News

27 May 2021

The Intergovernmental Technical Working Group on Forest Genetic Resources gathered virtually for its sixth session on 13–15 April 2021 to discuss, among other topics, the preparation of The Second Report on the State of the World’s Forest Genetic Resources. The Working Group is a subsidiary body of the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA), with its Secretariat hosted by the FAO Forestry Division.

The preparatory process of the second global assessment started in June 2019, when FAO invited countries to update their nomination for a National Focal Point on forest genetic resources. Countries were also invited to submit a country report by June 2020, completing an online questionnaire of data on the management of forest genetic resources and a written report providing complementary information. The questionnaire is based on the targets, indicators and verifiers adopted by the CGRFA in 2017 for monitoring the implementation of the Global Plan of Action on forest genetic resources. FAO also invited regional networks on forest genetic resources and relevant international organizations to submit reports on their contributions to the implementation of the Global Plan of Action.

As of April 2021, more than 100 countries had nominated their National Focal Points[1] and 12 countries (Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Sweden, Ukraine and Switzerland) had submitted their full country report to FAO. In addition, more than 40 countries have completed the questionnaire and are now finalizing their written report. Despite the continuing pandemic, other countries have also made progress in compiling the requested data and information.

The Working Group stressed the urgency of finalizing the second global assessment and urged countries, regional networks and international organizations that had not yet done so to submit their reports to FAO by 31 October 2021. FAO is continuing to screen the country reports it has received for possible data-entry errors and inconsistencies, in consultation with the National Focal Points. Four expert meetings are also planned for 2021 to gather additional information on forest genetic resources from the scientific community to prepare the global report.

After October 2021, FAO will finalize the analyses of the country reports and prepare a first draft of the second global assessment for review by the Working Group at its next session, which will be held in 2022. An updated draft of the report will then be presented to the CGRFA at its Nineteenth Regular Session in 2023.

The Working Group also discussed the implementation of the Global Plan of Action, the progress made in developing a new global information system on forest genetic resources and several cross-cutting topics. The report and the other documents of the session are available here: http://www.fao.org/forest-genetic-resources/working-group/intergovernmental-technical-working-group-on-forest-genetic-resources/detail/en/c/1256834/

Legend for the photo: FAO headquarters in Rome. Credit: FAO/Roberto Cenciarelli

This article was prepared by Jarkko Koskela, Forestry Officer at FAO. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

[1] http://www.fao.org/forest-genetic-resources/background/national-focal-points/en/