Combating deforestation and forest degradation

Reverse the loss of forest cover worldwide through sustainable forest management, including protection, restoration, afforestation and reforestation, and increase efforts to prevent forest degradation

The challenges of the alarming rate of deforestation and forest degradation remain serious.

(g) Perverse subsidies and their impact on deforestation and forest degradation

Despite substantial progress in the formulation and implementation of national forest policies, deforestation and forest degradation continue at an alarming rate.

While forest biodiversity continues to decline as a result of deforestation, forest degradation and associated fragmentation of forest habitats, strong efforts are now being made to reverse this trend by restoring the forest functions in degraded forest landscapes.

On the other hand, inappropriate allocation of roles and responsibilities in forest management can result in negative impacts on people's livelihoods and contribute to deforestation and forest degradation.

Address underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation, including the need for the readjustment of financial flows and the reduction of consumption.

Measures taken to combat deforestation and forest degradation include the development and implementation of national forest programmes (and similar frameworks), management guidelines, financial encouragement, removal of perverse incentives for deforestation and public information campaigns.

Despite some positive trends, there remains a need for continued action to combat deforestation and forest degradation in many countries.

(k) Identify and implement measures to enhance cooperation and cross sectoral policy and programme coordination among sectors affecting and affected by forest policies and management, with a view to integrating the forest sector into national decision making processes and promoting sustainable forest management, including by addressing the underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation, and by promoting forest conservation

Some point out, however, that deforestation and forest degradation continue to occur and that an effective legally binding agreement will improve international governance of forests.

As a follow up to these regional and global events, 14 national workshops, to address the underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation, were organized in all continents.

While the implementation of the plan of action and the multi year plan of work have contributed, along with other activities at the global, regional and national level, to promoting sustainable forest management throughout the world, the high rate of deforestation and forest degradation remain serious challenges.

An initiative called REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) would pay for ecosystem services on a global scale by rewarding forest conservation, thereby regulating climate change. These ideas should receive more attention in the future, as our supplies of non renewable resources dwindle.

We have the means already in our hands, through a structure, through a mechanism, called REDD Plus a scheme for the reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

Forests and terrestrial ecosystems Forest management and conservation were seen by several Parties as important to protect watersheds, combat land degradation and desertification, preserve species and sequester carbon.

MANILA Every year, forest fires ravage Indonesia, causing massive environmental, social, and economic devastation. This year s fires are the largest in nearly 20 years, destroying three million hectares of land and causing an estimated 14 billion in losses related to agriculture, forest degradation, health, transportation, and tourism.

For example, during 1997 and 1998, together with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), several Governments and local communities organized seven regional workshops on the problematique of underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation.

Because from a planning perspective, economic degradation begets environmental degradation, which begets social degradation.

Worse, if such a convention failed to consider the underlying causes of forest loss lack of recognition of indigenous peoples' rights, unsustainable consumption and production patterns and unsustainable financial and timber trade flows it could entrench, rather than alleviate the impact of, the factors that are the driving forces of deforestation and forest degradation.

A joint approach on forests will be developed, in cooperation with the Tehran Process, among others, in order to strengthen the capacity of low forest cover countries to combat desertification, land degradation and deforestation.

The Plan of Implementation, of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg Plan of Implementation), noted that sustainable forest management is a critical means to eradicate poverty, significantly reduce deforestation, halt the loss of forest biodiversity and land and resource degradation and improve food security and access to safe drinking water and affordable energy.

Expressing their concern about continued deforestation and forest degradation, as well as the slow rate of afforestation and forest cover recovery and reforestation, and the resulting adverse impact on economies, the environment, including biological diversity, and the livelihoods of at least a billion people and their cultural heritage, and emphasizing the need for more effective implementation of sustainable forest management at all levels to address these critical challenges,

In addition, there should be emphasis on another key area of concern for the sector, besides deforestation and forest degradation, namely, the lack of recognition of indigenous peoples and communities that live in and depend on forests.

Forest applications include forest area estimation and mapping, forest monitoring, forest fire assessment and forest management.

Non governmental organizations are also deeply concerned about the lack of action taken by key actors, including Governments, intergovernmental organizations, and the private sector, among others, to curb the deforestation and forest degradation currently occurring at an alarming rate.

Forest operations and the forest industry provide employment and income to millions of workers and forest dwellers.

Illegal forest related activities, sometimes associated with corruption and money laundering, have provided funds which have helped to sustain some of the world's most persistent conflicts. This has also led to environmental degradation, and loss of resources that could otherwise benefit local communities.

C. Greater recognition of sustainable forest management and forest products trade

The forest ecosystem and forest resources

Certain projects currently in progress in countries or pilot areas are endeavouring to produce vulnerability maps of degradation or the risk of land degradation.

A forest may consist either of closed forest formations where trees of various storeys and undergrowth cover a high proportion of the ground or open forest.

(y) Enhance access by households, small scale forest owners, forest dependent local and indigenous communities, living in and outside forest areas, to forest resources and relevant markets in order to support livelihoods and income diversification from forest management, consistent with sustainable forest management.

For decentralization of the forest sector to fulfill its objectives to control deforestation and environmental degradation, it is necessary to establish a better balance of power between the State and other stakeholders, empowering local organizations and increasing capacity for local management regimes in communities and municipalities.18

LADA Dryland Degradation Assessment Project

LADA Dryland Degradation Assessment Project

In complementary development of forest production a multi purposeful interest of sustainable forest development is sought.

Extent of forest resources.

In order to sustain progress in combating deforestation and forest degradation, further efforts are needed to address underlying causes, to improve cross sectoral coordination with other sectors (such as agriculture) and to strengthen professional and institutional capacity, in particular for law enforcement.

b Confederation of European Forest Owners, FERN Forest Peoples' Programme, and workers and trade unions.

Promote genuine community based forest management that empowers forest peoples.

It is unacceptable that this fruitless dialogue, currently regarding the merits or otherwise of a legally binding instrument without further specification of the nature of such an instrument, should continue to divert attention from actions and activities that could tackle the root causes and effects of deforestation and forest degradation.

Theft, extortion, destruction, degradation and damage

Productive functions of forest resources.