Guest Speech
Hongo Koji (Director General, Forestry Agency)

Opening Session

Guest Speech
Hongo Koji (Director General, Forestry Agency)
Our first guests are Dr. Nyi Nyi Kyaw, the Director General of the Forest Department of the Ministry of
Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation of Myanmar, and Dr. Malgorzata Buszko-Briggs, theProgramme Officer of FAO/UN-REDD.

I would like to thank them, as well as the other presenters, forparticipating today in this international seminar.

I would like to congratulate the organizer, FFPRI, for the

10th anniversary of the establishment of the REDD Research and Development Center.

Since its

establishment, the REDD Research and Development Center has been engaging proactively in investigations,building the capacities necessary REDD+ initiatives with related organizations, the private sector, and thegovernments of developing countries.

I would like to thank them for their efforts, as well as congratulate themany participants today from Japan and outside of Japan for being able to join and hold this 10th internationalseminar.
The REDD+ initiatives and countermeasures for climate change have been referred to by Dr. Sawada andDr. Dieterle, so I am not going to talk about them, but at the end of September last year, there was a ClimateAction Summit1 organized by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, for which forestry was the pointof focus.

COP252, held late last year in Madrid, Spain, took up high-level dialogues on changing tendencies

for deforestation.

Chile, which held the presidency, called for the suppression of deforestation, as well as thepromotion of sustainable forestry, including sustainable and comprehensive activities related to land use.

Asfor Japan, I think the effective usage of Japanese forests, long-term utilization of forestry products, and othermeasures including those supported by REDD+, would have to be implemented in order to achieve the Paris
Agreement goals.
It has been 15 years since the REDD initiative was proposed, and many countries have been engaged invarious activities.

In Japan, we have put together the database necessary for REDD+ activities.

We areengaging in some tailor-made activities related to REDD+ in Japan, such as the development of the guidelines
for REDD+, which includes the Joint Crediting Mechanism3 (JCM), for which there has been agreement bytwo countries.

However, through such support, there are some REDD+ specific difficulties and challenges

that need to be overcome.

In addition, internationally, private sector funds would have to be introduced in alarger way going forward.
In this seminar, technical aspects of REDD+, policy coordination aspects, certification and market aspects,
and the participation of the private sector will be discussed.

I believe the expertise of the stakeholders invarious sectors is going to provide a very valuable opportunity today for the implementation of REDD+ goingforward.

As the Forestry Agency, we would like to also capitalize on the outcomes of this internationalseminar to be able to further provide technological contributions to the initiative.
Finally, because of other appointments, I am regretfully not able to stay throughout the day for this seminar,
https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/un-climate-summit-2019.shtml
https://unfccc.int/cop25
3 http://gec.jp/jcm/jp/1237

Opening Session
but I hope that it will be very fruitful.
collaboration.

I hope it will be a driving force for private and public sector

With that, I would like to conclude my remarks.

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Thank you very much.