THE FIRST REGIONAL FORUM FOR PEOPLE AND FORESTS
Carbon Financing and Community Forestry (18-20 August)

Hanoi - Local communities could hold the key to forest-related climate change efforts in Asia-Pacific, a regional forum concluded this morning.

Carbon markets, enabling developed countries to offset carbon emissions by paying for the protection of forests, may offer a new possibility to slow or even reverse forest destruction.

However, Dr Yam Malla, Executive Director of RECOFTC – the Center for People and Forests, warned that failure to engage forest-dependent people in carbon-financing schemes would lead to negative economic and social impacts, and ultimately threaten the success of climate change efforts.

“More than 450 million poor people live in and around forests in our region. They have the human resources to help forest-carbon financing succeed, but we must also understand their needs. If we fail to reward them fairly, there’s a real risk that efforts to mitigate climate change through forestry will fail.”

With some 20 percent of global greenhouse emissions estimated to come from forests being cleared or degraded, addressing forest destruction is viewed as one of the most practical and effective tactics in the battle against climate change.

But this won’t be easy. Over the past two decades, hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in sustainable forest management but has so far met with only limited success. Nearly two million hectares of natural forests in the Asia-Pacific, which absorb large amounts of carbon, are still disappearing each year.

“We need new and bold measures to ensure that forests and sustainable forest management become key elements of the solution,” said Mr. Andrew Speedy, FAO Representative in Vietnam, during his opening remarks at the First Regional Forum for People and Forests.

Mr. Speedy highlighted Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) as a key carbon-financing initiative.

“With appropriate benefit sharing arrangements from REDD and clarification of land tenure, local communities may also play a key role in efforts to tackle illegal logging and cross-border trade in tropical timber,” he said.

REDD will be an important part of inter-governmental climate change negotiations in Copenhagen this December. It could see hundreds of millions of dollars made available to essentially fund developing countries to slow deforestation, and hopefully, rehabilitate forests.

The Vice-Minister of Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Hua Duc Nhi, stressed the importance of benefits flowing to local people. “Carbon-financing will only meet it’s potential if the rights of local communities and ethnic people are respected, forest governance improved, and benefits are shared equitably,” he said.

Philippines Presidential Advisor on Climate Change, Secretary Heherson Alvarez continued with this theme, “Our region is slowly recognizing the practicality and prudence of having our forest communities use their tried and tested ways for managing our precious forests,” he said.

Increasingly indigenous peoples and customary rights are being integrated into our forest management strategies. And this is good news.”


More information at:
http://www.recoftc.org/site/index.php?id=728