FLARE (Forests & Livelihoods: Assessment, Research, and Engagement) is conducting a global “Horizon Scanning” exercise with policy makers, practitioners, and academics to collaboratively identify critical emerging themes linked to forest conservation and human well-being within the context of the post-2015 development agenda.
The SDGs herald a new era for international development and cooperation. Forests and the environmental services that they create and protect will play a central role in emerging national and international sustainability agendas. It is hence a critical time to reflect on how future sustainability agendas are likely to influence the relationship between forests and the people that depend on them (both directly and indirectly).
Horizon scanning is commonly used in policy circles to identify emerging themes and opportunities to devise resilient policies and preemptive mitigation strategies. In research contexts, horizon scanning allows research to be conducted with sufficient time to develop practical responses to emerging issues (Sutherland et al. 2009). As such, horizon scanning is a forecasting tool: rather than highlighting current knowledge gaps, our aim is to identify what the next big themes will be.
Submit your identified critical emerging themes
- We kindly ask you to submit 2-5 themes related to forests and wellbeing for consideration.
- For each theme, please provide a short description and justification of the problem (3-5 sentences but no more than 200 words). Why is it especially relevant and/or urgent?
- Please identify under which of the 17 SDGs your submitted themes fall. If none apply for your particular issue, please suggest a new theme by selecting the option ‘other’.
- We encourage you to involve colleagues when formulating these emerging themes – especially those from sectors or geographies outside your own (e.g., through a meeting or email discussion with regional offices or field teams). Please keep and submit a record of how many people were involved in this process, the countries in which they are currently located, their nationalities, and their regional expertise (For example, you might consult with a German colleague, currently based in Argentina who has experience of working in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil).
Criteria for submitted issues
We are specifically looking for new themes that the SDGs agenda will bring to the forefront, or critical issues that are relevant to the SDGs but for which existing knowledge is insufficient. To be included in the consultation, themes must adhere to the following criteria:
- Must be related to forests and wellbeing.
- Must be formulated as a general theme (not as a question).
- Must be of a spatial and temporal scope that could reasonably be addressed through a realistic research design.
Submission deadline is July 31, 2016. Please submit through this online weblink