To mobilize public and private investments in forests, the UNEP report emphasizes the role of the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+).
PES is a scheme of voluntary transactions aimed to compensate land owners for providing ecosystem services to society, such as carbon storage, watershed protection or biodiversity conservation.
REDD+ recognizes the importance of forests for carbon sequestration through conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. To support these activities, this mechanism allows financial transfers between industrialized and developing countries and between national level agencies and communities and landowners.
Both mechanisms provide new avenues for leveraging political attention, and much-needed private, public and bilateral finance. For example:
- In Ecuador, the local government in the town of Pimampiro pays US $ 6 to US $ 12 per hectare per year to a small group of farmers to conserve forest and natural grassland in the area surrounding the town’s water source.
- Norway‘s contribution to the Amazon Fund in Brazil is achieving a new form of partnership for realizing deforestation reduction targets. In 2010, Norway announced a grant of US $ 1 billion to Indonesia in return for agreed measures to tackle deforestation and degradation. Under the terms of the agreement, Indonesia has announced a two-year moratorium on new permits to clear natural forests and peatlands.
The value of the services forests provide is not confined to developing economies. One scientific assessment by the Pembina Institute has estimated the value of the services in Canada’s boreal forests – including flood control, pest control by birds and carbon sequestration – at just over US $ 90 billion a year.
Moving Forward
The report suggests that knowledge, vision, enabling conditions and new investments are all necessary to realize the full contributions of forests in a green economy, which is based on a new economic paradigm.
“A major issue is that green economies and associated policies will no doubt apply differently across countries, depending on national circumstances, priorities and capacities. Encouraging a transition to green economies will require a broad range of financial, regulatory, institutional, and technological measures. This is a specific area in which the capacity of developing countries has to be strengthened.” says Jan McAlpine, Director of the United Nations Forum on Forests Secretariat.
The Green Economy “in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication” is also one of two key issues that will be addressed at the Rio+20 Summit next year in Brazil.
The public and the private sector both have an important role to play in accelerating the transition to a Green Economy. On the one hand, governments must promote policy and technical support to ensure forest-based investments. On the other hand, business and financial institutions need to invest in forest projects, and provide independent and verifiable risk assessments and risk insurance services, amongst others.
Eduardo Rojas-Briales, Chair of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF), said, “Supportive social, legal and institutional settings are key to the sustainable management of natural resources. Optimal land use, further life cycle analysis, ecosystem landscape management, and governance are all key themes that will help unlock the full potential of forests in creating green economies.”
Additional investment is also required for up-front capacity building and preparatory work, continued implementation of mechanisms that compensate for opportunity costs, reforestation, and payments for forest protection.
Some examples of successful policy interventions noted in the report highlight the benefits and positive results of sustainable management of forests.
- Forest related interventions in Costa Rica have led to economic growth and a dramatic increase in forest cover. In 1995, forest cover in the country was 22 per cent, but by 2010, it had recovered to 51 per cent of the country’s land area.
- Community Forest Management is the second largest forest management system in Nepal, where forests cover more than 40 per cent of the land. It has contributed to restoring forest resources in the country, and turned an annual rate of decline in forest cover of 1.9 per cent during the 1990s into an annual increase of 1.35 per cent between the period of 2000 and 2005.
- The restoration of natural mangrove forests in Vietnam for US $ 1.1 million resulted in annual saving of US $ 7.3 million in sea dyke maintenance.
These examples, amongst others, illustrate the significant socio-economic returns that forests can provide. With additional investments and policy reforms, the forest sector can provide a foundation for building a low-carbon, resource-efficient and socially inclusive green economy.
Notes:
The report, “Forests in a Green Economy: A Synthesis”, can be found on the UNEP website at:
www.unep.org/greeneconomy
The Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF)
The Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) is a voluntary arrangement comprising 14 international organizations and secretariats with substantial programmes on forests (CIFOR, FAO, ITTO, IUFRO, CBD, GEF, UNCCD, UNFF, UNFCCC, UNDP, UNEP, ICRAF, WB, IUCN). The CPF’s mission is to promote the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forest and to strengthen long term political commitment to this end. CPF members share their experiences and build on them to produce new benefits for their respective constituencies. Joint initiatives and other collaboration activities are supported by voluntary contributions from participating members.
Source: UNEP.
