As the premium economic forum in the Asia-Pacific, APEC has put forests issues on its agenda. The First APEC Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Forestry will be held in Beijing, China from Sep, 6-8, 2011.

Asia-Pacific, the most dynamic and promising region, is experiencing huge social-economic changes that profoundly impact all aspects of regional development, including forestry.

It has been increasingly realized that a sound management of forests and good implementation of forest policies are indeed beneficiary to the populated region in terms of forest cover expansion, poverty alleviation, livelihood improvement, and at the same time an effective mitigation and adaptation of global climate change.

APEC has put forests issues on its agenda, and adopted the Sydney Declaration and Action Plan in 2007, to work to achieve an APEC-wide aspirational goal of increasing forest cover in the region by at least 20 million hectares of all types of forests by 2020.