Our decreasing forest landscapes are under huge pressure to deliver local and global needs, from a village’s food and firewood to mitigating climate change. With demand unlikely to fall, the key issue is how we extract what we need.
Forest business incubation is a support process that accelerates the successful development of sustainable businesses in forest landscapes. There is much to develop. The aggregate gross annual value from smallholder producers within forest landscapes may be as much as US$1.3 trillion.
Although forest covers 40 per cent of Nepal, the forestry sector’s potential to generate huge employment opportunities is largely untapped. Private sector involvement and investment could create 1.38 million work days a year.
Increasing agricultural productivity can have ambiguous effects on forest protection in theory: it can expand the scope of farming, which is detrimental to the forest, but it can also induce farmers to intensify their production.
Financing forest-related enterprises in ways that reduce both deforestation and poverty is critical to climate action and sustainable development.