A rural dwelling, with tropical forests in the background, in the Mache-Chindul Ecological Reserve, Ecuador, where ITTO Project RED-SPD 055/11 Rev.3 (F) was implemented with the aim of improving the livelihoods of local communities there. Photo: Amy E. Rogers
Just before this edition of the Tropical Forest Update went to print, a historic agreement on climate change was struck in France, and forests are now at the very top of the global environmental agenda. In the Paris Agreement, almost all the countries of the world agree to hold the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.