Climate change is expected to have profound and varied impacts on forest ecosystems and their dependent human communities. Applied research and testing mechanisms are needed to better anticipate and understand these changes and to help communities develop adaptation approaches.

The IMFN is ideally positioned to be that mechanism. In fact, the IMFN is the only international network, other than UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Program, which offers a series of landscape-level sites that are transnational and global dedicated to sustainable forests and communities. The IMFN offers a series of landscape-level sites that are transnational and global, as well as being dedicated to knowledge generation and sharing.

By promoting a multi-stakeholder approach to climate change, Model Forests:

• Serve as platforms for monitoring, research and testing responses to changing conditions in forest-based ecosystems
• Allow for the consideration of competing community interests and priorities (economic, social and environmental) in climate change initiatives
• Facilitate the free flow of information between policy makers, communities, practitioners and researchers
• Promote transnational dialogue and collaboration
• Provide a framework for the application of global instruments designed to mitigate climate change, including the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

Please go to the Activities Database to see the Model Forests working on this theme.