1,000 Days of Action

The UN Calls for Accelerated Action with 1,000 Days to Go on Millennium Development Goals. The United Nations and its partners around the world will observe the 1,000 days to the end of 2015 - the target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - during the next week to inspire further action.

 April 2013 MDG Momentum:

"In respect to MDG 7 on environmental sustainability, there has been considerable progress in respect to the provision of water and the extension of National Parks and other protected areas on land and, to an extent, at sea," he added.

"But the broader challenges of putting the environment and its natural or nature-based assets at the heart of sustainable development and the lives and livelihoods of over seven billion people remain a real work in progress. The Rio+20 Summit of 2012 has laid out some new and inspiring pathways for achieving this, including the opportunities from a transition towards a Green Economy,” said Mr Steiner.

“The post 2015 development agenda affords a further opportunity to deliver goals based on broader notions of wealth-from the planet’s freshwaters to its forests, soils and atmosphere-and the urgency to decouple economic growth from pollution footprints and over-exploitation of humanity’s finite natural resources," he added.

Starting 5 April, the actual milestone date, and running through 12 April, the UN will work with governments, civil society and international partners to mark “MDG Momentum: 1,000 Days of Action” in a variety of ways.

Forests and the MDGs

Help us achieve Goal 7 to ensure environmental sustainability: Attaining development goals means that policymakers and civil-society groups need to access information and analysis on the numerous interconnections among environmental resources, human well-being, and economic expansion. 

Kenyans—like all people on Earth—depend on nature to sustain their lives and livelihoods. Not only do they obtain the basic goods needed for survival, such as water, food, and fiber, they also rely on nature to purify air and water, produce healthy soils, cycle nutrients, and regulate climate. Collectively, these benefits derived from nature’s systems are known as ecosystem services. They fuel the Kenyan economy and, if wisely used and invested, build the nation’s wealth. For more see here...

Goal 7 -Ensure Environmental Sustainability

This one often seems to be sidelined, but it actually underpins all the other MDGs. Managing natural resources in a sustainable way, and minimising negative impacts on ecosystems, is central to keeping people and their environment healthy. Good forest management is central to achieveing all of the other MDGs.

Just Forests work seeks to contribute to the achievement of Goal 7 -Ensure Environmental

Sustainability, of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This includes the targets to reduce biodiversity loss, slow deforestation and contain rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The programme has also been conceived against a backdrop of some 20 + years of Just Forests activities, including 18 years of the ‘Wood of Life’ exhibition and programme and the demonstrated interest and engagement of schools, teachers, students, the general public, and in more recent times, professional bodies and politicians in the issues and the exhibition.

The programme also ensures that our development education initiatives raise public awareness and understanding amongst our target groups of the underlying causes of global poverty and inequality and Ireland’s role in tackling these issues.

TARGETS
1. Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
2. Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
3. Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
4. Achieve, by 2020, a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

Quick Facts

* Some 1.7 billion people have gained access to safe drinking water since 1990. Yet almost 1billion people worldwide still do not have access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation services, such as toilets or latrines.

* The world has missed the 2010 target for biodiversity conservation. Based on current trends, the loss of species will continue throughout this century.

* Slum improvements are failing to keep pace with the growing number of urban poor. The absolute number of slum dwellers keeps rising, with some 828 million people living in slums today, even though the share of the urban population living in slums is declining.

More on: 

MDG ADVOCACY GROUP and

Millennium Development Goals and

The World We Want -2015 and

ACT Now on 2015 and 

MDG Momentum - 1000 Days To Go and

UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and

Stand UP-Take ACTION

Lest We Forget the hundreds who have already died defending our forests

This is an excellent publication on the central role of good forest management to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by ETFRN.

	MDGs Forests.pdf (1 MB)
March 2012 - UNEP Global Environmental Alert Service (GEAS)
	TheNeedforNumbersGoals,TargetsandIndicatorsfortheEnvironment.pdf (232.54 KB)