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| The world's forests have a vast potential to contribute to tackling climate change, but unified global action is required now to realize this opportunity, according to a consensus by a diverse group of global forest leaders.
Over the past ten month, the Forest's Dialogue Initiative on Forests and Climate Change brought together more than 250 representatives from governments, forestry companies, trade unions, environmental and social groups, international organisations, forest owners, indigenous people and forest-based community groups in a series of meetings.
For the first time, the group - which included the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC) - agreed on five guiding principles for forest-related post-2012 climate change negotiations:
- Ensure that forest-related climate change options support sustainable development in both forest-rich and forest-poor countries.
- Tackle the drivers of deforestation that lie outside the forests sector.
- Support transparent, inclusive, and accountable forest governance.
- Encourage local processes to clarify and strengthen tenure, property, and carbon rights.
- Provide substantial additional funding to build the capacity to put the above principles into practice.
The group acknowledges that experience within the forest community has shown that a narrow focus on a single commodity - such as carbon - at the expense of wider forests values is unlikely to succeed. To be effective, measures to optimize the carbon benefits from forests must deliver on all aspects of sustainable development.
Sustainable forest management as an important climate change mitigation and adaptation strategy should be promoted, and forest certification systems that are based on third-party verification, independent accreditation, good governance, and transparency, need to be supported and their use expanded. This will provide the necessary qualitative and quantitative assurances that any measures are delivering sustainable forestry on the ground.
"With this consensus, forest leaders have shown their commitment to setting aside any differences in perspectives and interests and to unite to speak up with one voice for the well-being of our planet", says Ben Gunneberg, General Secretary of PEFC. "It is, however, only the start of a long process. Putting the guiding principles into action will require close, sustained collaboration of a wide range of stakeholder groups with diverse interests, and PEFC is committed to contribute to this effort to the best of its abilities."
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Editor Notes
PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes)
PEFC is a framework for the assessment and endorsement of national forest certification systems that have been developed based on internationally recognised requirements for sustainable forest management. Since its launch in 1999, PEFC has become the largest forest certification umbrella organisation covering national systems from all over the world, delivering hundreds of millions of tonnes of wood to the processing industry and then onto the market place from currently more than 200 million hectares of certified forests. This is an area which is larger than the combined forest area of all European Union member states. PEFC has strong grass roots support from many stakeholders including the forestry sector, governments, trade associations, trade unions and non-governmental organisations.
Forest Certification
Forest certification is a process which provides an assurance to purchasers of wood and paper products that the wood used in the products comes from sustainably managed forest. It involves the certification of forests (Sustainable Forest Management certification) and the certification of the wood flow via processing, manufacturing and trading enterprises (Chain of Custody certification) to the final consumer.
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