The dynamic landscape of tropical land use, deforestation, global governance, and economic development is pushing the need for evolution of the conservation toolbox. Complex financial mechanisms such as carbon markets, product certifications, mitigation banking, and supply chain management have valuable roles in tropical forest conservation, but remain difficult to access for many forest rights holders and advocates. At the same time, large scale commodity investment continues to threaten tropical forests and livelihoods.
The Yale Chapter of the International Society of Tropical Foresters (ISTF) is proud to announce the 20th Annual ISTF Conference at Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, to be held on January 30- February 1, 2014. This year’s conference will discuss forest conservation in the context of the capital approach (top down) and the local approach (bottom up) of attracting financial resources for conservation and generating sustainable revenues from forest resources.
Conference’s topics will include:
- Capital approaches to conservation: how can large-scale investment from donors and forest investors be structured to maximize conservation value?
- What is the potential of the international forest carbon market versus local markets such as watershed services, mitigation banks and debt-for-nature swaps?
- Local approaches to conservation: how can community conservation projects scale up to the landscape level, attract capital, and become financially sustainable?
- How can commodity markets (soy, beef, oil palm) be regulated or incentivized to reduce their impact on tropical forests?
Learn more about the event here.
