Mr. M. Hosny El-Lakany
Assistant Director-General
Forestry Department
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning
On behalf of the Director-General of FAO, and the Forestry Department I welcome all participants from member countries, the FRA Advisory Group and the FAO regional offices. I would also like to acknowledge with appreciation ITTO as a co-sponsor of this session. I note that this is a most significant FRA meeting, with more than 100 countries represented through their National Correspondents. I am also impressed by the positive response from countries to our request for nominations of National Correspondents to FRA. More than 120 countries have made such nominations over the past year. Special thanks to the members of the FRA Advisory Group who have guided us in the process up to this meeting. I thank you all for your interest and dedication to the FRA work. This is one of the most important programmes we have in our department.
As you know, the purpose of this meeting is to initiate the country reporting process to the FRA 2005 update. It is therefore a technical meeting where the detailed contents, methods and workplans will be discussed. I would like to briefly mention how FRA fits in the larger context of international forestry processes.
First, FAO has a basic responsibility to provide global information on food, nutrition, agriculture, fisheries and forestry. FRA has been part of this normative work of FAO since 1947. The approach, methods and participation are continuously evolving.
Originally, the global FRA’s were mainly concerned with timber supply from the forests, as this was the main issue identified by policy makers. FRA 1980 expanded into environmental issues and was one of earliest reports on tropical deforestation. In FRA 2000, a broad range of subjects were included. For the FRA 2005 update, we are developing the assessment further by linking to the framework of Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management, including social, economic AND environmental aspects of forest resources. We thereby respond to current requirements of political processes by providing the information base needed to address a broad range of forestry issues.
This continuous evolution of the FRA work is clearly a strength that we should build further on. We need to address the challenges involved however. On one hand, demands are changing over time, while on the other, we are trying to maintain stable time series of quality information. I know that you will be discussing these issues this week, and I am confident that you will find the best way forward.
It is well known that the demand for forest-related information is ever increasing. International processes seek to include global information and knowledge about forest resources in their work. FRA has a crucial role in providing access to neutral, timely and quality-controlled information to many of these fora.
It is important to note that there is currently a strong request from countries for better coordination of forestry information at the global level, thereby reducing the high reporting burden on countries to different processes and bodies. Streamlining forest-related reporting has been addressed in several ways over the past few years.
For example, within the Collaborative Partnership of Forests, FAO and partners (UNFCCC, UNCCD and the UNFF) are actively working to reduce the reporting burden on countries, by seeking synergies between forest-related reporting processes.
Improving the information compatibility between processes is another prerequisite. Stability over time of parameters and definitions are also very important, as is the approach to information management and documentation that must make it possible to retrieve sources, data and methods of past reporting exercises.
FRA obviously has a key role to play in this context. Building on country-provided information and documenting results in a transparent manner will lead to a reduced reporting effort over time. Also, proper documentation is necessary to back up the conclusions of the global assessments. For example, the FRA 2000 conclusion that the rate of deforestation had decreased (slightly) was questioned by several organizations, and the thorough documentation of source data and analyses were very useful in the debate.
Turning to realities in countries, we should not forget that reliable and accurate information on forest resources are often missing in countries. This affects the possibilities to provide reports to international fora. But more importantly, these information gaps make it difficult to properly take forestry issues into account in national policy processes. Besides the global forest assessment, the FRA programme has therefore a key task to build country capacity and support national forest assessments. I understand that these aspects of our FRA efforts will also be brought to your attention during the week.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Your presence here today confirms that the FRA process is very strong, and that we can build on it to improve the knowledge about global forest resources, including the management and uses of these resources.
Finally, I want to re-acknowledge the presence of representatives of the FAO regional offices and UNECE, which are key entities for the implementation of the global FRA. A number of Forestry Department specialists in a range of fields will also contribute to this meeting. This illustrates well that the FRA work connects to many activities within FAO, including national forest programmes, forestry outlook studies, forest management and conservation, and our work related to forest products and economic and forest policy.
I wish you a very fruitful meeting and look forward to the FRA 2005 update. 2005 promises to be an interesting year in international forestry debate. The conclusions from this exercise will be very timely.
Thank you.
