REDD+ Implementation and Sustainable Forest Management
Mr. Eduardo Mansur(Director, Forest Assessment, Management and Conservation Division, FAO)

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Opening session

Opening Remarks: REDD+ Implementation and Sustainable Forest Management
Mr. Eduardo Mansur (Director, Forest Assessment, Management and Conservation Division,FAO)
On behalf of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, I would like toextend thanks to Government of Japan and for the institutions that are co-organizing this importantseminar. I would like to recognize Dr. Suzuki and his team’s personal involvement from the FFPRI,
which have been outstanding for us to be here, both on arrangements and on the technical grounds. Itis a real pleasure for us to have the opportunities to work with you and your team. I would like to also
recognize Dr. Miyahara for the excellent support and the financial support also that we received fromthe Japan Forest Agency for realizing this event. Of course, JIFPRO 1 and many others have been
involved, so let me recognize the presence of Dr. Sasaki, the chairman of the board of directors.
Many colleagues and many friends, it is a great pleasure to see you here and to be here withyou. In our jargon, those who work in REDD+ now have started calling it the ‘February Tokyo
Workshop’. The February Tokyo meeting is becoming a tradition. This is the fourth edition. Itstarted when Dr. Matsumoto and his team took the beautiful initiative to join in Tokyo a group ofexperts after the COP.

The UNFCCC 2 COP’s normally happen at the end of November or early

December, and then comes Christmas break. In February the dust has settled and it is time forreflection. The Tokyo February Workshops are offering quality time for reflection on how the processof REDD+ is evolving, what is being learned, what can we share, what are the challenges?
This is the fourth edition, and some of us, including me had the pleasure of participating insome of them. It is really a moment where we can leave Tokyo and leave the seminar with the sensethat we gain here; we gain knowledge, we gain experiences, we gain contacts. Sometimes we also
identify the challenges, and we do not know exactly how to address them, but I think this is the beautyof this event, and the beauty of linking the research group that is here. It is a great pleasure toparticipate.
REDD+ is a theme that has been discussed now for about seven years, if we counted the big startup
from Bali COP. It is about time for an assessment of what is happening during this lifespan. We
have seen many REDD+ projects piloting in countries by many agencies. We see also national
REDD+ strategies evolving. It is about time to link them, to associate them, to bring the knowledgeof them, and we hope that this event will bring us to this.
Of course, I have support.

I am not alone from FAO.

Our coordinator of theFAO/UN-REDD program, Dr. Maria Sanz-Sanchez is accompanying me in this mission from FAO, andthe Senior Forestry Officer for Asia-Pacific, Dr. Patrick Durst are here. We will be more than happy toJapan International Forestry Promotion and Cooperation Center:
http://www.jifpro.or.jp/Top_E.html
2 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: https://unfccc.int/
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address any questions you have about FAO involvement on this. Of course, the easy questions are forme, and the difficult questions for Dr. Sanz-Sanchez and Dr. Durst.

Sometimes we have the feeling here when we talk to colleagues that we are preaching to theconverted, but we have to see forest from the global perspective if you want to talk about climatechange. About four billion hectares of land is covered by forests. This represents bit less than one
third of the land on the planet. About 40% are considered tropical forests. 1.6 billion hectares aretropical forests.

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REDD+ Implementation and Sustainable Forest Management
Mr. Eduardo Mansur(Director, Forest Assessment, Management and Conservation Division, FAO)

DAY1Opening session

36% are primary forests with no visible indication of human activities, and where ecologicalprocesses are not significantly disturbed. Planted forests represent only 7%, predominantly composedof trees established through planting or deliberate seeding.

The remaining 57% of forests arecomposed of naturally regenerating forests, with some degree of human intervention.

This gives us

more or less the current distribution of the forest characteristics in the world.

We know that forest biomass stocks almost 290 gigatons of carbon, but if you consider all thecarbon stored in soil in the forest land and the forest ecosystems, this figure grows to almost more than
650 gigatons of carbon. My colleagues and experts on this topic tell me that this is more or less thesame amount of carbon that is currently in the atmosphere of the planet.

If we want to address

climate change, that is about it. We can only increase the forest coverage globally, or to at least
maintain the current forest cover. That does not mean that deforestation will not occur in certain partsof the world or certain countries, but globally speaking, I think that is about it. We have changed thecharacteristics of the planet enough, and forests have to be maintained at least in the current proportion.
They are widely recognized as the most efficient and effective way to address climate change, because it
is one of the cheapest ways to guarantee carbon storage.

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However, forests can also be a menace for climate change when they are destroyed ordegraded. We know from the last estimation from FAO Global Forest Resource Assessment 3 that theworld loses about 13 million hectares of forest per year. That represents about 17.4% of carbon
emissions. This figure has data from IPCC 4 from 2007 5 and shows more or less the contribution ofeach sector in terms of carbon emission. You can see that forest contribution is larger than agriculture
emissions, or the transport emissions; much larger than the residential and commercial buildings. It isvery significant.

The challenges are how we maintain these forests as forests. People think of protected areas
as a solution. We know that the world nowadays has about 13% of the land covered by protected areas.
This means that more than 80% of world’s forests are outside protected areas. It is not feasible tohttp://www.fao.org/forestry/fra/en/
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch/
5 Fourth Assessment Report:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_synthesis_report.htm
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REDD+ Implementation and Sustainable Forest Management
Mr. Eduardo Mansur(Director, Forest Assessment, Management and Conservation Division, FAO)

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think that this figure will increase to more than 20 or 25% in the next few decades, because establishingprotected areas require an investment in management to maintain protected areas as protected, andfeasible for human development. It is very likely that the largest proportion of forest will remain forlong term as forests either naturally protected in locations that are difficult to access, or under humaninfluence. The challenge is to improve the quality of the existing and upcoming protected areas and tomaintain this area of 70 to 80% of the world’s forests that are not under protected areas under somedegree of control, under sound management, and under conservation.

There are different types of uses of forest. Forest is used for production, for protection ofsoil, for conservation of biodiversity, for recreation, or for multiple-use. The proportions here shown
are obtained also from the Forest Resource Assessment, from FRA 2010 6.

The question is what are the threats to forests? Land conversion to agriculture and to otheruses continues to be the major threat to forest followed closely by unsustainable and illegal forest
practices. Other causes include natural causes like fires and natural disasters.
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http://www.fao.org/forestry/fra/fra2010/en/

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It is up to foresters, toDAY1
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scientists, and to practitioners to demonstrate and disseminate sustainable practices that will maintainand hopefully expand current forests covering the planet. This will guarantee the carbon stock weneed to help address climate change. At the same time, forests must generate socioeconomic benefits
in a long-term basis to guarantee that they will not be replaced to other land uses. They must also
protect biodiversity, landscapes, and ecosystems to guarantee long-term life in our planet.

REDD+ came as an opportunity.

It is an opportunity to further demonstrate anddisseminate how to maintain and manage forests for carbon stocking and for much more. Outside that,
REDD+ has a large benefit for us working in forests for so many years. It put forests back into thestage, into the political dialogue, and into cooperation and development. It is a huge opportunity forus, who work in forestry to make the case for forest management. REDD+ efforts to date haveconcentrated mostly in the monitoring and assessment of forests for generation of data and for
informed decision making. This is very important. Also, national policies and strategies have initiatedand some piloting on REDD+ implementation on the ground. They are important, but they are notsufficient for achieving what we expect in terms of forest conservation and sustainable use. A next
step is urgently needed to demonstrate how forests should be managed, taking into account therequirement of the society and the conditions to achieve REDD+ results.

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REDD+ Implementation and Sustainable Forest Management
Mr. Eduardo Mansur(Director, Forest Assessment, Management and Conservation Division, FAO)

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Sustainable forest management is a concept that has been around for a long time. Some ofyou have seen, and I have a few copies with me and it can be still downloaded, the last issue of ourpublication, the Unasylva 7 which is about the 300 years of sustainable forest management. In 2013 wecelebrated the 300 years that the term ‘sustainable forest’ was first published in a publication in Germany.
Hence, we say that this concept is at least 300 years old. At that time, it was for mining when Germanforesters were saying, “If we do not manage the forests sustainably, there will be no timber for mining
structures.” The concept is 300 years old. There is this definition adopted by the United NationsGeneral Assembly, defining, “Sustainable forest management as a dynamic and evolving concept aims tomaintain and enhance the economic, social and environmental value of all types of forests, for thebenefit of present and future generations.”

This concept is part of the non-legally binding agreementthat has been adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.

SFM is a concept that can be understood in different levels, at the forest management unit
level, at the landscape/territorial level, at the national level, and at the global level. It is a complex,
evolving concept like the definition expressed. There are economic, social, and environmental factors
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http://www.fao.org/forestry/unasylva/en/

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liaising with the implementation of SFM, like timber production, like poverty alleviation, ruraldevelopment, soil protection, and water protection. Also, we know the issues that make difficult
implementing sustainable forest management: lack of financing support, lack of funding for sustainable
forest management; lack of capacities on the ground or capacities at the decision making level tounderstand and apply sustainable forest management; and governance issues.

We also havecompetition from other sectors for the land and natural resource use: from agriculture, mining, energy,infrastructure; this whole set is a challenge for implementing SFM. REDD+ puts this debate intoanother stage and we have to look at it as an opportunity.

This international seminar has three very clear objectives.

Facilitating the exchange ofexperience, those inspiring cases of sustainable forest management implementation that can contributeto the five REDD+ activities: reducing deforestation, reducing forest degradation, sustainable
management of forest, conservation, and enhancement of carbon stocks. This seminar should help us
discuss challenges for addressing the different scales of implementation and exploring challenge causedby scaling up from projects into national scales. This is still open and we should look at it. We also
have facilitating reflections on the role of sustainable forest management in the context of REDD+

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REDD+ Implementation and Sustainable Forest Management
Mr. Eduardo Mansur(Director, Forest Assessment, Management and Conservation Division, FAO)

demonstration.

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Then we have full implementation: moving towards a full implementation ofREDD+.
The objective is common to all of us: to maintain forests and their multiple benefits in asustainable, long-term basis for present and future generations to enjoy. We have an excellent program
ahead of us; carefully selected presentations, good scientists, practitioners that have been studying,discussing, and debating this issue from different perspectives. We expect that these two days will
generate a set of information that can serve as a legacy for us to carry forward. In FAO, we arecommitted to bringing the conclusions and recommendations of this seminar to be presented at theCommittee on Forestry 8 that FAO organized for the last week of June in Rome. There will be otherevents this year that are very relevant for what we are discussing, including the next COP in Lima, Peru,including the IUFRO 9 World Congress in Salt Lake City 10, including the CBD 11 COP in Korea 12.
Many things are happening in 2015, including the new climate agreement, so we are moving
towards there. I would like once again to thank FFPRI team on REDD+ for the February workshopin Tokyo. We hope that this becomes a tradition and I cannot express sufficiently the pleasure on myname and on behalf of my colleagues from FAO to be here with you and work on these two days
towards these objectives.

http://www.fao.org/forestry/57758/en/
International Union of Forest Research Organizations: http://www.iufro.org/
10 http://www.iufro.org/events/congresses/2014/11 Convention on Biological Diversity
12 http://biodiversity-l.iisd.org/events/cbd-cop-12/
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