UN-REDD Programme Newsletter May 2012

In one month's time, political leaders and experts from across the globe will gather in Rio de Janeiro to re-energize a conversation about sustainable development that was at the heart of the first "Earth Summit" exactly 20 years ago in that very city. It is hoped that the Rio+20 Earth Summit will produce a political agreement on how to achieve meaningful sustainable development moving forward. Below is an excerpt from the soon-to-be-released editorial I recently wrote for the Rio+20 edition of Climate Change The New Economy magazine. In this article, I lay out some of the reasons why leaders and experts at Rio+20 must keep forests, and strategies such as REDD+, central in their discussions and future action plans for sustainable development.