Message from UNEP Executive Director for International Day of Forests 22 March

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Nairobi, 21 March 2015 - Tomorrow we are celebrating International Day of Forests. This is an occasion to focus not only on forests, but on the things that are being done by people, communities, governments and business across the world. This is an occasion to consider how to address what remains an extraordinarily persistent challenge: the degradation and decimation of our forests at the rate of 30 million hectares per year.

We know that we are not only losing biodiversity, we are not only losing the capacity of the planet to store and capture carbon, but we are also losing assets that are of great spiritual value to people - whether it is in terms of sacred forests or in terms of communities who live in and with forests around the world, particularly indigenous communities.

Of the 500 million people directly dependent on forests, 200 million of them are indigenous people. Their relationship to forests should serve as a reminder that however we want to measure the value of forests - be it in terms of timber, economic value, or jobs created - it is also the spiritual relationship we hold with these extraordinary ecosystems that define not only our relationship with them but also the scope for a future on this planet.

The International Day of Forests is a reminder and a challenge, and it is perhaps not coincidental that on this day we are convening in the City of Bonn, hosted by the government of Germany together with a number of partners, amongst them the United Nations Environment Programme, to address the Bonn Challenge.

Over 50 million hectares of forest restoration opportunities have already been identified and are now being implemented. This is an extraordinary effort and one that speaks to the opportunities forest restoration provides to the overall challenge of maintaining forest ecosystems and forest biodiversity, as well as the economic and productive function that these assets have in our societies.

Our work in recent years with the International Resource Panel last year examined the relationship between REDD + and a Green Economy pathway to development and identified the extraordinary linkages and opportunities in economic terms for countries. These have been documented through many different individual studies - such as on the role forests play in hydrological cycles in countries such as Kenya, Zambia, or Brazil.

Recently a Green Economy report in Zambia also looked at the role that forests have played in the economy of Zambia and its people. Interestingly enough, the value in terms of GDP that forests contribute was underestimated by around 50 per cent.

Our responses and our ability to mobilize resources to preserve forests and restore degraded forest lands are becoming more important - whether it is from an inter-generational responsibility perspective, from an economic and developmental perspective, or from a spiritual and conservation and biodiversity-oriented perspective.

At last year's climate summit hosted by Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, a pledge was made to restore 350 million hectares of degraded forests. Many countries have already joined this pledge and hopefully it will mobilize a greater global effort.

In the meantime however, we have to be attentive; we have to be cautious because forest degradation continues. The initiative of Global Forest Watch, led by the World Resources Institute and a whole consortium of partners, amongst them again the United Nations Environment Programme, is another illustration of how, through science and modern technology, we are able to provide citizens, governments, forest managers and the business community with almost instant information on the events and decisions that affect the world's forests.

Our ability to watch and monitor this collective heritage - which belongs to people but ultimately has a planetary function, an ecosystem function as much as a function in terms of our global economy - is essential.

I hope that the International Day of Forests will serve not only as the reminder of the problems and challenges we face but also our responsibilities and above all the opportunities forests provide for our common future.

I wish all a very successful meeting in Bonn and hope that the Bonn Challenge will continue to inspire the kind of pledges that we have seen in the initial period. We need them, and we can act on them.