SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

For the attention of Governments and FAO

The Commission recommended:

• fully recognizing the complex ecological factors and risks associated with forest land-use change;
• ensuring secure forest tenure and provide other enabling factors to facilitate improvements in the livelihoods for forest-dependent people;
• strengthening partnerships between APFC and other relevant organizations, and continuing to participate in and inform international forestry processes;
• exploring modalities for establishing closer collaborative links between APFC and the Regional Community Forestry Training Center for Asia and the Pacific (RECOFTC), with a view toward increasing support to countries on issues related to sustainable forest management and improved livelihoods;
• employing the principles, approaches and tools of sustainable forest management in climate change projects and REDD demonstration activities;
• strengthening discussions and collaboration to enhance regional and national actions to combat illegal logging and associated trade;
• ensuring that the findings of the Asia-Pacific Forestry Sector Outlook Study are incorporated into strategic planning processes and used to guide reform and re-invention of forestry agencies; and
• promoting investment in forestry education and supporting collaborative efforts such as the proposed Asia-Pacific Universities’ Forest Education Network.

For the attention of FAO

The Commission recommended:

• providing policy support to member countries in assessing the potential social, economic and environmental implications of biofuels production;
• giving high priority to building and strengthening capacities for the transfer of skills and information, and to promote international and inter-sectoral cooperation and collaboration in developing responses to emerging forestry challenges;
• continuing efforts to enhance community-based forest management and forestry initiatives that help reduce poverty;
• formulating guidelines to assist countries in developing policies and practices relating to social aspects of sustainable forest management and poverty alleviation;
• continuing providing support for effective implementation of national forest programmes;
• assisting countries in developing effective mechanisms, as appropriate, to collect and distribute payments for environmental services;
• continuing support for executive training in forest policy, forestry education networks, the regional forest policy initiative, follow-up to the second Asia-Pacific Forestry Sector Outlook Study, national forest programmes, and monitoring, assessment and reporting for sustainable forest management activities;
• studying mechanisms that might enable the realization of “green premiums” for sustainable forest management;
• maintaining a strong emphasis on capacity building, especially strengthening national capacities for dealing with climate change issues;
• carefully assessing priorities and potential synergies so that FAO-supported activities can be focused on the most critical issues;
• strengthening efforts to help countries integrate policies and strategies on climate change mitigation and adaptation into national forest programmes;
• supporting work on methodological issues related to REDD, including the definition of “forest degradation”;
• developing tools that could assist countries to address other ecosystem services and livelihood benefits in their REDD strategies;
• assisting with REDD-readiness and demonstration activities in developing countries by enhancing transfer of knowledge and technology, particularly with regard to monitoring and accounting of forest carbon;
• assisting developing countries in securing financial resources for carrying out REDD-readiness and demonstration activities;
• enhancing the sharing of information and experiences across the region and improving access to relevant data related to climate change challenges;
• strengthening countries’ analytical capacities and summarizing and clarifying the complexities of climate change mechanisms;
• preparing guidelines for developing national forest climate change adaptation plans;
• using opportunities presented by the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) and the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) to convey the forestry community’s perspectives on forests and climate change to the UNFCCC;
• coordinating closely among international agencies to minimize overlaps in work programmes and to ensure maximum efficiency in resource utilization;
• reporting of the outcomes of international forestry processes to UNFCCC;
• implementing a stock-taking review of national forest law compliance and governance activities and initiatives;
• assisting countries in strengthening capacity and securing financial resources to enable effective implementation of measures to combat illegal logging and improve forest law compliance;
• assisting member countries in developing and implementing simple and practical tools and mechanisms for combating illegal logging and associated trade, including voluntary forest and chain-of-custody certification (including mutual recognition), legality verification systems, national standards and codes of practice, criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management, and reviews of legislation and governance-related initiatives;
• assisting forestry agencies in the region to review structures, policies and functions to better align these with new demands, objectives and expectations;
• supporting member countries in maximizing the use of the findings of the Asia-Pacific Forestry Sector Outlook Study and the APFC study on re-inventing forestry agencies; and
• submitting the report of the twenty-second session of Asia-Pacific Forestry Commission, including a summary of the outcomes relevant to the UNFF8 agenda items, to the UNFF Secretariat.