What goals should be reached through REDD+? And beyond REDD+?
Hwan-Ok Ma (Reforestation and Forest Management Division ITTO145)

Session 3 will focus on ‘What goal should be reached through REDD+, and beyond REDD+.” I
believe this is a fascinating subject for this International Seminar.

Under this subject, I would liketo introduce very briefly about the general framework of REDD+, and the current support to REDD
at international level.

Then, my presentation will focus on the expected goals or the opportunities

provided by REDD+ at the international level.

Finally, I will make a short conclusion.

We talked a lot about the first ‘D’ and second ‘D’ of REDD. We are also very clear about thedefinition of REDD, which was introduced in Bali and adopted in Cancun. In addition to the first‘D’ and the second ‘D.’, we should not forget about the ‘plus,’ which is the role of conservation,
sustainable management of forests and the enhancement of forest carbon stock. Our key concern
is how these five elements will be able to generate multiple benefits in the forest sector. We areexpecting some benefits in the SFM146 from the implementation of REDD+.

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International Tropical Timber Organization: http://www.itto.int/

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Sustainable Forest Management

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I would like to draw your attention to some kind of the general history of REDD. We are now in2012, which the Rio+20 Conference will take place in June.

Let us go back to 1992, which was

the beginning of the Rio Conference. At that time the forest principles had been adapted and three
UN families: UNFCCC147, CBD148 and UNCCD149 had been established. After 1992, we haveseen many interesting developments, particularly in the climate change.
Map, Copenhagen Accord and Cancun Agreement.
Our interest is what will happen after 2012.

.

We have seen Bali Road

Last year, we have seen the Durban Platform.

In this connection, we can note that Rio+20

Conference’s one of the discussion topics is building the green economy in the context of the social
development and the poverty alleviation.

My organization is also working with JICA to organizea side-event to address some of the issues of the sustainable forest management in the Rio deJaneiro.
What will happen beyond 2012? We can expect from the Durban Platform, which is indicating
the second commitment of the Kyoto Protocol will start from the January of next year to 2017 or2020. Another important element of the Durban Platform is that a new legal binding agreement
applicable to all the parties, including developing countries and, developed countries will benegotiated with a time plan of implementing the protocol from 2020. We believe the since 1992,
forestry has been an important subject of international discussions and the negotiations.

We haveno doubt that, particularly REDD will be an important subject in the new international agreement.

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United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: http://unfccc.int/

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Convention on Biological Diversity: http://www.cbd.int/

149 United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification: http://www.unccd.int/

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We have seen very impressive demonstration projects are ongoing in many countries, in Africa,Asia, also in Latin America in the first and second sessions. These are some of the examples of
the international support made to REDD. Important players are REDD+ Partnership, which is a
global partnership with many donor countries, and World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility,
the UN-REDD and GEF150. They are assisting many developing countries to prepare REDD+strategies. There are also many bilateral and multilateral initiatives from the Amazon Fund,
Congo Basin Forest Fund, Norway, JICA and Australia.
In case of ITTO, we established a new thematic program REDDES151, by including environmental
service to REDD. We are implementing around 15 projects in the three tropical regions with thesupport of our donor countries particularly from the Government of Norway. They provided
about $9 million to ITTO. This is our opportunity to work with our donor countries. Also, wehave seen the Japan’s, Bilateral Offset Mechanism. Under this mechanism, we have seen many
feasibility studies taking place in many developing countries.

This is just a quick introduction to ITTO pilot-public-private partnership case. I am very pleased
to see today our colleague from the Seven & I Holding Company, who is working at the CSR152
division, Akatsuka-san is with us. It is our pleasure to work with the Seven & I to promote
high-biodiversity conservation REDD in the Meru Betiri National Park in Indonesia. We are also
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Global Environment Facility: http://www.thegef.org/

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Reducing Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Enhancing Environmental Services152Community Salvage License

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very closely working with many local actors, local university, to measure carbon as well as social
baseline study. We are very much looking forward to improving this long-term partnership.

ITTO is also facilitating the conduct of the feasibility study for Marubeni Corporation under theBilateral Offset Mechanism of Japan through two ministries, Ministry of Economy, Trade andIndustry, as well as the Ministry of Environment. In the case of Indonesia, we are facilitating thestudy in the Central Kalimantan. Also, we are pleased to link with the Hokkaido University todevelop some of the project design documents and methodology. We are expecting in the Central
Kalimantan, REDD+ project design document, particularly the MRV153 system will be developed
to rehabilitate ecosystem restoration of 200,000 hectares of the peat swamp forest in Central
Kalimantan.
In case of Acre, Brazilian Amazon Brazil, we are closely working with the Brazilian Biodiversity
Fund, FUNBIO154, as well as the Acre State which is one of the leading states in Brazil, in Amazon.
Initially, we identified 1.5 million hectares, which is a big area. Also, we believe this feasibility
study will be able to bring out a good REDD project, under the Acre state’s policies and initiatives.
In fact, they have a very interesting mechanism for the promotion of environmental service such as,carbon, water, biodiversity and so on.

Back to the REDD goal. We know very well, REDD+ is being developed as first and foremost as
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Measurement, Reporting, Verification.

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Brazilian Biodiversity Fund: http://www.funbio.org.br/171

a climate mitigation option. What would be expected goals from the REDD worldwide?

Ibelieve there are two main focuses. First, how to avoid or how to reduce the deforestation which
is taking 7 to 13 million hectares?

Secondly, how to minimize forest degradation which is now

estimated about 2 to 3 million hectares per year?

Regarding the forest degradation we are very

pleased to see the recent Bonn Challenge on forest, climate change and biodiversity organized by
the IUCN155. They have a target to restore 150 million hectares by 2020. I believe this is an
important global initiative to restore degraded forest land. We are hoping more similar initiatives
will come out to mitigate climate change.

In addition to carbon, REDD is being promoted as a big opportunity to maximize biodiversity
benefit as a core benefit.
biodiversity.

The forests are home to more than half of the earth’s terrestrial

Well designed REDD projects will certainly contribute to the conservation of in-situ

biodiversity by protecting the habitat inside the forest. This biodiversity conservation will also
contribute to adapting to climate change, which will strengthen of our health, and ecosystems.

In addition to carbon and biodiversity, we are also very clear about another important benefit fromREDD, which is respecting the social safeguard. More than 300 million indigenous people andlocal community are dependent on forests. There is a very increasing attention to the social
safeguard, particularly the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), being very muchpromoted in order to ensure the full and effective participation of the indigenous local communities.
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International Union for Conservation of Nature: http://www.iucn.org/

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Local communities and indigenous people should make a decision whether an investment isinteresting or not based on the fair and unbiased information. We believe this kind of principle
also will contribute to community-based forest management practices like we had learned from
Tanzania and the other countries in the previous sessions. But we need more on this kind ofpractices so that local communities will more successfully restore and manage many of the forests.
Carbon, biodiversity and local community are clear targets for the implementation of REDD+activities

Another interesting benefit of REDD+ will be improved conditions for the implementation ofsustainable management of forests (SFM).

Particularly, we expect REDD+ framework willcontribute to improving consultation process between key stakeholders. What I have recently
seen in some tropical countries in, comparing to 5 or 10 years ago is that there has been a bigimprovement in the consultation process. For instance, the Cambodian Forestry Administration in
Phnom Penh has showed a big improvement in consultation with key stakeholders in developing
national REDD+ strategies. Furthermore, I am sure REDD certainly will address the issue of land
tenure conflicts in a more formal way, which is one of the complicated issues in tropical countries.
I also recognized that MRV systems will be important for social safeguard How to measure social
benefit to local community?

How to ensure the effective participation of indigenous people andlocal communities in the design and implementation of REDD+ activities?

I think these things

should be captured in a reporting system where an assessment will be made based on indicators.
Furthermore I believe this REDD will capitalize the full value of tropical forests, throughparticularly promoting payment mechanisms for environmental service provided by tropical forests.
It is clear that payment systems would be able to help manage and conserve tropical forests, inwhich deforestation and forest degradation have taken place at an alarm rate.

I believe strongly

that the payment mechanisms promoted through REDD+ will address part of market failures fortropical forests in a sustainable way.

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Now I would like to draw your attention to the possible contributions of REDD+ to twointernational policy areas such as SFM and the Aichi Biodiversity Target.

What I am trying topromote is the important framework of sustainable forest management where the shared objectiveof sustainable management and sustainable development is essential. I think this is a powerfulidea for better forestry for the people and for the environment. The other biggest contribution ofREDD+ could include its facilitation to the achievement of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, wereadopted in 2010 in Japan at COP10of CBD.

Out of 20 biodiversity targets, 4 targets are very

closely linked with REDD.
For instance, when we promote reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation, this isclearly contributing to the extent of the forest resources in the elements of SFM.

Also, this isclearly to contributing to the achievement of target 5 of the Aichi Biodiversity Target to halve therate of deforestation by 2020. When we reduce the emission from forest degradation, it willclearly protect the function of forest resources, and also bring all forests under sustainable
management. Similarly when we conserve more carbon stocks in the forest that eventually will also
contribute to more biodiversity conservation and at the same time the achievement of target 11 will
be facilitated to bring 17% of land area under protected area management by 2020.
Previously, IUCN, promoted 10%, 13% for protected area in a country but it is now recommended
to have 17%. Appropriate land use planning with more secured protected forests is essential.
Sustainable management of forest which is identified as one of REDD+ activities will also
contribute to many aspects, particularly in production forests through improved forest management,
particularly reduced-impact logging will contribute a lot, not only to the productive function fortimber but also to many things such as carbon and biodiversity conservation. In the Aichi
Biodiversity Target, it will also contribute to bringing all forests under sustainable management.
The last one is enhancing forest carbon stock through afforestation, reforestation, restoration which
will contribute a lot to many aspects. Particularly, I am considering its contribution to enhanced
forest health among the 7 elements of SFM. It is also contributing to the achievement of target 15of the CBD, to restore 15% of the degraded ecosystem. As I introduced the Bonn Challenge,
there is an international initiative to restore 150 million hectares of degraded forests.

When thefive elements of REDD+ are promoted, certainly there would be important improvements in crosscutting issues such as socio-economic development and forest policy reform.

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This is some kind of the landscape for scaling up REDD+ beyond 2012. International community
agreed the phase approach. Phase 1 is the national REDD strategy development. We have seenthat many countries have advanced the process while some countries almost finalized the REDD
strategy with the implementation of demonstration projects.

The second phase is for theimplementation of policies and the measures identified in the national strategy. The third phase isthe payment for performance.

I believe Phase 3 should be ready before 2020, when a newprotocol is implemented. Payments will be made in Phase 3 but we are hoping that some of thepilot REDD+ projects the Phase 1 and Phase 2 will generate carbon credits to be traded in carbon
markets.

In this regard, we look forward to the advancement of the Japan Bilateral Offset

Mechanism to facilitate REDD+ carbon in the market place as I believe this Mechanism is aninnovative way in parallel with the UNFCCC’s compliance market to be established by a newprotocol.

In conclusion, I would like to say that the sustainability of tropical forests should be further
enhanced beyond REDD+ because REDD+ is being promoted as a global payment mechanism
for environmental services provided by tropical forests.

This is a global mechanism or framework

to value tropical forests and to promote their long-term sustainability. There are many REDD+
benefits we can expect, but we understand these benefits depend on the main architecture of
REDD+ in the UNFCCC negotiation. As far as I know, there are two important words in front of
REDD+ negotiation text; namely policy approaches and positive incentives.

So, we look forward

to more effective policy approaches and real incentives to promote REDD+ activities.
bring out effective policy approaches and incentives for REDD+?
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How toThis is a continuing questionand challenge. At the national level, we look forward to continuing the capacity building with thesupport of the donor countries. I believe the success of REDD+ will facilitate eventually thedevelopment of payment mechanism for all types of environmental services provided by tropicalforests at the national, regional and international levels.

As I mentioned earlier, we are now in 2012 with an expectation of a new protocol which will be
implemented from 2020. Let us move forward in order to put REDD+ in place on the ground as
early as possible towards increasing sustainable financing for global SFM, as well as thesustainable development for the benefits of the present and future generations. Thank you verymuch for your attention.

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