Produced by the World Rainforest Movement
Directed by Flavio Pazos
The United Nations declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests
You may have already heard that the livelihoods of over 1.6 billion people depend on forests, that forests are home to 80% of our terrestrial biodiversity, that forests play a very important role in the maintenance of our atmosphere. That forests are disappearing. But what is a forest?
The United Nation's FAO defines a forest as:
"Land with tree crown cover of more than 10 percent and area of more than 0.5 hectares. The trees should be able to reach a minimum height of 5 meters at maturity in situ."
In other words, just a lot of trees. This definition is followed by the United Nations system, governments and corporations. Do the communities that live with the forests share this vision? This video gathers some testimonies on what the forest mean to them
For the communities living with the forests, forests are much more than just a lot of trees. But following FAO's definition, governments and corporations are replacing forests with monoculture tree plantations, destroying forests and destroying the livelihoods of the communities that live with the forests.
Join the campaign to define forests by its true meaning!
http://www.wrm.org.uy/forests.html