The future of tropical forests under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

ABSTRACT

In September 2015, member states of the United Nations unanimously adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—a set of 17 ambitions for the post-2015 global development agenda. The goals do not offer a prescriptive plan but establish levers of policy action that seek to improve the three pillars of sustainable development: society, environment, and the economy. To facilitate achieving the SDGs, it will be critical to identify context-specific opportunities and challenges for implementation. Tropical regions of the world currently host not only the highest levels of biodiversity but also some of the highest rates of urbanization and development globally. Moreover, tropical forest deforestation is a globally significant issue; it has adverse impacts on biodiversity, climate systems, and socioeconomic equality. Here, we provide a rapid overview and qualitative assessment of the academic and policy literature on development and tropical forests, using the framework of the SDGs to examine issues broadly relevant to both tropical forests and sustainable development. Our assessment gathers existing knowledge and reveals critical knowledge gaps. In doing so, we identify key synergies between SDGs and tropical forests. We also suggest potential pathways of influence to improve social, environmental, and economic conditions in these rapidly developing regions of the world.

KEYWORDS:

• Forest communities
• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• Agenda 2030
• sustainable forest management
• planetary health
• global environmental policy
• tropics

Acknowledgments

This article and special issue are products of the Yale International Society for Tropical Forester’s 2016 Conference—Tropical forests for sustainable development: Shaping our post-2015 future with knowledge from the field. We acknowledge and thank all conference organizers, presenters, participants, and supporters. We thank the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Tropical Resources Institute, the Cullman Program, the Global Institute for Sustainable Forestry, the Center for African Studies, the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies, the Council for Southeast Asian Studies, and the Center for Business and Environment at Yale. The views expressed in this article represent those of the authors, and not necessarily the above-listed organizations.

Supplemental Material

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