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 Welcome to the APFNet-UBC Americas Office 

 

The APFNet-UBC Americas Office was established in 2012 through the support of the Asia-Pacific Network for Sustainable Forest Management (APFNet) and the University of British Columbia (UBC). The Americas Office functions to facilitate cooperation between APFNet and the economies of the Eastern Pacific (North, Central, and South America) to enhance better forest management, protection, and rehabilitation in the region. To achieve this, the Americas Office works to identify opportunities to strengthen capacity building, enhance information sharing, promote policy dialogues, and support demonstration projects.

 

Vision and Mission

The Americas Office’s strategic plan embodies our focus on the future of forests, providing regional communities with support in the following ways:

  1. Identify key experts and officials engaged in effective forest and forest rehabilitation research efforts
  2. Establish a network to facilitate communication sharing between the Office and these identified partners
  3. Consult with this network to identify key areas in research and policy that would benefit from the Office’s Support
  4. Identify and support specific projects in these areas that will have the greatest impact on mitigating deforestation and forest degradation
  5. Continue to act in a supporting role until the completion of the proposed activity and/or project

 

Objectives and Key Priorities

In line with the Strategic Plan of APFNet, the key mission of this initiative is to establish an APFNet Americas Office at UBC to advance the efforts of the economies and people of North America, Latin America, and Oceania in promoting and improving sustainable forest management and rehabilitation.

 

Specific objectives of the Office are to:

  • Implement APFNet’s Strategic Plan in North America, Latin America and Oceania;
  • Develop a coordination mechanism to bridge the connections between APFNet and economies in the Americas and Oceania region;
  • Strengthen collaborations and forestry-related information sharing between economies in the Americas, Oceania and Asia;
  • Increase publicity of APFNet in the Americas region.

 

Based on APFNet’s Strategic Plan, the Office will pursue achievements in the following key areas

  • Contribute to countries’ objectives of increasing forest cover in the region by at least 20 million hectares by 2020;
  • Help to enhance the forest carbon stocks and improve forest quality and productivity by promoting the rehabilitation of degraded forests, as well as the reforestation and afforestation of suitable cleared lands in the region
  • Help to reduce forest loss and degradation, and associated greenhouse gas emissions, by strengthening sustainable forest management and enhancing biodiversity conservation; and
  • Help to increase the socio-economic benefits of forests in the region