Forest Partnership for Action and Commitment Today The Response

During the first week of March 2000, thirty people from governments, companies, community-based organizations, non-governmental groups, indigenous peoples' organizations, and multilateral institutions gathered to discuss the urgent need for a new proactive approach to forest conservation and sustainable forest management.

Such an approach would emphasize and build on effective action on the ground, and mobilize the full range of stakeholders from the local to the global level. They agreed to develop ForestPACT, an initiative that will encourage and reward leadership, promoting a "culture of success".

ForestPACT builds on the broad agreement that has already been reached at the intergovernmental level and on the many positive local actions to find solutions to the loss and degradation of the world's forests. ForestPACT will strengthen and enhance these initiatives by identifying and promoting what needs to be done and by giving credit to those who can do it. It will build on and support laws and policies by delivering action on the ground through a holistic, multi-stakeholder approach.

Please contact us for more information and to get involved in this initiative: ForestPACT Interim Secretariat c/o IUCN Forest Conservation Programme and WWF Forests for Life Programme, Rue Mauverney 28, CH1196, Gland, Switzerland / Tel. ++41 22 999 0263 / Fax ++41 22 999 0025 / Email forestpact@forestpact.org