The annual Yale International Society of Tropical Foresters (ISTF) Conference took place at the Yale School of the Environment from February 2 to February 4, 2023, with a focus on Envisioning the future of tropical forests: the roles of feedback, interconnectedness, and adaptation.

Dedicated to the advancement of tropical forest studies at the Yale School of the Environment, the ISTF conference has been hosted at Yale for 28 years and addresses a range of socio-ecological issues across the tropics. The AFR100 Secretariat panel presented a brief overview of the initiative, its Land Accelerator Africa program, and its small-scale farmer intervention within the African tropics and beyond.

"A colossal amount of human energy is being deployed to overcome the obstacles of land and forest degradation, with the ultimate goal of achieving sustainable development for Africa. The main result has been the generation of an ambitious agenda to scale up landscape initiatives, by integrating policies and services required from land, biodiversity, water, and other resources, while addressing critical issues such as climate change, land degradation, poverty, and resource scarcity…"AFR100 can also deliver substantial global public goods, sequestering up to 5.9 billion tons of CO2e by 2040" said Mamadou Diakhite, Acting-Head Environment & Sustainability at AUDA-NEPAD.

ISTF 2023 functioned as a space for academics, practitioners, policymakers, community leaders, artists, journalists, and activists from across the globe to share insights on the power of feedback, the role of interconnectedness within and across sectors, and how communities can adapt to the myriad changes in tropical forests. The conference wove together ecological, social, and economic perspectives on our current understanding of how tropical forest landscapes are changing now as well as how they may change in the future.

Ultimately, in bringing the AFR100 Secretariat together with all players from around the world, the ISTF team highlighted the value of better understanding the synergies between entities working toward the same goal of restoring and protecting forests globally.

In concluding its North American mission the AFR100 Secretariat team met with representatives of Terraformation, One Tree Planted, and Syracuse University about novel ways to reduce risk and increase returns in forest carbon credit investments. The secretariat will also participate in the Forest Fest 2023 in Colorado, USA.