The World Bank/WWF alliance for Forest Conservation

The World Bank/WWF Alliance for Forest Conservation and Sustainable Use came in response to a crisis - the continued depletion of the world's forest biodiversity, loss of forest-based goods and services essential for sustainable development, and the resulting severe impacts on livelihoods of the rural poor.

The Alliance has been working with governments, the private sector and civil society to reduce significantly the loss and degradation of all forest types worldwide by promoting forest conservation and internationally recognised best practice in forest management.

By the year 2005, the Alliance aims to secure: 50 million hectares of new forest protected areas; 50 million hectares of existing, but highly threatened, forest protected areas under effective management; and 200 million hectares of the world's production forests under independently certified sustainable management.

In pursuit of its targets for protected areas, the Alliance has helped bring about approximately 45 million hectares of new protected areas so far, and its partners are supporting incremental improvements in protected area management covering nearly 122 million hectares.

In Vietnam, the Alliance helped mobilise more than $ 1 million private sector investment from the Tropical Forest Fund, an association of furniture buyers committed to sustainable forestry. In Georgia (eastern Europe), the WWF/World Bank collaboration catalysed action that led to the passage of a new forestry code that should halt the devastation of that country's forests.

In the Lao People's Democratic Republic, villagers were assisted in sustaining the largest natural forest in Asia under active community management; and in Brazil, the government committed to protect 50 million hectares of Amazon rain forest.

A new study - 'Running Pure' - released by the Alliance on September 1, 2003, found that protecting forest areas provides a cost-free means of supplying many of the world's biggest cities with high quality drinking water, providing significant health and economic benefits to urban populations. More than a third of the world's 105 biggest cities including New York, Tokyo, Mumbai, Barcelona, Nairobi, Jakarta, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles and Melbourne, rely on fully or partly protected forests in catchment areas for much of their drinking water.

The Alliance is making a difference in a wide range of forest types in more than 22 countries worldwide, and is continuing to form partnerships with other NGOs and governments to make their global vision for the world's forests become a reality.

It has drawn effectively on the combined attributes of its partner organisations - the WWF's global network of independent national organisations and programme field offices linking it with other NGOs at every level, and the World Bank's economic and policy influence on the donor community and private sector.