From Commitment to Action: Scaling Sustainable Forest Management – Halting Degradation and Deforestation (UNFF21 Side Event)

Now, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us this afternoon.
I have the pleasure of introducing our panelists this afternoon, starting with doctor Juliet Val, the Director of the UNFF Secretariat, Mr.
Ekram Yaziki representing FEO Mr.
Rainy Medulla representing the Republic of South Africa and Marco Tuilo from Brazil, who has been coordinating the Cop 30 presidency.
Last and not least is David Flood from Canada, who is the chair of the Permanent Committee on Indigenous People, and also a member of the First Nations in Canada.
To start things up, it's my honor to request Madame Juliet be all to give some opening remarks.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I think if I were not here today, Mato will skin me alive.
He worked hard really to get me here and I'm really happy to join.
Dtuish delegates, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to join this important event.
Entitled from commitment to Action, scaling Sustainable Forest Management, hating degradation and deforestation, co organized by Forest Stewardship Council and the Government of South Africa.
First of all, allow me to acknowledge the work of the Forest Stewardship Council and commend the leadership of South Africa in advancing sustainable forest management and forest certification in Africa.
Distinguished participant, we meet amid profound global uncertainty and tensions.
International cooperation is under strain and multilateralism is at risk.
This is precisely the moment when we should redouble our efforts to strengthen global cooperation, dialogue, and collective action.
UNF TAC Cop 30 presidency initiative to develop a roadmap to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030 is one such example.
The establishment of the United Nations decade on afforestation and reforestation in line with sustainable forest management is yet another.
Of course, we must step up and accelerate the achievement of the C Global Forest goals by 2030.
Allow me to highlight a few key messages drawing on the Global Forest goals Report 2026 that was just launched on Monday.
First, the world is making progress on forests, but not fast enough.
Of the 26 global forest goals targets, only four are broadly on track, two are off track, and the remaining targets are only partially achieved.
It means that while many countries are taking meaningful action, the pace and scale fall well short on achieving the global forest goals by 2030.
Second, GFG three shows us what's working, but progress remains uneven.
Global Forest goal three is particularly relevant to today's discussion as it focuses on enhancing the economic, social, and environmental benefits derived from forests.
Today, more than 2 billion hectas forests are on long term management plan globally.
Increasingly, countries are recognizing the central role of indigenous people and local communities in sustainable forest stewardship.
However, progress under the GFG three remains uneven across the region.
Institutional capacity gap, insecure land tenure, competing land uses, and limited financing constitute Continue to constrain implementation in many countries.
In this context, for a certification, sustainable supply chain and public private sector partnership can play an important role in translating commitment into implementation.
Third, accelerating progress require political will, cross sectoral coherence and scaled up financing.
Forests cannot be saved by a forest sector alone.
Agriculture, energy, infrastructure, finance, and trade all shape forest outcomes.
What we need is stronger policy coherence across sectors, significantly more and deeper international partnerships.
Accelerating the implementation of the United Nations Strategic Plan forests remains vital in realizing sustainable forest management.
We can get this right, but moving from commitment to action requires urgency and ambition.
By working together, we can still accelerate progress toward the global forest goals and secure forests for present and future generations.
I thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much, indeed, doctor Tri Juliet Bo for use the oily term for doctor for those very encouraging and thought provoking words at the same time.
If you'll allow me now, I would just like to give a brief presentation on the programs and the achievements of the Forest Stewardship Council globally, just to put matters into context why we exist as an organization, after which Mr.
Ranymedul will give a brief rendition on progress and ambitions from the government of South Africa.
And that will be followed by Mr.
Marco Tuo and then Akron.
Then we will have the last presentation from David Flood.
Without further ado, I'd just like to say that we see certification as a nature based solution very relevant to the United Nations Strategic Plan on forests and directly addressing global forest goals one, three, and five in particular.
And to say that we had already made solution and a bridge between aspiration and action, and we have a motto in our logo called forest for all forever.
Ties in very well with the tropical forest facility, which also calls for forests forever.
I like the consonants there.
Having said that, it's important to draw a quick picture of what our certification standards encompasses.
It starts from managing a forest stand to the sawmill where sustainably produced products are processed to further tertiary processing up to the retail market.
From the forest stands, we do a forest certification certification of forest management.
In this middle products area, we do what you call chain of custody certification, and the certification is done by independent bodies, not FSC at all.
So those who deal in sustainably produced products also can get a promotional license to use sustainably produced products or even to use our labor on their products.
So in the certification standard, we verify impact, and we also have an ecosystem services procedure to that standard because we recognize the entirety of what forests stand for, biodiversity, climate change, and the production of tangible products.
Having said that, on a global scale, it's important to say that today we have 175 million hectares certified globally.
It used to be 260 until the war in Ukraine made it untenable for those standards to be maintained.
There was a withdrawal of several millions of hectares globally.
And we have over 70,000 chain of custody certificates for those who trade in sustainably produced products, and of the 175 million hectare certified, 14 are in tropical forests.
It shows the level of opportunity or the lack of ambition on the part of the owners of this forest to uptake certification, but it also shows the possibility of what can be done.
We can do more in the tropical forests, and we have over 11 million smallholders under our certification scheme.
Having said that, and in a very short b, we have ten principles.
These principles start from policy, cultural values, social values to the technical aspects of forest management and the environmental values for which forests should be managed.
It's important to say that at the country level, the ten principles of the certification standards are very important in a deforestation context, if you want to mitigate deforestation, it's important that our standard does not allow unplanned and unpermitted conversion of natural forests into something else.
It also mitigates against degradation, fights climate change, does not allow the use of dangerous toxic chemicals into the environment, protects endangered species, upholds the rights of indigenous people, and ensure fair labor practices on the part of those who are employed in the forest sector, and also benefit sharing with neighboring communities.
If you look at it in the broader policy standard or aspect, you can see that the FSC standards can be interpreted into red and carbon markets as a credibility sustainability tool.
It is also suitable in community forestry.
The principles are already made template for forest governance, a country can look at the principles around which FS is built and use that as a template for forest governance, and the standards can also be used to influence green procurement or should I say ethical sourcing in the public sector, which is often the biggest consumer of forest products.
Even in bilateral trade agreements, countries can use the standard to influence sustainability in trade.
So it offers a very internationally recognized baseline that state actors can codify into law if they wish to do so.
And what is also important is that we are the world's most trusted standard of certification based on customer surveys.
And it's important to know that because of that, The FSC standard can be used to de risk investments in the forest sector.
To the extent that the tropical forest facility wants to amplify the use of forest management, the risk in capital is something that the FSC standard can help achieve.
In today's world, we have a lot of investors that insist on FSC certification.
Without belaboring the point, it's also important to recognize that the current challenges posed by the EUDR also makes the certification standards quite useful in the sense that those who are certified do not need a very huge leap to comply with the EUDR regulations, should I say.
It's important to say that we had globally the most trusted certification standard trusted by NGOs, by consumers, and by businesses globally.
To put matters into perspective, there's a new African initiative called amba Heritage Initiative.
It was launched in February with 14 countries in Africa.
And the target is to certify about 30 million hectares in ten years, restore 5 million hectares and unlock capital to support countries.
It will help to elevate African forests, strengthen alliances, and mainstream sustainability into management and sourcing.
There you can see the Minister of Congo, who has been very active, who was present in that meeting, and our Director General, doctor Subra, the Kenyan Minister and officials from the Congo Basin forests, the Cofac are there.
I think that's where I end for now.
That gives you a taste of what the FSC standard stands for.
At this point, I would like to give the next opportunity to none other than Mr.
Rainy Madula from the Republic of South Africa.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Harrison.
Firstly, for inviting South Africa to be part of this panel to share our experiences with regard to the implementation of sustainable forest management in South Africa.
Let me start by indicating that South Africa, we are not as well endowed with forest resources.
We predominantly have three types of forests defined in terms of our national legislation.
Specifically, these are what we call indigenous natural forests, which are the I cannot be cover.
Forests which are less than 1 million hectares, predominantly located on the eastern seaboard of our country.
Also we have plantation forestry, which covers approximately 1.27 million hectares and the rest our dry land savanna type woodlands.
Um, the plantation forestry industry, therefore, given the fact that we don't have a lot of this natural forest is the commercial bed bone centered mainly in the provinces of Guzunatal, Blanga and the Western Cape and mainly focusing on the production of timber, pulp paper, and biomass.
Basically, it's the entire value chain, which is in part, the issue that we were discussing yesterday, the issue of forest biased bioeconomy.
Um The natural forests are protected in terms of our national legislation, which is the National Forest Act, which was promulgated in 1998, which in its proclamation had taken into account the international policy developments, in particular, the inputs from the processes.
And we have over the lifespan of the life of the legislation itself, have amended it three times to also take into account the developments that are coming into the picture, especially including the UNFF processes, issues around addressing issues of deforestation to an extent that in terms of the national legislation destruction of national forest is prohibited and to the legislation safe in exceptional circumstances.
Exceptional circumstances are therefore defined in terms of policy and these are mainly on issues of high national importance.
Um, the main commercial species that we have mainly pines, which about 49%, eucalyptus, which is 43% and what will cover plus -7% of the total plantation area.
And these areas support integrated forestry value chains, including timber processing and timber processing, pulp and paper production, saw milling and community forestry initiatives as indicated.
I think it's important to also note because I want to go into my area of specialty, which is the economics of forests, that the size, the 1.2 million hetres of forest plantation is merely 1% of the total forest land area.
But it contributes about 1.3% of the South African GTP valued at over 30 billion rents annually, and a Its contribution to total manufacturing output is 4.5% with plus -200,000 direct and indirect jobs which are very critical in our rural areas, taking into consideration our very high unemployment, which is one of the key macroeconomic aspects.
It also contributes about 20 billion in exports, which is also a major contribute to foreign exchange annually.
I Just to go to I think I've touched in part the issue around the policy and legislative framework, which I've indicated that is largely anchored on our National Forest Act, but we have other two pieces of legislation, which is the a National Wild and Forest Fires Act, which predominantly addresses issues of the management of wild land fires, which in terms of our own national legislation, we refer to it as wildfires or forest fires.
I about 80% of these 80% of our plantation forests are certified by the FSC, which also demonstrates our commitment to sustainable forest management.
We have been through this process for over 20 years.
The first chain of custody certificate to a South African organization was issued in 1997.
As of 2024 August, South Africa currently holds 21 forest management certificates, approximately 1.4 million hectas of the total, the Forest Land was under certification and 199 chain of custody certificates.
I think I can maybe in the main stop here, but I'm available for any questions that may arise from the floor.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Medulla.
South Africa is the industrial leader in wood based industry in Africa and 80% certified.
We'll have a bit of time at the end to discuss and ask some questions of each of the speakers.
So please just write them down until the end.
The next speaker in line will be Mr.
Martuo who will also be speaking from these notes.
Yes.
Brazil.
As I said, Marcotulo is from Brazil, very experienced diplomat and has been leading the CP presidency in Brazil and would tell you very exciting stories about the tropical forest facility.
Thank you and welcome.
Thank you very much.
How much time should I speak? 10 minutes.
Yes.
I will address two issues here, not specifically Brazil, but two Brazilian initiatives.
Since I am here on behalf of the Cop 30 presidency, I'll give a quick outline of the Cop 30 presidency roadmap for halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030.
And also the Tropical Forest Forever facility, which is an initiative that we together with several other partners have launched also during Cop 30 in Bering.
So as for the road map, its goal is in the title.
We are aiming to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation by 2030.
We believe this is a very ambitious goal comparable to the 1.5 degree goal of the Paris Agreement, and in fact, we will not get 1.5 unless we meet these goals.
Although fossil fuels are a bigger three times bigger portion of world emissions, even if we do everything right on fossil fuels, which is not easy, that will not be enough.
We need to do our job on the forest side of things.
As you know, forests are much more than just carbon sinks and reservoirs.
They're important for many other reasons for livelihoods of societies in general and especially indigenous peoples and local communities, for water cycles, for soil protection, you name it.
This is a very important task.
And we are currently working on it.
We've had a side event.
We also intervened here in the plenary yesterday morning and we are still working on the document which we intend to present here at the opening of the UN General Assembly later in the third week of September.
We believe that the type of work that the Forest Stewardship Council does, certifying sustainable wood production and management of forests, we believe this is a crucial part of the solution.
We have to do many things.
We have to fight deforestation head on, but we also need to manage forests sustainably and initiatives like the FSC are crucial for us to get there.
Just as in South Africa, in Brazil, also the FSC is a very important actor.
I don't know the numbers, but I think it's in the millions of hectors of managed and planted forests in Brazil are a have the services of the FSC or other similar institutions.
This is also a very important part of the problem of the solution, not only stopping deforestation, but managing forests sustainably.
And so that's why we think your people perform a very important job.
As for the tropical forest forever facility, it's an innovative financing initiative.
The idea is to address a significant gap of the institutional architecture of forest finance, which is rewarding mere conservation of forests.
Many countries who have a large share of their territory covered by primary forests complain that they were unduly penalized precisely because there isn't a high risk of deforestation in these countries.
Countries such as Guyana, Surinam, Gabon in Africa, but also in fact the northern part of the part of the Amazon in Brazil.
The bulk of deforestation, almost all deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, is in the south part of the forest and the north is almost untouched.
Some states of Brazil have very low levels of deforestation as well, and they complain that they are not rewarded for providing the world with this very important ecosystem service.
That's what the tropical forest forever facility is aimed at.
Once you prove you meet several criteria and demonstrate that you keep your forests healthy, you are rewarded for that alone on the basis of hectors.
It aims to be a rather simple mechanism, much simpler than RAD plus, for instance.
You just need to prove in terms of hectors nobody will judge the type of carbon stock which is in those forests, whether they are more or less biodiverse.
We think all forests are important and that's what the TFF will do.
The plan is that we gather a significant amount of capital in the final phase when everything is concluded, the idea is to have a fund of $125 billion invested in profitable types of investment but of low risk and the income coming from that investment, the investors will receive their money back with interest, but a portion of that income will be directed to forest countries.
The idea is to pay $4 per hectare of conserved forests.
That's not a significant amount of money If you are in the frontier of agricultural expansion, sometimes you can make several hundred dollars a year with 1 hectare of land in some areas, for instance, in Brazil with soybean production.
But if the government manages wisely those resources and allocates them strategically, that can really make a big difference because you can essentially go to those critical places.
I don't need to pay for a public forest which already belongs to the federal state in the north of the Amazon.
Because the government would just be paying itself.
But we can concentrate those resources in some strategic critical points where there is a high risk of deforestation.
Legal deforestation, because illegal deforestation should just be fought with command and control, which we are doing.
But people who are entitled to use their land, but it would be in the interest of the collectivity that they don't use it.
We can pay for the environmental service of keeping that forest standing.
That's the kind of thing that the FFF can do very well and more generally fund the governments in their efforts to manage their forest globally.
We are very grateful for the international cooperation that we currently receive.
We have the Amazon Fund and other initiatives, but this is peanuts compared to what we really spend.
Brazilian government spends several hundred million dollars a year protecting the Amazon forest and other forests.
For you to have an idea, the Amazon forest alone in Brazil covers 4 million square kilometers.
This is more than the territory of India.
We have to police a territory bigger than India to protect it from deforestation and so on.
This is very expensive.
We are committed to doing that.
We're not revisiting this decision.
It's a national commitment.
We think it's the right thing to do, but it's very expensive.
It is only natural that if we are offering the world this important environmental service that we are somehow rewarded for it.
This is even more so in many other parts of the world.
Brazil is a high middle income country.
I mean, we have many problems, we have many needs in Brazil that the national budget must cover, so we're not a rich country at all.
But many tropical forest developing countries are much poorer than us.
So this money is direly needed in Brazil, it is even much more so in many other tropical forest developing countries.
This can make a difference really between keeping the forest or losing it.
We believe this is a very important initiative.
We are raising capital for the fund to start to operate.
Has already been capitalized to the tune of $6.7 billion, including resources not only from the usual donors, but also from tropical or developing countries such as Indonesia and Brazil.
Each of our governments have committed $1 billion to this initial fund, and we're aiming to reach at least $10 billion of these pioneer investors by the end of this year so that the fund can start operating.
And we believe with that we can multiply that fourfold, attract with $10 billion, we think we can attract another $4,040 billion of private capital, and then we can start operating the fund and it will be sustainable because these are not grants.
This is really business.
The money will be invested and the income is what will be paid for forest countries after paying the investors.
We believe this is a long term initiative which doesn't depend.
We welcome very much the initial investors.
But once we get the thing moving, we don't need again to ask for more grants, as is the case, for instance, with the GCF and the GEF.
All these mechanisms play their role.
They're all important, but something like the TFFF was really needed.
Is not new.
It has been under consideration within the World Bank bureaucracy for more than a decade.
But this is the first time it was possible we had the political will to move forward and we are very excited about this and we really hope we can make a difference with this initiative.
I'll stop here for the moment.
Thank you for your attention.
Many thanks indeed, Marco, for this exciting share of information and encouragement that we can do things if we get together and we see a lot of parallels in what has been happening planned in Africa about amba and the tropical forest facility seems to have a lot of coherence with that philosophy as well in Africa, really grateful for that.
The next speaker is Mr.
Akrami from the FAO.
I'm just going to put the presentation.
I hope it works now for me.
Yes.
Thank you very much, moderator, esteemed colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.
First of all, I would like to thank organizer for inviting FAO to give us a chance to share our experience.
It's a pleasure for me to share our experience with you.
As you know, FAO addressing almost all aspects of the forest management, starting from the knowledge products, normative works, as well as operational work in the field.
In my presentation, I will briefly highlight several areas from FAO works and perspective.
Mainly relevant to the global force goal one and global force goal three, including evidence and accountability systems, governance and implementation frameworks, restoration, sustainable force economies, and inclusive approaches.
I'll start with the normative works while waiting for the presentation.
Can we move third one? This is okay.
I will start with the FAO forest roadmap, which is our guidance for next, let's say seven years.
The roadmap provides an important strategic direction for addressing current and emerging forest challenges.
The roadmap emphasized the need to simultaneously strengthen forest conservation, sustainable forest economies and science based innovation.
Importantly, it also reinforced the understanding that sustainable forest management is not limited to the conservation alone.
It also requires resilient value chains, sustainable production system, market oriented approaches, innovation and long term implementation capacity.
This regard, sustainable forest based wet chains, bi economy approach, and forest certification system can all contribute to the strengthening sustainable forest management implementation while also supporting liveli, resilience and sustainable economic opportunities.
Together with these elements demonstrates the importance of integrated approach that combined the environmental integrities, economic sustainability, and implementation oriented governance.
I'll continue with the DEFRA.
As you know, the DEFRA provide all the data to us.
When we look at the last report, the speed of the deforestation decreasing, still we are losing 11 million hectare.
But we see that the forest fire and pest and disease impacted very badly the forest.
The amount is increasing.
The FRA report also provides all the data, not only for the SDG 51, but also SDG 52 about sustainable forest management.
This reliable data, forest management information and monitoring system therefore remain fundamental on evidence based decision making.
Transparency and long term implementation.
Next one, please.
Regarding enabling accountability and implementation, we do have also certain programs.
Effective implementation of sustainable forest management increasingly depends on the ability to generate data, monitor progress, and strengthen transparency.
In this regard, a broad range of monitoring frameworks, technical platforms, and knowledge mechanisms contribute to supporting more measurable and implementation oriented approaches to sustainable forest management.
The four report, we are going to have it during the conversation this year, focus on forest landscape restoration this year, which provides a global analysis and policy relevant insights while firm mechanism contributes to the restoration, monitoring, reporting, and knowledge exchange.
We have also sustainable forest management toolbox set, as well as we have digital solution like open forest.
We have also accelerating innovative monitoring for forest initiatives.
These are important for strengthening forest monitoring, land use reporting, transparency, and technical issues.
Next one, please.
As I mentioned, we will have COFO this year, end of September.
There are many agenda items, including the relevant agenda items like restoration, integrated fire management, force for food security and nutrition, force based bioeconomic approaches, and investment in innovation, finance, and capacity development.
These will provide us a global review during the conversation.
Next one, please.
If you look at a bit more operational work, let me look at the global forest landscape.
Restoration mechanisms.
This remains one of the important pathways for addressing forest degradation, biodiversity loss and climate related challenges.
Restoration and rehabilitation efforts can contribute significantly to strengthening the resilience, ecosystem functionality, and long term sustainability with sustainable forestment management approaches.
We do not see forest only trees.
We do as an ecosystem, we are trying to introduce ecological restoration considering all economic, environmental and economic aspects.
We do have a forest landscape mechanism, as I mentioned.
We do also contribute several processes like bond challenge or you indicate on ecosystem restoration.
Next one, please.
If you look at the governance and public private collaboration, we do see one of the key issue for us.
We need stronger alignment between governance system, markets and implementation frameworks.
Governments play an essential role through enabling policies and regulatory frameworks, land use coordination, force governance system, and supportive finance approaches.
At the same time, the private sector contributes to sustainable sourcing, responsible investment, market engagement, and sustainable forest based value chains.
These are essential for us.
Next one, please.
If you look at certification, legality and inclusive delivery, We do have several programs, as you know, one is the Forest governance and value chain program, the other one FAO EU Flect program.
These are all supporting the certification legality process and also evolving market requirements and sustainability commitments, including the EDR deforestation regulation and related due diligence frameworks through stronger legality insurance, traceability, and transparency systems.
At the same time, inclusive participation remains essential, including the participation of small hurdles, cooperatives, local force enterprises, and forest dependent communities within sustainable forest management implementation pathways.
Next one, please.
Regarding indigenous people, steward worship and inclusive approach.
These are also integral part of our sustainable forest management approach.
For us traditional knowledge system, Local experience, the stewardship practice continue to contribute significantly to the biodiversity conservation, forest resilience and long term sustainability.
This inclusive approach strengthen the participatory governance, local engagement, sustainable livelihoods and also support to the resilience and sustainable forest landscape.
Next one, please.
Yeah, last slide.
Allow me to conclude my speech that sustainable forest management requires strong and sustainable partners.
The challenges affecting forests today are increasingly interconnected, including climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, food security, livelihoods, governance, and sustainable economic development.
Addressing these challenges therefore requires integrated governance approaches, implementation oriented cooperation, financing, innovation, and technical cooperation, as well as collaboration across public and private sector.
Effective partnership can support restoration and resilience, sustainable forest economies, knowledge exchange, and inclusive and accountable implementation pathways.
Let's continue this dialogue, regional cooperation, technical cooperation for translating global commitments into lasting action and measurable outcomes.
I.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Many thanks indeed, Mr.
Jazzki for giving us the FL angle on things and we really value the FRID data, which is always very exciting to look at and this year was very encouraging because of the reduced rate of forest cover loss.
Our next speaker is David Flood who is the chair of the permanent Indigenous People's Committee.
And it's also a member of the First Nations from Canada.
He's got a long history of forest management and is going to share with us.
David, if you could just take 10 minutes so that we can have time for discussions at the end.
Thank you very much indeed.
Wonderful.
There should be a slide deck loading up here as well.
Forgive me for not having the title adjusted.
If it shows insert title, we'll just say this is the title we're inserting.
This is the panel.
Bajo A Vacher Indiana W Manage dog, all my relations.
I've brought a few things with me here, talking stick, as well as a blanket that we usually lay over a chair to honor and acknowledge our ancestors.
They're always here with us.
We have to think behind us as well as think forward to the children's children's children.
That is our definition of how we build sustainable economies and futures together.
I am privileged to be here on behalf of the Permanent Indigenous Peoples Committee.
But in my home life where I work, I work as an Executive Director at Wakoto and Development.
It's owned by three First Nations and it's in northeastern Ontario.
My role here on PPC on the second slide, you can see there's eight regions of the world.
Each of the delegates there have an alternate as well, and our goal and responsibilities are to advise the International Board of Forest Stewardship Council on principles criteria indicator and all the IGI work and the system itself, the ten principles, and all the working group workshops, they've got biodiversity claims, they've got smallholder initiatives, and more recently at the last GA, there's promotion of indigenous led forest certification tenures, small holders that having indigenous led value space in the global market.
It is a market driven system, so that requires people to buy the product, to incentivize the companies to say there is a reward or value in showing the labeling of sustainable wood products.
Next slide.
We're privileged where we are to actually have about 7 million hectas of traditional territory intersect with sustainable forest licenses, and the majority of those are and have been maintained as FSC certified forests since the inception of the forest certification scheme in Canada in 1999.
We've always maintained a fourth chamber in Canada, there has been a First Nation Aboriginal Indigenous chamber in Canada since its inception.
With that comes the opportunity for our communities to have direct agreements under Principle three.
Of the standard and utilizing that in the last ten years, our communities have started to the purposing of the development of Wotain and I'll just pause there and let you know that Wakotin is an indigenous phrase, crephrase of everything is connected.
In that, um, In that spirit of everything is connected, what we've done is really started to utilize some of the national level agendas that have been set through, for example, the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, the National Guardian Program.
We've started our own guardian program since 2016.
With that comes cultural revitalization and the thought process that our youth need to become more active and involved with new technology and the ways of doing sustainable development work as well as cultural revitalization, strengthening the spirit of place and being from where your homeland and territories are from.
And we managed to create some new initiatives around exploring this advanced or diversified opportunities in the business case of not only looking at logs and pulp or fiber.
There's more value to the wood, the land, the forest, the water, the soil, the plants, the crawlers, the swimmers, the fliers.
This is why we say all our relations.
I'm in spirited to see the 17 sustainable development goals.
We've reviewed those.
We think for our purposes, there's probably 13.
There's some intersections and merging together of those things.
But when we look at what happens on the ground, You can see our northeastern border landscape in the top picture, and then the bottom, our goal here, for example, in this picture is getting rid of the use of herbicide spraying through more tactical use of manual mechanical brushing so that you maintain more biodiversity retention.
In other words, the deciduous trees for the plants, the flyers, the crawlers, the walkers, those animals that rely on that deciduous forest, not just the conifer, and then we remove a pesticide being used on our landscape is actually consistent with the FSC principles as well, reducing or eradicating the use of pesticides and herbicides.
The FSC standard is quite robust, quite useful, and there's provisions in there at the landscape level.
Next slide to look at the biodiversity management of landscapes.
Again, just a reference to where we are in the geopolitical context of the world.
Our nations are nations and they need to be viewed that way in Canada.
There's over 651st nations identified across Canada under the banner indigenous or Aboriginal under Section 35 rights of the Constitution of Canada.
We have to juxtapose that since 18 67 against Section 92 rights holders, the provinces and territories of Canada.
When we talk about multilaterlism, we're not a domestic affair necessarily, we are international people.
We should be seen that way.
We should be seen as having the ability to participate in the global economy, and for reference, that's one of the main reasons why I participate at the Pipi with this standard because I'm a firm believer in the outcomes over the long term or where the standard can go in collaboration with all of these interesting opportunities.
It's my first time at the UN, by the way.
It's my first time at the forum on forests, by the way, although I've been a 30 year advocate in the space of forestry, forest management, and indigenous led opportunities in taking our place and making sure that the global forests are looked after.
There is a real kinship out there.
A lot of our practices mimic and relate directly to all other indigenous people around the world wherever we go.
Next slide.
I spoke of a cultural revitalization in the guardian program.
For the last five years we've managed to build and utilize resources to build birch bark canoes.
We haven't seen these birch bark canoes float in our riverways for over 100 years.
These are guardians building these canoes from scratch, going out and collecting and understanding where these resources are, creating the data and understanding of the value of the birch tree as opposed to a weed that needs to be sprayed with herbicide is understanding the role of the birch in our ecosystem.
It's one of our longest lived relatives in the plant community.
Next slide.
I wouldn't do us justice if I didn't speak about our indigenous land symposium.
It's premised on that we operate an innovation center out of Chapa, Ontario and The goal there is to by extension relate to roughly 16 First Nations in our region or area that overlap and touch as cousins or sister communities to us.
Then since then, we've been running this Indigenous and Symposium.
I do have a giveaway here at the end for those that are in the room.
I'm not sure how I'm going to pick the giveaway, but this T shirt promoting our March 1st to fifth in Ottawa.
If you're interested, come and check that out.
It's the Indigenous Land Symposium in Ottawa.
We expect over 500 delegates and there are international participants as well.
Um, it's a beautiful opportunity to really light that fire and complete the circle and bring that indigenous voice to the Confederacy fire in Ottawa, where Canada was created in 18 67.
There is the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers in Canada, so we expect or hope to relate more strongly to that system as we are on a five year track to 2030 to really try and curb or make positive changes to our collective future.
Next slide.
I see the slides are a bit adjusted here, but just a few other initiatives that we have on the go.
Again, creator had not told us to ever be housing stock poor.
And so we're allowed to live in a contemporary use scenario of forest resources.
In that regard, our chiefs that own as shareholders own Wakoto and as a social enterprise have directed us to create this standing tree, the standing home supply chain pathway.
We have this thermo log initiative.
It was created by Bore Products of Alma, Quebec, but we've now partnered with them to actually bring this technology into our northern communities, very carbon neutral, in fact, sequestering, if you will, for these 100 year homes that will come up into our northern climates.
It's 40 30 in the walls and our 40 in the roof systems.
And airtight, intact, and long lived housing products.
The best part is the communities can actually take this product and either go from saw milling to forming the thermal logs to cutting the homes, to installing the homes, training, so there's jobs, training, and employment, as well as fitting out the shelves, which is you could own your own hardware, star and benefits.
So creating more of a circular economy approach to housing opportunities.
Of course, the enrichment of cultural revitalization, our communities um, r from high tanning language, star teachings, contemplating with the youth, the issues and impacts of climate change.
So we've graduated over 50 youth out of our five year program, and we expect that 13 Moon program to continue.
But in the same vein, we're now diversifying into workforce development skills development, but we're calling it the Guardian 2.0 program, call them Home.
Because for the most part, our nation's large majority of the population live in the urban centers, and that was just the results of the residential school system.
We've gone through a truth and reconciliation period where genocide was acknowledged and the apologies were made and we're trying to grow through that experience as Canada.
There's still a road to go.
We're not done yet.
I think Prime Minister's speech in Davo spoke eloquently to that is that even in Canada's domestic context, there's still work to be done.
Next slide.
This one's really exciting because this speaks again to what we know.
We already knew this as indigenous people.
The trees talk together.
The trees interrelate with each other.
There's mycorrhizae in the soils, naturally occurring fungus, where it has a touch point with the roots of the trees and the Western science will give you all kinds of fancy names.
But the bottom line is it grows on the root and allows the plant to have a stronger association for nutrient and water uptake, therefore creating more biomass per hector, therefore sequestering more carbon into the atmosphere.
Now, what this has done is we've managed to work with a scientist over the last three years who's isolated juvenile strain of conifer mycorrhizae.
Which is now registered with the Food and Agriculture Association of Canada Ministry of Canada as a safe use in our environment.
It's the only one that's registered right now, and we're bringing that to the Boreal Forest and utilizing that as a carbon sequestration project where it's carbon removal is out of the atmosphere.
It's passive.
The forest companies are harvesting, They've got to plant the trees to replace what they've taken.
We do the migrz association.
We have an increase in carbon sequestration as a result of that.
There's reports out that prove that it's anywhere 12-30% depending on your ecosystem types.
Verification, monitoring, those are more jobs, more employment opportunities, circular economy, boots on the ground, guardians taking care of the long term benefits out of the forest and measuring and monitoring those.
Next slide.
In addition to that carbon credit, we're also looking at different things at the landscape scale, moose enhancement, moose recovery, stopping the use of herbicide spraying, and then making some biodiversity claims around that.
Spraying alongside late winter moose habitat for moose and killing that vegetation that the pregnant cow needs to come out of the forest.
She's pregnant, she can't go very far from the edge of that late winter moose habitat.
If we continue to spray up against these areas, then that's unfortunate.
It's an interactive approach to biodiversity claims, and we're exploring that with Vera.
We're registered as one of the 20 initiatives around the world.
Next slide.
Last, I've heard fund fund fund fund and investing in biodiversity.
We are trying to raise a fund actively right now.
We've got some interesting capital investment opportunities that are exploring how to land this fund so that we do not have to go looking for federal contributions through grants and applications.
We would like to stand alone and take care of our traditional territories and lands and build these systems of benefit so that we are truly collaborating in the future sustainability of the globe, which last slide.
Yep.
Thank you, David.
It's quite exciting to note that you are using microhizal technology to boost growth and increasing carbon sequestration in your First Nation forest.
That's very exciting.
I think we have only got 6 minutes, so I'm going to ask one question of each of the participants and I'll start with Mr.
Akram of FAO.
Just to share with us if there are any programs or approaches that the FAO would like to change or improve to make to make it more easy to move from commitments to action by countries that you support.
Thank you very much, moderator, rather than to what needs to be changed, what we are really trying to do change is the answer.
When I listen to all speakers, I do see that the sustainable force management criterion indicators are the cmment for all work.
We need to work on them from restoration, from, let's say, certification part, we need them.
Normally, we do support countries to develop the set national set at national level.
However, national level sets are not really sufficient to support implementation.
In many countries now, we are trying to support forest management unit level criteria indicators just to really reflect the real needs to the people that might facilitate the implementation of SFM in the field.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.
Akram.
The next question goes to Marco, just 1 minute.
In the context of the tropical forest facility, what do you see as the greatest challenge or opportunities in promoting restoration? Thank you very much.
Well, the tropical forest forever facility, as I said, when everything is working, pay the countries for the hectares of forest that they conserve.
Since we have very ambitious goals not only of conservation, but also of restoration, and as I said, if we want to meet this goal of zero deforestation and degradation by 2030, We will also need to plant a lot of forests or to protect the forest that is naturally growing.
These funds from the TFF can be crucial for us to meet that goal.
This is how we see the TFFF helping in forest restoration.
Thank you.
Thank you very much indeed for that.
Mr.
Rey Medulla from South Africa, given the limitations of industrial plantation growth in Southern in South Africa, what policy measures have you considered or will you consider to improve or to increase forest cover in South Africa? I think there is limited to almost no opportunity for expansion of planted forests in South Africa for various reasons, mainly environmental policies that's trying to manage because of the water issues, the plantations normally use lot of water, so there is restriction in terms of where you can plant, and this is regulated by quite a number of legislation.
But there is also an opportunity to improve on the efficiencies through investment in R&D.
Our national research and development strategies addresses how we can increase productivity without necessarily increasing the area under production.
Uh, you'll notice that if you look into the data, you'll find that when I joined the forestry industry almost 20 years ago, the area under plantations was about 2 million hectas.
It has come down now to 1.2, mainly because of those environmental legislation, but the output coming out of the same 1.2 million hectas is more or less equivalent, if not improved because of innovation initiatives that we have undertaken.
I can say more, but in the interest of time, maybe I'll stop here.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for your responses.
We have no more than 3 minutes to go.
Can I allow a question or two from the floor? The gentleman there.
First of all, David, traditional knowledge meets scientific innovation.
That's fascinating to me because that's at the heart of forest based bioeconomy.
I want to talk to you more about that later, but I wanted to ask Marco a question.
The Cop 30 roadmap to prevent deforestation and forest degradation, and also sustainable forest management to scale.
This is the title of our session right now.
So CP 30 has the roadmap to deforestation.
It also has the Cop 30 bioeconomy challenge, and also part of the Cop 30 action agenda is the building with Building four forests Initiative led largely by FAO.
What are the opportunities that you see to increase overlap with these three outcomes from Cop 30? Because I think there's a lot of synergy there.
It's really highlighted in the title of this session since you have sustainable forest and halting deforestation in the same.
Thanks.
We'll take one more question from here before the answer.
Thank you.
It is true that we have to move from commitment to action and more to scale up these actions, not just to do it in a small scale, and we want to appreciate all of you for those presentations and experiences from your backgrounds.
I have a small question to you, Harrison.
You said that FS FSC is ready solution that helps us to move into SFM.
But the figures you presented shows that initially you had 75/200000000 hecta then now it is 175, so it is coming down instead of being upscaled.
Any plans to make sure that we move back? Thank you.
Thank you.
I'll answer that quickly because of conflict in Ukraine and Russia where we lost a lot of certified forests because the conditions could not allow the maintenance of the certificates.
The question of conflict can affect management of any natural resource.
I go to Marco and then one last question, then we Thank you very much.
Very interesting question.
Indeed, these things, they are part of the same, let's say ecosystem of ideas, no intended.
But one of the key strategies for us to keep forests protecting forests is to make them a source of living.
If a person can't make a living on a forest, the pressure to chop it is huge.
Bioeconomy is a fundamental part of the solution and sustainable forest management more general, non timber forest products and so on, all this dimension of the of the forest economy is crucial for us to get where we want.
And also the issue of construction with sustainable wood, which is said building with forests.
It's also crucial.
It has an additional positive element there because as you know, cement accounts for roughly 6% of world emissions.
When we build with wood, In addition to everything good we are doing by sustainably managing forests, we're displacing cement and storing carbon.
It's a chain of good effects.
All these things must go together and we are very conscious of that in the way we draft this roadmap.
Thank you.
Thank you.
La the gentlemen.
Thank you very much.
My name is uncars Quints from the Amazon Basin.
I would like to ask a question directly to doctor Recrene from PAO.
How is the engage for indigenous people consultation or participation under FAR? Because there's different programs and we try to follow up to engage because PA is open different channels of PA is working with governments this organization has a constituency also governance and we'd like to see this kind of collaboration and also thank you very much to Marco to reinforce and because we are coordinating for the global tropical and these procedures and I would like to see if in the future to have this exchange with other brothers and series of other nations because I particularly, we are working collectively tropical forests, but also other forests that can complement this is for global.
That's what I'd like to reflect right now on question.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I mean, it's difficult for me to answer as I do not have experience in that region.
However, I can say that FAA is very open.
It's not one way, it's a both way and also it should be communicated.
Our programs are all inclusive and then a I mean, they will be able to reach you, but then you need to be also organized.
It's my own comment on that.
Thank you.
Thank you very much indeed.
To conclude, the agreements that we craft here set the horizon and stewardship delivers the future and together we can turn the global forest goals into reality.
At this point, let's give a round of applause to our panelists, David.
Just one last intervention.
I wanted to know whose birthday was closest to the International forest on March 21st.
Is that literally your birthday? Well, come on up and get your shirt.
A round of applause to our panelists, U to go.
Thank you very much indeed, everyone.
What a pleasant afternoon.
Thank you very much.