Forests, Forest People, and UN 2030 Agenda’s Ethical Mandate: “LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND”

Abstract

The contributions of the forest, trees outside forests, and agroforestry sector (FTA) are crucial for achieving the United Nation’s (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development fairly and inclusively. This paper reviews FTA sector contributions to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Agenda—both individually and collectively—in the specific context of the development and well-being of the more isolated Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs) that are part of the explicit “leave no one behind” commitment expressed in the Agenda. The discussion is divided into four parts. Part One lays out the paper’s objectives, scope, and background. Part Two discusses how the FTA sector, working with and through other sectors, contributes to achieving the interconnected SDGs. It provides evidence of the breadth and strength of the FTA sector’s contributions across the SDGs to sustainable development. Part Three focuses on the prerequisites for strengthening the ability of IPLCs to sustainably use their forests to meet their livelihood needs and support their own sustainable development goals and approaches. Part Four provides conclusions and implications for the way forward in the context of achieving UN Agenda 2030.

Exploring Cross-Sectoral Implications of the Sustainable Development Goals: Towards a Framework for Integrating Health Equity Perspectives With the Land-Water-Energy Nexus

“…The contextual boundary is a watershed, which is considered a resource nexus hotspot where interaction dynamics around the use of land, water and energy resources for production and consumption are very tangible. In a watershed context, numerous factors are implicated in driving the dynamics ( Figure 2 ) around the use of land, water and energy resources for production and consumption [ 63 ]. These drivers, shown in Figure 2 , can be as direct as increased demands for food, water, and energy or as indirect as climate change, increasing human population, urbanization, globalization and human civilization.…”

“…Resource insecurities disproportionately impact rural and remote communities and impinge on Indigenous Peoples’ self-determining goals, socio-environmental values that connect land to health, and ways of knowing and being. In relation to the gaps grouped under decolonial perspectives and place-based contexts in Figure 4 , our analysis has highlighted ways in which literature focused on nexus approaches have not tended to be inclusive of theoretical perspectives grounded in decolonial scholarship [ 57 , 60 , 63 ], local and place-based approaches, and Indigenizing ideas [ 30 , 57 , 60 , 63 , 64 ]. Addressing these gaps and engaging meaningfully with these literatures could enhance options for the SDG’s to provide a basis from which to encourage effective cross-sectoral engagement, bridge epistemological divides and address the strengths and limitations of different knowledge domains and approaches [ 61 , 64 ].…”

“…Hence, nexus actors are compelled to make an increasing number of trade-off decisions that produce health externalities and present communities with conflicts that impact health outcomes. A few studies [ 27 , 57 , 58 , 60 , 63 , 72 ] traced these health conflicts to resource insecurity challenges with concerns about disproportionate environmental burdens and the uneven distribution of health risks and environmental exposures in social groups (humans and biodiversity) with pre-existing vulnerabilities. Some studies [ 57 , 60 , 69 , 75 ] employed an environmental justice lens to analyze socio-environmental conflicts emanating from trade-off interactions among land, water, energy resources and explored gendered and intersectional implications of resource use among social groups.…”

“…This emphasis may also enhance the emergence of community-based application of the SDGs focused on this nexus [ 27 , 57 , 58 , 60 , 68 , 72 , 75 ], with the potential to inform decisions around land, water, and energy insecurities as well as how these underlie the social and ecological determinants of health inequities. The land, water, energy nexus can also be applied to analyze specific resource issues such as forestry [ 63 ], hydropower [ 67 ], and desalination [ 83 ], with an emphasis on understanding impacts on health outcomes, such as the distribution of the impacts of socio-ecological determinants of health. If future research is to be effective in supporting greater equity and sustainability within nexus systems of land, water, and energy [ 66 , 75 ], the scale and geography of the nexus will be important to consider along with the socio-political nuances and particular socio-ecological dimensions contouring these settings [ 57 , 84 ].…”

“…There is a wealth of overlapping literature [ 30 , 61 , 63 , 64 , 66 , 74 , 83 ] on how prioritizing a focus on the nexus of land, water and energy systems can accelerate progress in meeting the SDGs. The water-energy-land nexus offers a potential tool for centering health across scales and contexts, in keeping with the WHO’s Shanghai’s Declaration on leveraging interactions to promote health in the SDGs [ 1 , 3 ].…”