An online meeting of the UNECE/FAO Team of Specialists (ToS) on Boreal Forests was held on 23 June 2021. The meeting was attended by more than 20 representatives of boreal countries (the Russian Federation, the USA, Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden) and international organizations. The Deputy Executive Secretary of the UNECE, Dmitry Mariysin, and the Chair of the Joint ECE/FAO Forestry and Timber Section, Liliana Annovazzi-Jakab, welcomed the participants of the working group. In their speeches, they noted the high contribution of ToS on Boreal Forests to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, stressed the important role of boreal forests in the world under climate change and wished the participants fruitful work.

During the meeting, Mr. Darren Sleep, the ToS Chair, and the participants discussed the work plan for 2021-2022. The meeting focused on forest and climate initiatives, forest fires in high latitudes, and the IBFRA Insight Process (Sustainable boreal forest management – challenges and opportunities for climate change mitigation). In addition, the participants of the meeting considered the structure of the prepared communication note on the definition of boreal forests and on the relationships between boreal forests and climate.

The delegation of the Federal Forestry Agency took part in third meeting of the UNECE/FAO ToS on Boreal Forests, including representatives of the Northern Research Institute of Forestry (SevNIIILH) such as Aleksey Ilintsev, Candidate of Agricultural Sciences, Senior Researcher, and Fedor Druzhinin, Doctor of Agricultural Sciences, Chief Researcher.

Additional information regarding the work of the UNECE/FAO ToS on Boreal Forests can be found here: www.unece.org/forests/boreal-tos

The meeting participants also noted the planned key international events in 2021-2022, which will be attended by members of the UNECE/FAO ToS on Boreal Forests:

1. IBFRA International Conference «Changing Boreal Biome: Assessing the vulnerability and resilience of boreal ecosystems to climate change, and their socio-economic implications». The conference will be held on August 16-20, 2021 in Fairbanks, Alaska, USA (https://sites.google.com/alaska.edu/ibfra2021/home-page);
2.  International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) Regional Conference «Sustaining the Forests of Russia and Eurasia: Management, Innovation, Conservation and Restoration». The conference will be held on September 23-25, 2022, in Moscow, Russia (https://mf.bmstu.ru/info/science/conf/2022/iufro/).