate different knowledge systems
An essential part of the relationships between groups and sectors is the horizontal exchange of knowledge.
This means that various knowledge systems contain the creation of forests in decision -making and creating political preservation and restoration of landscapes.
For example, many traditional communities and indigenous peoples have considerable knowledge of the management of fires in their territories, said Lara Steil, a forestry at the Global Fire Management Hub of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
By actively involving these groups in the development of public politics, we can participate in stronger and more effective results.
This is particularly important for indigenous peoples in fire -prone areas, since they are often the most affected by climate risk and first aiders.
“For us as an indigenous people, it's about our lives. It is about the health of our families. It is about our spiritual connection with our ancestors,” said Emmanuela Shinta, founder and director of the Ranu Welum Foundation and a representative of GLFX Kalimantan.
“They are not just victims in the climate actor. They are the first to be sold, but they are also the first to react. Why? Because they have to survive.”
It is also important to recognize that restrictive power structures can rule out different knowledge systems, said Malaika Pauline Yanou, a postdoctoral researcher at the technique of Chalmers University.
“Sometimes there are moments when the most marginalized groups are left behind and their local knowledge is not taken into account,” said Yanou.
And how Fabiola Muñoz Dodero, coordinator in Peru for the task force of the governors Climate & Forests (GCF), directions: “The only way to solve problems or develop some ideas is to work together.”
Transformation finance and invest in bioeconomy
It should be a matter of course that all of this requires financing – but the current system needs a rethink.
The existing forest financing often focuses more on short -term projects than on holistic and long -term goals.
“Financial models are at the top,” said Imran from Prakheti Agrologics. “You have metrics; you have goals. The communities are expected to provide astonishing, which is surprising, but in reality we see that you may be short -term interventions.”
“There is a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of hope that is given to the communities, but there is no ecosystem to maintain it in the long term.”
This is partially driven by the urgency of the problems with which forests are confronted, but that should not prevent us from pursuing a long -term approach, said Pokhrel from IUCN.
The focus on metrics and goals can also lead to serious underfunding of the key elements of forest management such as governance.
“Very often, the donors do not offer funding for governance. They want to provide money and funds for things that they can measure that are very specific that have clear indicators,” said Patricia Bon, senior program manager at Ecoagr culture partners.
“We really need donors to understand that financing for management, convening, coordination must go to support the governance piece of landscape work.”
Funding must also compensate for the livelihood and the preservation, which according to Peter Minang, director of Africa at Cifor-ICRAF, by ensuring ensuring that decision-makers can recognize the value of forest landscapes.
“If we do not convince the finance minister about the value of the forestry, you will not invest. If forestry does not create jobs, you will not invest. So we have to think about how we connect landscape approaches with the economy,” he said.
Meanwhile, Imran emphasized the need to finance the communities that already protect and use forests.
“The priority should be to recognize, formal and support the existing green work – the work that these communities have done through various activities in the forest, in the buffer zones or outside the forest.”
Where this financing comes from is another question.
In forests, people, planetPresent The speakers referred to the need for the municipalities, government and the private sector to work together to solve the challenges that the forests look at.
“We all have to work together to make it possible,” said Sandra Carolina Sarmiento, managing director of Terra Global Capital.
“It is not just the private sector; it's not just communities, they are not just developers. It is all of us who work on the same side. If not, we won't make it until 2030.”
Look ahead of a crucial moment
We are exactly half of the 2030 destinations for the climate, biodiversity, land restoration and sustainable development.
With the upcoming COP30 climate summit, which put an important global focus on forests and the discussions in forests, people and the planet, Planet offered promptly and significant insights into the scaling of effective, peopular solutions.
These solutions are exactly what is needed to address the crises of climate change, biological diversity, loss, food, uncertainty and inequality, said Éliane Ubalijoro.
“But in the middle of this poly crisis there is also hope and it grows through landscapes and continents,” she said.
“We sow the seeds of the transformation.”