Financiers: Government of the Netherlands and the UK Department for International Development (DFID).
Collaborating partners:
Abstract: In recent years the question of broadening and diversifying the financial basis for forest management has emerged as a key theme in the international forest policy dialogue. Everywhere in the world, policy-makers, researchers and practitioners are taking steps to develop new ways of paying for the goods and services provided by forests.
Most recently, within the context of the 7th meeting of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF-7), the international community adopted a “Non-Legally Binding Instrument” for all types of forests. This instrument expresses a shared understanding that sustainable development policies must be supported by a broad array of financial resources from national, international, public and private sources, in the context of a strengthened enabling policy environment for forest-related governance and management.
Like UNFF, other intergovernmental forest-related instruments — such as the Convention on Biodiversity, the Climate Change Convention, the Convention to Combat Desertification and the International Tropical Timber Organization — have marked sustainable financing of ecosystem management as a key topic. During the next meeting (UNFF-8, in April 2009), an international financing mechanism or framework will be proposed based on the so-called “Portfolio Approach” to support the national and international implementation of sustainable forest management. The “Paramaribo Dialogue: a Country-Led Initiative on Financing for Sustainable Forest Management, in Support of the United Nations Forum on Forests,” that will be held September 8–12, 2008 in Paramaribo, Suriname, will be an important milestone on the path to the elaboration of these proposed mechanisms.
This issue of ETFRN News on Financing Sustainable Forest Management brings together more than 35 articles on a variety of current policy and implementation initiatives at the international, national and local levels in this field, as well as views and experiences from experts and case studies of financial mechanisms for sustainable forest management.
This newsletter would not have been possible without the contributions of the authors. Jani Holopainen, Tapani Oksanen, Jyrki Salmi and Anna-Leena Simula from Indufor Oy are acknowledged for collecting and editing the articles. Moreover, I would like to extend my gratitude to Kees van Dijk (Tropenbos International) and Herman Savenije (Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality) for taking the initiative for this ETFRN News. Their expertise in and dedication to the subject has brought the publication to fruition and guaranteed the quality of the articles.
Adequate financing for sustainable forest management is directly linked to broader development objectives like poverty alleviation, access to safe drinking water, climate change mitigation and the protection and management of the natural resource base for economic and social development. With this publication we hope to take a step towards realising these goals.
