Opening Remarks
Dr. Kazuo Suzuki (President, FFPRI)

DAY1Opening session

Opening Remarks
Dr. Kazuo Suzuki (President, FFPRI 1)
Distinguished guests, Ladies, and Gentlemen, on behalf of the organizing committee of
REDD+ seminar, I would like to extend sincere welcome to all of you, especially, those who have
traveled all the way to join this seminar. It’s my honor to make opening remarks at the beginning of
this seminar today.
REDD+ has become one of the hottest issues in the international discussions andnegotiations on climate change. Deforestation and forest degradation are the second largest source ofgreenhouse gases emissions after the use of fossil fuel. As one of the measures to address this issue,REDD+ has a big potential to reduce such emissions. At the same time, REDD+ could contribute tobiodiversity, local economy, and local people’s livelihood.
REDD+ was born as an idea of avoiding deforestation proposed by Papua New Guinea andCosta Rica at COP 2 11 3 in 2005. The framework of REDD+ was agreed at COP 16 4 held inCancún, 2012. At COP 19 5 in Warsaw, seven decisions that cover technical guidance, finance, andinstitutional arrangement were agreed. This framework is called the “Warsaw framework for REDD+”.
To this end, countries started developing REDD+ slowly but steadily.
FFPRI has studied tropical forests ecology, forest monitoring technologies, and relating
socio-economics for long time. With these experiences, we established the REDD Research andDevelopment Center 6 four years ago to help facilitate international discussions on REDD+.
Currently, we are carrying out researches in Cambodia, Malaysia and Paraguay. In these countries, weare working on the development of methodologies suitable for a national REDD+ monitoring system.
The results obtained in these countries are shared with host countries to contribute their datamanagement and capability development. To disseminate these acquired results, we compiled theseresults as a technical guidebook called the REDD+ Cookbook 7 .

In addition, we organize aninternational seminar once a year.
For this year, we invited Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO 8),
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA 9), International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO 10),

Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute: http://www.ffpri.affrc.go.jp/en/
Conference of the Parties: https://www.cbd.int/cop/
3 http://www.cbd.int/cop11/
4 http://www.cc2010.mx/en/
5 http://unfccc.int/meetings/warsaw_nov_2013/session/7767.php
6 http://www.ffpri.affrc.go.jp/redd-rdc/en/
7 http://www.ffpri.affrc.go.jp/redd-rdc/en/reference/cookbook.html
8 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: http://www.fao.org
9 Japan International Cooperation Agency: http://www.jica.go.jp/english/
10 International Tropical Timber Organization: http://www.itto.int/
12

DAY1
Opening session
Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES 11), and United Nations University (UNU 12) toserve as co-organizers.

I appreciate their cooperation and hard-working efforts. Furthermore, I

would like to express my gratitude to The Government of Japan including Forestry Agency 13, Ministryof Foreign Affairs 14, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry 15, Ministry of Environment 16 for theirstrong support for this seminar.
This seminar will focus on the relationship and linkage between REDD+ and Sustainable
Forest Management (SFM 17).

As you know, the concept of sustainable forest management wasproposed at the Earth Summit 18 held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 as “a dynamic and evolving concept
aims to maintain and enhance the economic, social and environmental value of all types of forests, forthe benefit of present and future generations”. We should recall this concept for implementing
REDD+. While REDD+ is a tool for implementing sustainable forest management in some cases,experiences acquired from its activities will contribute to REDD+ activities in the other cases.
For this seminar, we invited world-leading experts on REDD+ and sustainable forest
management. Today’s discussion will focus on technical aspects of REDD+ and sustainable forest
management, and discussions for tomorrow will focus on institutional and political aspects. Afterthese sessions, panel discussion will be held tomorrow afternoon. I encourage all participants toactively join in this panel discussion.
In conclusion, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all speakers and participants.
I hope that this seminar will produce fruitful results and contribute to the future REDD+ andsustainable forest management.

Institute for Global Environmental Strategies: http://www.iges.or.jp/en/
United Nations University: http://unu.edu/
13 http://www.maff.go.jp/e/
14 http://www.mofa.go.jp/
15 http://www.meti.go.jp/english/
16 https://www.env.go.jp/en/
17 Sustainable Forest Management
18 http://www.un.org/geninfo/bp/enviro.html
1112