Global deforestation: challenges and opportunities for concrete action to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030
May 2, 2022 | 4:00 PM KST - 5:30 PM KST
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2022 is a critical year to accelerate and deliver forest commitments to collectively reduce deforestation and forest degradation and to meet Paris Agreement goals. The Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forest and Land Use is the most recent call for action, signed by 141 governments and a strong confirmation of countries’ commitments. The declaration reiterates that halting deforestation requires concerted action from local to global levels and from within and outside the forest sector, notably transforming agriculture and food systems, ensuring and promoting sustainable and legal supply chains. A wide array of coalitions, initiatives and programmes is stirring progress towards this direction. This includes the UN-Secretary General’s call to turn the tide on deforestation, the New York Declaration on Forests and the UN-REDD Programme.
In this session, high-level speakers from governments and IPLC will discuss how to accelerate the delivery of forest solutions at scale as well as the investments and policies needed to achieve success in turning the tide in deforestation.
Objectives
This event will explore the main opportunities and challenges related to:
- Forest-based and land use mitigation actions in Nationally Determined Contributions.
- Public and corporate investments in forests as the most mature nature-based solution.
- Transforming food systems and achieving long-term sustainable change at a landscape level.
- Legality frameworks and governance.
Speakers
Enabling and scaling up finance to halt deforestation
May 3, 2022 | 11:00 AM KST - 12:30 PM KST
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Government expenditure plays a significant role in financing nature accounting by more than 500 billion USD per year. With almost half of it flowing into agricultural subsidies, redesigning government expenditures and ensuring policy coherence among sustainable consumption and production patterns are critical to turning the tide of deforestation.
Growing momentum on result-based finance (carbon markets and REDD+) may serve as complementary financing opportunities for such actions as the demand for carbon offsets is rapidly surging to meet the Paris agreement targets, stimulated by the recent approval of Article 6 at the COP26. Financial innovation in legal and sustainable commodity supply chains, and carbon market driven mechanisms to foster forest-positive agriculture is urgently needed to halt deforestation and effective investment.
Objectives
This session will share the challenges of and opportunities for mainstreaming forest-positive commodity finance from both public and private sector initiatives with the aim to transform the global food system, to reduce the impact on deforestation and to support sustainable commodity production.
Speakers
Responding to changing agrifood commodity markets’ requirements to turn the tide on deforestation
May 3, 2022 | 4:00 PM KST - 5:30 PM KST
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Population growth and economic development significantly increase the demand for agricultural commodities. Despite some progress in agricultural productivity, agricultural land expansion has been a frequent solution to meet this demand, causing considerable loss of forests, particularly in the tropics. This trade-off between agriculture and forest has been widely acknowledged and commitments have multiplied including the Consumer Goods Forum resolution and the New York Declaration on forests.
To halt and reverse deforestation caused by agricultural commodities demand, market-based measures are being implemented by governments and companies, focused on what are considered the most 'forest-risk' commodities, notably beef, soy, palm oil, cocoa, timber and coffee. Several compulsory frameworks to encourage private operators to develop legal and sustainable supply chains are currently under development. What impacts will these measures have on governments, large operators, and smallholders?
Objectives
- Provide an overview of current market demands for agro-commodities, and related actions from governments, private sector and civil society to reduce the forest footprint of commodity supply chains.
- Promote discussion on innovative tools and initiatives for addressing deforestation in supply chains and how they can be tailored to ensure smallholders’ inclusion (notably small-scale farmers and SMEs).
Speakers
Strengthening governance and verification systems to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation
May 4, 2022 | 11:00 AM KST - 12:30 PM KST
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This session focuses on country-level efforts to strengthen forest and land governance, and verification systems to halt deforestation and forest degradation. The role of legal and sustainable production of timber in addressing deforestation and how lessons learned from the forest sector can be applied to agricultural commodities will be highlighted.
Objectives
- Generate understanding of growing international demand for legal and sustainable wood on the international market.
- Generate understanding of country-led efforts to improve governance and halt illegal and unsustainable logging (including over 10 years of implementing the FLEGT Action Plan and certification) and how these efforts contribute to halting deforestation and mitigating climate change.
- Increase awareness of tools that countries have developed to achieve goals of halting deforestation and forest degradation, such as strengthening and simplification of legal and policy frameworks and implementation of verification and complementary traceability and monitoring systems; integrated land use planning; participatory engagement and partnership building.
- Generate discussion on the role of different stakeholders and multi-stakeholder dialogue in strengthening forest and land governance and developing verification systems.
- Highlight efforts and progress on the ground to improve legality and sustainability of commodity production.
Speakers
Assessing drivers of deforestation - implications for policy making
May 5, 2022 | 2:30 PM KST - 4:00 PM KST
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Halting deforestation and boosting sustainable and legal value chains of forest and agriculture commodities, including by optimizing the nexus between agriculture and forests and removing trade-offs among them, requires robust and comprehensive information on the dynamics that condition the use of forests and land.
Constant progress is made in this field of work, with different studies being realized on underlying and direct drivers of land use change and forest loss, at global, regional and national level. Access to data generated by remote sensing with increasing resolution and frequency, as well as tools using economic and social statistics, have contributed to significant knowledge generation on land use dynamics and forest cover.
The session will present some of these developments and discuss how they can facilitate informed and science-based decision making when addressing the challenge of producing more and better food without further encroachment on forest ecosystems.
Objectives
This technical session will focus on the latest research on methodologies for assessing deforestation and forest degradation, imported deforestation and the role of data in combating deforestation and forest degradation.
Speakers
