Agriculture Rural Development and Forestry

All natural resources such as forests are subject to disturbances and damage.

The study offers a comprehensive overview of forests and the forest sector within the boreal biome and delves into the importance of boreal forests in environmental social and economic contexts. The study is based on a thorough review of existing literature and data on boreal forests and country-specific national overviews prepared for this project by six UNECE countries with boreal forests. Despite their importance boreal forests receive less attention than tropical forests. The study addresses this gap examining their characteristics management practices and challenges.

The ecosystem services framework while not widely applied to boreal forestry offers a valuable approach to highlight the diverse global and local benefits of boreal forests.

The study found that despite the importance of the boreal biome there are important gaps in knowledge about the biome’s forests their role in sustainable development and their future.

The study offers a comprehensive overview of forests and the forest sector within the boreal biome and delves into the importance of boreal forests in environmental social and economic contexts.

The Global Assessment Report (GAR) 2025: Resilience Pays: Financing and Investing for our Future highlights how smarter investment can reset the destructive cycle of disasters debt uninsurability and humanitarian need that threatens a climate-changed world. Disaster risk is increasing as more frequent and intense hazard events unsafe urbanization and ineffective development put more people and assets in harm’s way. Disasters are having profound macroeconomic impacts with direct losses estimated at $202 billion. When indirect and ecosystem costs are taken into account escalating disaster costs now surpass $2.3 trillion annually. There is an urgent need to transform how disaster risk is addressed amid a rapidly changing climate. Risk is no longer a peripheral issue but a systemic challenge that affects financial stability sustainability and equity. By embedding risk reduction into core policy and investment decisions it is possible to break the recurring cycle of shocks losses and debt. With the right choices resilience can become a foundation for long-term prosperity enabling societies not only to withstand disasters but to thrive despite them.

Building resilience is increasingly recognized not just as a humanitarian or environmental imperative but as a fundamental pillar of sustainable economic development.

There is a stark mismatch between the increasing levels of global disaster risk detailed in previous chapters of this report and current investment in resilience.