Initiatives

TFD operationalizes its work and implements its mission through dialogue based “Initiatives”. Initiatives are designed to engage and mobilize stakeholders from diverse backgrounds to explore contentious, internationally-relevant issues important to the forest sector. Structured in a three-phase process of engage, explore, and change, initiatives are the primary mechanism through which TFD builds partnerships, convenes dialogues, produces publications, and drives change.

Initiatives begin when a global forest issue is identified by TFD’s Steering Committee (SC). Initiatives typically comprise a series of dialogues, often occurring in countries where the issue is or has historically caused conflict. The type and style of dialogue used depends on the initiative’s objectives, the nature and scope of the issue, and the number of participants. TFD has five different types of dialogue: Scoping, Scoping with Field, Field, Thematic, and Mini. Structured to ensure stakeholders’ concerns are well represented through a dynamic, bottom-up approach – dialogues result in agreed-upon and actionable outcomes that address natural resource conflicts. Initiatives are implemented according to a flexible but rigorous process that is driven by stakeholders to fit the scope, scale, and context of the challenge the initiative is setting out to address. Partnerships are a critical facet of initiatives and TFD exclusively convenes dialogues in collaboration with in-country host organizations. For further information on TFD’s process, visit the TFD approach webpage or download the TFD process guide.

Since the organization’s inception in 2000, TFD has coordinated over 20 different Initiatives addressing issues such as forest certification, plantation forestry, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), and the connection between poverty reduction and forestry. At any given time, TFD coordinates four initiatives, however this number is subject to a number of factors. Though there is no fixed timeline that initiative must follow, all initiatives conclude at a point and transition from being ‘active’ to ‘past’. Even though TFD is no longer actively working on past initiatives - these initiatives are foundational and shaped TFD’s ongoing work. Knowledge, perspectives, and learnings captured in Co-chair’s Summaries and TFD Review publications from past TFD initiatives continue to inform today’s discussion around forest challenges. In many cases one initiative will drive the creation of another as was the case when TFD’s Food, Fule, Fiber, and Forests (4Fs) initiative that inspired the creation of the Land Use Dialogue initiative.

See below for a listing and description of our active Initiatives. Also below are additional Initiatives that TFD has developed in the past and which learnings still guide our work today.

Active Initiatives

Bioenergy from Forests (BEF)

Bioenergy from forests is the energy generated from the combustion of wood and wood wastes, or biofuels derived from wood. Though the environmental footprint of bioenergy from forests has been the subject of substantial investigation and engagement by academic researchers, private sector stakeholders, NGOs, and government entities, disagreement remains about the ultimate environmental, climate, and economic impacts of biomass combustion.

Climate Positive Forest Products (CPFP)

Climate-positive forest products have the potential to deliver massive climate change mitigation benefits when substituted for other traditional resource-intensive inputs under specific conditions and with appropriate safeguards. The pressing need to respond swiftly and decisively to climate change creates both pressure and opportunity to promote climate-positive forest products.

Ecosystem Restoration

Ecosystem restoration —the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed— is regarded as a crucial approach to achieving Sustainable Development Goals and delivering multiple environmental, social, and economic benefits.

Forests and Climate (F+C)

Forests are widely recognized as substantial components for climate change mitigation and adaptation, bringing the attention of the global community to sustainable forest management. As many emerging strategies in face of climate change continue to involve forest-related issues, there is an increasing number of complex topics needed to be discussed by the broad forest community.

Tree Plantations in the Landscape (TPL)

There are a number of strands to the genesis of The Forests Dialogue’s Tree Plantations in the Landscape (TPL) initiative. All have their origins in recognition that planted forests, including tree plantations established for wood production, continue to grow in both extent and significance. Tree plantations currently provide almost half of the world’s industrial wood, a proportion expected to increase significantly in coming decades. They also have great potential to deliver environmental services and social benefits.

The Land Use Dialogues (LUDs)

The Land Use Dialogue (LUD) is a dialogue process that supports multi-stakeholder decision making around key socio-environmental and ecological issues at the landscape level. The global initiative and community of practice is coordinated by The Forests Dialogue and implemented by partners at regional, national, and landscape levels.

Additional Initiatives

Exclusion and Inclusion of Women in the Forest Sector (EIW)

Gender inequalities are increasingly viewed as a weak link in the effective design and implementation of interventions aimed at reducing negative impacts of human activities on forests and people.

Food, Fuel, Fiber and Forests (4Fs)

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the bio-energy sector will experience significant growth over the coming decade, rising from the current 10 percent to 30 percent of the world's primary energy mix by 2050. The world population is predicted to reach 9 billion by 2050 and will need food and energy.

Forest Certification

The last few years have seen the proliferation of forest product certification on international and national scales. Until recently, the systems for certifying these products stood fully apart from one another, with little communication about lessons learned or assessment of strategies.

Forests and Biodiversity Conservation

Recognizing that there might be unrealized opportunities for collaboration between environmental groups and the forestry industry in the Atlantic rainforest region of Brazil—one of the most diverse and threatened areas of the world—TFD convened a series of dialogues from 2003 to 2007 focusing on improving cross-sectoral cooperation for biodiversity conservation in the region.

Forests and Climate

Recent acceptance of the role of forests in combating climate change provides significant opportunity for the forest sector to play an influential role in international climate policy negotiations, both under the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change and its associated Protocols, and in relation to the emerging voluntary market for forest-based carbon offsets.

Forests and Poverty Reduction

By some estimates, over a billion people in developing countries depend on forests for their livelihoods, yet commercial forestry—especially small-scale commercial forestry—has had limited impact on reducing poverty.

Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC)

The phrase ‘free, prior and informed consent,’ and the acronym FPIC, refers to the right of indigenous peoples to give or withhold their free, prior and informed consent to proposed measures that will affect them. FPIC has already emerged as a core theme in several of TFD’s prior dialogue streams.

Genetically Modified Trees (GMT)

The application of biotechnology to commercial plantation forestry—or Intensively Managed Planted Forests (IMPF)—is a controversial topic.

Illegal Logging

Illegal logging in many regions of the world causes social conflict and violence while costing governments billions of dollars in lost tax revenue and harming forest ecosystem health.

Intensively Managed Planted Forests (IMPF)

Plantation forests—even-aged stands of a single tree species established primarily for wood production—are one of the defining features of forestry in the past century.

Investing in Locally Controlled Forestry (ILCF)

Forestland and forest-product enterprises managed by smallholders, community groups, and forest-dependent peoples can make significant contributions to sustainable development. However, the investment required for such enterprises is often lacking or misplaced.

Land and Forest Tenure Reform (LTR)

Land and forest tenure security has been recognized globally as a catalyser for stronger governance, improved livelihoods and increased conservation of natural resources. In the previous decades, governments have gradually recognized local peoples’ rights to forests and land. However, tenure rights remain unclear and with wide gaps across many countries. Uncertain land and forest tenure represent a great risk to sustainable landscape initiatives.

REDD Finance Mechanisms

As the dialogue surrounding REDD implementation evolved, financing this became an important part of the discussion. This dialogue stream identified key fracture lines among stakeholders about REDD finance mechanisms and progressed towards consensus-building and implementation.

REDD Readiness Initiative

A subset of the Forests and Climate issue area, the REDD Readiness series arose as the political process for REDD began to move forward along the UNFCCC path to Copenhagen.

REDD+ Benefit Sharing

TFD continues to focus on climate change by bringing key leaders together to explore REDD+ Benefit Sharing. For REDD+ to be effective, a benefit-distribution system is needed to incentivize stakeholders, in particular the forest-dependent poor, to participate in REDD+. But a range of critical questions remain on the nature of such a system.

Small Forests Owners and Sustainable Forest Practices

Small forest landowners manage millions of hectares of forestland around the world and therefore must be included in efforts to promote sustainable forest management.

Sustainable Wood Energy (SWE)

Using wood as fuel for heating and cooking is one of humankind’s oldest practices. An estimated one-half of the world’s population relies on wood-based biomass in the form of fuelwood and charcoal to meet their daily energy needs. Wood fuel production accounts for more than half of the annual global forest harvest.

Understanding Deforestation-Free (UDF)

Global efforts to combat deforestation in the past few decades have included a push for a binding international forest convention, the creation of voluntary certification schemes, development of sustainable forest management norms, and the emergence of timber legality verification.