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Glasgow COP26: Modeling forest conservation through sustainable procurement
Partner Forest Events at COP26:
Working with the City of Glasgow, the Partner Forest Program brought a two-week exhibition on the critical role of cities in reducing tropical deforestation to COP26. The key components of the exhibition, the Partner Forest Coffee Truck, Pavilion, and Boardwalk, became venues for visitors to touch, taste, and learn about forest-positive food and timber products and the communities on the frontlines of conservation that produce them. Complementary programming included talks, conference facilitation, and hands-on demonstrations of the creative possibilities of sustainable wood for cities.
Partner Forest Coffee Truck + Pavilion
The Partner Forest Coffee Truck served delicious food and drinks made from products of communities on the front lines of tropical forest conservation. Featured forest-positive products included shade coffee from Intag Valley, Ecuador, agroforestry and wild cocoa from La Moskitia, Honduras, organic vanilla from the Albertine Rift, Uganda, Maya nuts from Central Mexico, Amazon nuts from the Tambopata Reserve, Peru, and more. In the adjacent Pavilion, representatives of these community enterprises spoke to visitors in person and virtually to discuss the products of their forest regions and how everyday choices made in cities are impacting tropical forests.
Partner Forest Boardwalk
The Boardwalk featured wood sourced from the Carmelita, AFISAP, and CUSTOSEL community concessions in Petén, Guatemala, and the Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development in Guyana. Both sources are top examples of community-managed forests that conserve vast areas of tropical forests. The Boardwalk connected COP26 site pavilions including the Coffee Truck. It also served as a pilot for Glasgow’s long-term development of Partner Forest partnerships. Visit the Partner Forest Boardwalk page.
“From Forest Floor to Built Environment” at Wood for Good
The Wood for Good conference presented by the UK timber industry celebrated timber in construction and explored how it is growing in use as a low-carbon construction material of the future. Alongside others developing opportunities for wood, Scott Francisco spoke about the urgent need for cities to ensure that the wood they use is sustainably sourced and how they can start to do so with the Sustainable Wood for Cities platform. Watch the talk.
Conservation timber in the SNRG House
The Partner Forest Program collaborated with Built Environment–Smart Transformation (formerly the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre) to showcase the potential for tropical conservation timber to be used in sustainable homes of the future. Visitors were invited to walk through SNRG House, the first Scotland-grown mass timber home, which was outfitted with a deck built from greenheart sourced from the Partner Forest of Iwokrama, Guyana. Even if a small percentage of new housing construction would use conservation timber for decking, island countertops, and the like, the opportunity to support tropical forest conservation and help curb carbon emissions in the built environment would be significant.
“Nature-based Solutions for Climate-positive Cities” at the Glasgow City Council Chambers
In this event hosted by Glasgow City Council in partnership with Cities4Forests, Dark Matter Labs and ICLEI, representatives of Glasgow and other cities presented their efforts to incorporate nature-based solutions into ambitious climate action plans. The event engaged mayors and other stakeholders in a conversation about the multi-dimensional benefits to cities of inner, nearby, and faraway forests. Watch the recording here.
Wood at Work 2021 Conference
Wood at Work 2021 provided an intimate venue for COP26 attendees to hear from a wide range of global innovators linking the use of wood with urbanization, architecture, climate change, forestry, and forest conservation. The event hosted a series of short presentations from the far corners of wood innovation discourse. In keeping with the Wood at Work tradition, it included a roundtable on the latest thinking on the global potential of wood for low-carbon construction and improved forest stewardship.
Wood-Mizer Urban Wood Salvage Demonstration
The Partner Forest Program partnered with Wood-Mizer and Glasgow-based master craftsman and urban wood expert Paul Hodgkiss to give on-site demonstrations of how city trees can be salvaged and put to use for new projects. The portable Wood-Mizer sawmill easily allows small-scale operators to transform wood into useful lumber. Watch our post-event video with clips of Paul at work. Learn more about Paul’s work and the inspiring possibilities of urban wood in his talk for London Climate Week 2021.
Exploring urban design with Bosques Asociados
In this virtual session, students in the Bosques Asociados (Partner Forest) educational program at the University of Buenos Aires presented their design proposals for connecting the needs of the metropolis with the conservation needs of tropical forests in Argentina. Bosques Asociados is led by architect Elizabeth Vergara from the School of Architecture and Urbanism. Watch a recording of the session below, and learn more about the Buenos Aires Partner Forest here.
