FAO makes Embrapa Florestas the world's first Reference Center for Planted Forests

2 October 2026

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has designated Embrapa Florestas a Reference Center for Planted Forests, the first such FAO centre for planted forests anywhere in the world. Rome carried the announcement: it was made at FAO headquarters while the 28th Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry was sitting alongside the 10th World Forest Week. Embrapa Florestas is the forestry arm of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Company, Embrapa. Reference Centres work with FAO by sharing knowledge, technical advice, data, research, training and technology transfer with the organisation and its member states. Embrapa Florestas is expected to work on productive, resilient and low-carbon planted forests built into farming systems. Its listed fields include silviculture and sustainable forest management, genetic improvement, forest health and biological pest control, carbon metrics and the forest bioeconomy. FAO's 2025 data put planted forests at about 304 million hectares worldwide, 157 million of them intensive plantations. Embrapa President Silvia Massruha called the designation a seal of excellence built on nearly 50 years of forestry research.