Oct 24, 2009, 15:11 GMT
Buenos Aires -The 13th World Forestry Congress in Buenos Aires ended on Friday with a call for 'urgent action' to protect forests, ahead of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December.
Forests are the most important tool to sequester carbon dioxide, attendees at the congress stressed at the end of five days of talks. For this reason, they noted, forest should play a key role when world leaders meet in Copenhagen to hammer out an international agreement to fight climate change.
As a concrete proposal, they stressed the so-called REDD mechanism. Under REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Developing Countries) rich industrial nations that give off huge quantities of carbon dioxide would compensate poorer nations so that they do not cut down forests and thus release into the atmosphere the carbon dioxide that is otherwise stored in biomass.
The congress underlined the importance of sustainable forest management as an effective framework to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
For more successful management, experts asked that more power be granted to indigenous communities who live and depend on forest resources.
Since Sunday, more than 7,200 experts took part in the congress - which was organized by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) - to discuss social, environmental and economic aspects related to forests.
The World Forestry Congress has been held every six years since 1926.
Your Talkback on this Story