The Conference opened on Thursday morning, 6 October, with a brief plenary to outline the procedures and vision for the morning's work. The four working groups labored during the morning until a 11:30 AM plenary convened by Co-chair Manfred Konukiewitz to hear the four rapporteurs report on the final outputs of their working groups.

The Working Group on Forest Valuation and Financing presented conclusions and recommendations that primarily focused on guidance for improved implementation of existing tools and instruments to better access financing and build capacity. The Group also directed their recommendations for building awareness and communication to effectively engage other sectors as well as the entire stakeholder community.

The Working Group on Institutions, Governance and Stakeholders recommended, inter alia, approaching forest policy more holistically, improving inter-agency coordination and planning, intensifying the work of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, and creating enabling conditions and capacity to expand access to information, communications and telecommunications technology and geospatial technology services to rural and underserved areas.

The Working Group on Benefiting People stressed the need to not only focus on rural forest stakeholders in developing countries, but also those in developed countries, when discussing forests in a green economy. They also noted that while decentralization is often discussed, systems are still not fully decentralized to the point where local people and organizations are receiving benefits from resources.

The Working Group on Technology Transfer, Capacity Building, Bio-based Products and the Role of the Private Sector suggested that while there are enormous social and market opportunities that can incentivize the development of the forest sector and trigger multiple benefits, these incentives need to be “activated” by coherent policies at all levels and public-private partnerships (PPP) within the forest sector, and just as important, PPPs across forest-related sectors.

Co-chair Everton Vargas thanked the Working Groups for their hard work and noted that additional inputs could be accommodated by the drafting group for the Chair's report. Chief facilitator Alexander Buck, International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), explained the drafting group composed of Conference facilitators, rapporteurs and organizers would work while the rest of the participants went on a boat trip on the Rhine. Vargas urged the drafters "not to be shy, be ambitious, but also realistic."