Speech of Jose Carlos Fernandez, Head of International Affairs of theMexican National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR)

Mrs Jan McAlpine, Director of United Nations Forum on Forests
Mrs Maya Graf, member of the Swiss Pairlament
Jose Edmundo Bononge, Minister of the environment, nature andtourism of the DRC
Emmanuel Ze Meka, Exec Dir, International Tropical Timber
Organization
Hans Peter Egler, Head of Trade Promotion, State Secretariat for
Economic Affairs
SECO Friends and forest conservation colleagues,
Good morning to you all,It is for me an honour to be here and on behalf of our Minister ofthe Environment of Mexico and I would like to express ourgratitude to the ITTO and the Swiss Government for providing uswith the opportunity to join you all in celebrating the launch of theStatus of Tropical Forest Management 2011. We would like tocongratulate ITTO for the report and to thank the Swissgovernment for taking such a leadership role supporting thisenterprise. In particular, acknowledge the work of Jurgen Blasser,
Alastair Sarre, Ducan Poore, Steve Johnson and all the contributors
to the volume which resulted in a strong, sound and accessible
report. Like never before, there are two gaps that must be closedsimultaneously, the poverty gap and the environmental degradation
one. In Mexico, many of the poorest Mexicans live in forested
areas that provide a wealth of environmental goods and services
but that are also being lost and degraded. To the extent that forests
provide benefits to their inhabitants in ways that maintain them wewill be closing those gaps simultaneously. This is why advancing

in the conservation and sustainable management of tropical forests
is so important locally, nationally and globally. From addressing
local subsistence, protecting biodiversity and both assisting inadapting to and mitigating climate change, tropical forests remain
key natural assets in need of adequate stewardship. For México,
the report unveiled today represents a significant contribution to
our understanding of the status and challenges around themanagement of tropical forests. You may wonder what is thevalue of this report to Mexico, and there are a number of reasons
we consider it extremely valuable: First, accountability of ourprogress on SFM: mexico believes that national progress must be
sound, demonstrable and comparable to ensure all of us do ourshare in global environmental stewardship. This report represents
progress towards this end for the more than 30 countries included
in it. Second need to stimulate collaboration Collaboration: Whilethe challenges for SFM presented in the report are many and someof them quite old, it also portrays some of the lessons learned andinnovative approaches being used. In this way, the report helps
trigger cooperation and stimulates policy innovation. México, forinstance, has a strong tradition in community forestry and theevolution of our program of payment for environmental services
could and is being shared with other countries. An effort that canand must be expanded globally. A related aspect is the promotionof common approaches: for example, We are excited that CoP 16of the climate convention in Cancún managed to set the basis for a
REDD+ mechanism that will provide incentives to reduce
deforestation, forest degradation and promote the enhancement ofcarbon stocks, including the sustainable management of forest. But
for this to work, we will need to develop common approaches on
Monitoring and the reporting of safeguards are obvious, but evencommon activity types to halt and revert forest loss anddegradation. This report can help in the design of such actions andsystems. Finally, incentives for improvement: We are happy to see
the report reflect many improvements in Mexico’s forest such as
reduced deforestation but we are equally motivated to addresssome of the remaining challenges, such as consolidating The áreas
under SFM and The expansión of competitive supply chains forcertified forest. Just like Mexico has seen a significant
strengthening of forest policies particularly in the last 10 years, webelieve that climate change may become the most significanttrigger for the expansion of global efforts in favor of forests andit's peoples. We must take this advantage fully and quickly. In ourvision, REDD+ is about promoting sustainable rural development,aligning policies across sectors and across multiple levels ofgovernment, in a way that can effectively get us closer to low
carbon development strategies... This are truly exciting times forforests. I will simply close saying that, as proud members ofITTO, we congratulate the organization for its 25th anniversaryand for this report, both of which make worthy milestones for this,international year of the forests. To our Swiss colleagues I would
also like to express our gratitude for their vision in supporting thiswork and the global forest agenda. We have been and will continue
to be close allies in forest issues and look forward to future joint
initiatives. Thank you.