Special Report with a Focus on Forests:
Highlights of the Asia Pacific Forestry Week
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Asia-Pacific Forestry Week (APFW2019) at the
Songdo Convensia Convention Center, Incheon, Republic of Korea
is on this week
17-21 June 2019
. It will be one of the largest and most important forestry gatherings in the Asia-Pacific region in 2019.
"Forests for peace and well-being"
is the overall theme of APFW2019, which reflects the positive dimensions of forestry and suggests the need to proactively integrate forestry into the wider context of environment, society, and sustainable development, under which economic, social, human and cultural dimensions are considered in a holistic manner. The Korea Forest Service (KFS) hosts the event together with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which encourages participation and support of partner organisations and collaborators, including government, civil society, research, academia, and the private sector.
Go to FAO for more.
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Need to urgently preserve what's left
of primary forests in Asia Pacific
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Time is running out:
Forests in the vast Asia-Pacific region are facing a serious threat as primary forest cover is now only 19% of total forest area – the lowest level of any region worldwide. This from the FAO at the major gathering of forestry stakeholders which assembled today (18 June 2019), in Incheon in the Republic of Korea.
Asia and the Pacific has the
lowest per capita forest area of any world region
. But quantity is not the only issue.
“With primary forests at only 19% of the total forest area, compared with a global average of 32%, we are worried about the lack of forest quality in our region – as primary forests are rich in biodiversity – and once that’s gone it’s gone,” said Kundhavi Kadiresan, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative.
“We need to urgently preserve what’s left of our primary forests. Time is running out and we must act now."
For the rest of the story.
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Forests for Peace and Well-Being
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A significant contributor to this year's Asia Pacific Forestry Week is PEFC - the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification - celebrating its 20 years of existence. Reflecting the positive dimensions of forestry, ‘Forests for peace and well-being' is the overall theme of this influential event.
“I fear the majority of us do not understand the true value of certification,” said Ben Gunneberg, speaking at Asia-Pacific Forestry Week (APFW). “We understand that forest certification is a tool to demonstrate sustainable forest management. We also understand that certification delivers products originating in sustainable forests to the marketplace. These are the direct, known benefits. But it is the lesser known, indirect benefits of forest certification which contribute to our well-being, better collaboration and ultimately, peace.” Ben was speaking on the panel of the first APFW plenary session earlier today.
More from PEFC here.
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Focus on Forests: Headlines and Highlights
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Communicating effectively about forestry:
That was the focus of a media workshop attended by 25 participants from 11 countries as part of Asia-Pacific Forestry Week. Designed to boost regional capacity and encourage knowledge sharing, the two-day interactive workshop was co-organised by the Asia-Pacific Forest Communicators Network, The Center for People and Forests (RECOFTC) and FAO, with the support of the government of Austria and the Finnish Forest Association. Workshop participants learned about the importance of advocacy, including how to reach audiences using clear, concise and colourful key messages on sustainable forest management.
Read all about it!
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Vietnam adds up to 50:
Just in time for its 20th anniversary, the PEFC Alliance welcomes Vietnam as its 50th national member. “Besides celebrating 20 years of caring for our forests, we have another reason to rejoice. The 50th national member marks an important milestone for PEFC,” said Ben Gunneberg, CEO of PEFC International.
“We started with eleven European national members, and now we have more than 50 spread across the entire globe. We are very happy and grateful to everyone who made this success possible.” Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Forest Certification Office,Dr. Bui Chinh Nghia said "
Being part of the PEFC family will help us to promote forest certification in Vietnam, and to meet the requirements of domestic and international markets.”
Read More
PEFC Endorses Thailand:
The latest country to achieve PEFC endorsement of its national forest certification system is Thailand. “This is a giant leap for forestry in Thailand,” said Mr. Sakchai Unjittikul, Chairman of
Thailand Forest Certification Council (TFCC)
, the national member for Thailand.
The newly endorsed system will allow Thai forest owners and managers to demonstrate their sustainable forest management practices in line with global standards and requirements.
There's more.
Myanmar Membership Imminent:
An announcement is expected any day soon that Myanmar officially comes on board as a fully-fledged PEFC member. There's been productive collaboration between PEFC and MFCC over a three-year period as Myanmar transitions to the sustainable management of its forests. The project is co-funded by the
Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation
.
Sustainable forest management is of special importance for Myanmar, as 70% of the population are heavily dependent on forests for their basic needs and many are dependent on the forest sector for employment.
More on Myanmar.
Humans of the Forests:
How do forests affect people around the world? How do they calm, excite and inspire them? And what does sustainable management have to do with that? In the video series
Humans of the Forests
(HoF), we hear the fascinating stories of people around the globe who are in touch with forests in their daily lives. PEFC's
first video takes us to Asiago, Italy, where we meet Anna Sella, the manager of a PEFC-certified forest.
See and hear much more.
New International Stakeholder:
The PEFC family welcomes
Sappi Limited
as its 30th International Stakeholder member. Like all its
International Stakeholder members
, Sappi will help ensure the sustainable management of the world’s forests.
“Credible, internationally recognised, robust forest certification systems, like PEFC, are fundamental to Sappi’s commitment to sustainability. These systems give assurance to our value chain of the origin of our woodfibre and responsible forest management practices,” said Steve Binnie, CEO of Sappi,
a leading global company focused on providing dissolving wood pulp and packaging, printing and writing papers, as well as biomaterials and biochemicals. Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sappi has over 12,500 employees in 35 countries and manufacturing operations on three continents.
There's more.
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Endorsement for India & Trees Outside Forests
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For decades, only trees in forests came within the scope of PEFC's forest certification. However, trees also grow outside forests, in hedgerows, scattered on farms, along streets in urban areas. With the approval of PEFC's revised Sustainable Forest Management benchmark standard last year, this is set to change. This was the message the PEFC team took to the
World Agroforestry Congress
, held in May in Montpellier, France.
Trees outside Forests (TOF) makes PEFC certification accessible to millions of farmers who own or manage trees on agricultural or settlement land, increasing income generation opportunities for rural populations and in parallel support the delivery of a range of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Read more.
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Earlier this year - in April in fact - India become the latest country to achieve the PEFC endorsement of its national forest certification system. “PEFC endorsement is a landmark achievement for India, as we have long felt the need for such a country specific and internationally benchmarked forest certification system,” said Vijai Sharma, Chairman of
The Network for Certification and Conservation of Forests (NCCF)
, PEFC's national member for India.
NCCF joined the PEFC alliance
in 2015 and submitted the national system to PEFC for endorsement in 2017. The system was developed through a multi-stakeholder group including forestry professionals, representatives from government, forest corporations, conservation organisations and industry bodies.
There's more.
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World Architecture Festival Prized Designs
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Applications for the 2019
World Architecture Festival
(WAF) are closed and the world will soon be looking at the latest and most innovative construction designs.
For the second time, PEFC supports the
Best Use of Certified Timber Prize.
Pictured is last year's winner, International House in Sydney, Australia.
The prize rewards architects and project teams for using certified timber in an innovative, educational or artistic manner for their constructions.
More and more architects, public authorities and private companies worldwide are choosing certified wood for their buildings. The 12th World Architecture Festival will take place in Amsterdam from 4-6 December 2019.
Read more.
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The Krakani Lumi Camp is located in Tasmania’s North East National Park and serves as a stopover for up to ten visitors taking guided walks through aboriginal land in Tasmania, Australia. Constructed for the Aboriginal Land Council, a key priority of the project was environmental awareness and respect for the native culture. The only materials used for construction were certified and locally sourced timber and metal. Thanks to the surface of dark, charred wood and the surrounding dense banksia bushes, the camp is well camouflaged and hardly visible when not in use. This was a finalist in PEFC contest for the World Architecture Festival.
There's more.
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Besides the winning project in the category
Best Use of Certified Timber
, supported by PEFC, the jury highlighted two more extraordinary buildings. The second highly commended prize went to the
Royal Academy of Music
Theatre & Recital Hall in London.
By revitalising the Susie Sainsbury Theatre,
Ian Ritchie Architects
created an extraordinary performance space, while also adding a new recital hall with a completely different ambience at roof top level. “Sustainable sourcing of materials is extremely important for us as a practice and our specifications always include a requirement for timber to be certified,” said Brian Heron, Project Architect at Ian Ritchie Architects.
Play on!
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Forest Futures: Sustainable Pathways
for Forests, Landscapes & People
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The report,
‘Forest Futures – Sustainable pathways for forests, landscapes and people in the Asia-Pacific region’
, suggests that special interest trade-offs will, in many cases, be inevitable but these can be mitigated through landscape approaches where stakeholders work together to create synergies. The latest FAO report shows that "Landscape governance does not necessarily require that countries break up their sectoral institutions to form single entities responsible for governing all aspects of landscapes, but it points to the need to plan and work jointly among sectors.”
Kundhavi Kadiresan, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative, in launching the report told delegates that
“bringing sectoral expertise together to address landscape-scale issues is the characteristic and strength of a landscape approach, which, in turn, means changing the way that sectoral institutions and stakeholders work.” This would mean considerable investment across the region and the bringing together of all stakeholders – from governments, industry, civil society and forest-dependent communities – to build resilient forests of the future.
Read all about it.
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Palm Oil: Environmental & Health Issues
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Palm Oil Personified (by the Editor):
I know there will be many who disagree with me, but I have often made it very clear that I object to palm oil on two very valid counts. To confirm this, I was accurately quoted in today's Straits Times (17 June 2019): "Some people like Mr Ken Hickson consciously avoid palm oil for health and environmental reasons. Massive deforestation in the tropics is due to converting rain forests to grow oil palm plantations," said the chairman of Sustain Ability Showcase Asia (SASA), a Singapore sustainability consultancy business. "In our home kitchen, we only use olive oil and canola oil, never palm oil and never other vegetable oil, unless we are sure it is not palm oil disguised!"
Read the rest on LinkedIn
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Crosscheck for Traceability:
Sime Darby believes the frontier to halting deforestation is traceability. The
world is concerned that palm oil production is driving deforestation, and as the leading producer of sustainable palm oil, Sime Darby Plantation is concerned too. So they've launched 'Crosscheck': an open access online tool. It is a major step towards full traceability of the supply chain and it is the first of its kind for the palm oil industry. Anyone can use this tool to check whether palm oil is being sourced from high risk areas. With Crosscheck, users can view the mills that supply the refineries and who owns these mills; they can view a map showing the 50 kilometre radius around each mill and areas of risk such as High Carbon Stock forest.
Read more.
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Community Forests: Indonesia & Nepal
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Community forests play an important role within Indonesia. While they cover just 2.3 million hectares (in a country with roughly 90 million hectares of forest), they support the livelihoods of more than 3.4 million households. But the certification of these community forests continues to be a challenge. In the last decade, the quantity of timber harvested by communities has increased dramatically, reaching more than five million square metres annually. As these numbers continue to grow, it is more important than ever that these community forests are managed sustainably, ensuring they continue to benefit the local economy and ecosystem. PEFC works with the Indonesian Forest Certification Cooperation (IFCC) and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) to manage and progress the community forests programme.
There's more.
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Photo credit:Jason Houston for USAID
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Despite forest covering almost a quarter of Nepal’s land area, the forest sector’s contribution to the national economy has remained disproportionately small. Investment in long-term forest management and conservation has been hampered by Nepal’s historically low levels of market opportunities. Community forestry plays an important role within the country, involving 40% of the Nepalese population and accounting for over a quarter, or 1.6 million hectares, of the total forest area. However, lack of knowledge, information and practice of sustainable forest management means the potential of forests remains largely untapped. PEFC has been working in Nepal since 2012, providing support to a project led by the
Global Alliance of Community Forestry
(GACF), raising awareness of sustainable forest management and forest certification.
Read more.
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Green Procurement & Sustainable Supply Chains to Protect the Producer & Consumer
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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 12
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Responsible production and sourcing. Sustainable supply chains. Procurement policies that are clean and green that protect the producer and the consumer. Certified and verifiable products and services. Transparency and legal labelling so the consumer knows exactly where the product comes from, what it contains and how it was produced and supplied. Sustainable consumption and production is about promoting resource and energy efficiency, sustainable infrastructure, and providing access to basic services, green and decent jobs and a better quality of life for all. Its implementation helps to achieve overall development plans, reduce future economic, environmental and social costs, strengthen economic competitiveness and reduce poverty.
Why it matters?
Check out these providers of standards, certification, green purchasing and responsible labelling:
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International Built Environment Week
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Co-developed by the Building & Construction Authority (BCA) and various Trade Associations and Chambers, the 3-day International Built Environment Conference (IBEC) will showcase today’s best practices and tomorrow’s innovations spanning the entire built environment lifecycle, from project conceptual stage to operation and maintenance. Special focus will be on productivity, green buildings and integrated digital delivery. IBEC is expected to bring together 50 speakers and more than 1,700 participants from over 30 countries. IBEW will provide an international dedicated business-matching platform for regional buyers and investors to network and engage with top urban solutions providers who are equipped to meet their needs. Four trade shows, organised by Reed Exhibitions Singapore, will be co-located with IBEW 2019 –
Build Eco Xpo Asia
(BEX Asia),
Mostra Convegno Expocomfort Asia
(MCE Asia),
Innobuild Asia
and
Smart Cities & Buildings Asia
(SCB Asia). These will feature a host of innovative products and solutions tailored for the diverse needs of the region's built environment.
There's much more on IBEW here.
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Singapore Green Building Council
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Digitisation for Sustainability in Green Buildings
by Lekha Patmanathan, Contributing Editor to ABC Carbon Express.
Innovate to be Sustainable. Disrupt or be Disrupted.
Similar sentiments were echoed from the diverse panel at the Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC) and Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) joint seminar on Digitalisation and Sustainability in the Green Building industry on last month (10 May).
To drive global CO2 emissions reduction, decarbonisation is key and is best accomplished through a combination of energy efficiency and renewable energy. To accomplish this, Energy Smart Solutions, an NTU spin-off led by Dr Alessandro Romagnoli, demonstrated a technology for optimising master planning of greenfield projects with smart integrated energy mix planning. E-OPT is a software to optimise energy consumption meet complex and dynamic user demands, from design through to operations. In future, the question on how best to settle energy and cooling demands will only be handled in the cloud, data crunching equipment scheduling, storage, weather and equipment selection to yield the most optimal and efficient results. In the era where the real estate industry is going through unprecedented changes, digitisation makes the invisible visible, to bring insights to quantify and support sustainability goals.
There's more.
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Last Word: For Global Good
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Sustainable Animal Nutrition:
Evonik opened its second plant to produce MetAMINO for animal nutrition in Singapore today, with Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat on hand to congratulate the Germany company for its contribution to global food security and sustainable nutrition. Evonik’s Animal Nutrition business has over 60 years of experience in the manufacture of essential amino acids and provides customers in more than 100 countries with solutions for efficient and sustainable animal nutrition. By extending its product range to include additional innovative and sustainable solutions in feed additives, and digital software concepts for efficient farm management, Evonik is making a substantial contribution to a holistic approach to healthy animal nutrition and sustainable animal husbandry, while creating added value for its customers.
More on Evonik here.
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Search for Sustainable Solutions:
Attending the opening day of the very big ConnectTech Asia event in Singapore - incorporating CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia - we searched for sustainable and innovative solutions to meet the global challenges that communities, cities, countries and companies face. We learnt a little more about how satellite technology - which has been around for a while - is used to track illegal shipments of oil, wildlife or timber. Good to talk to Sam Baird of Satellite Evolution Asia and Paul Struhsaker of Satbridge. We need to check out the contingent from Victoria, Australia, as one team member from KeyOptions says they provide "world-leading disruptive technology for connected and sustainable communities" That's what we like to see and hear. We look forward to dipping into more talk on technologies addressing the "Future of Cities and Economies".
More on ConnectTechAsia here.
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Wearable Wood Fibre:
Pioneering industry specialists and PEFC representatives gathered in London last week to discuss innovative forest solutions to make the textile industry more sustainable. Alun Watkins, CEO of PEFC UK speaking at 'From Forest to Wardrobe'. Hosted by
PEFC UK
, ‘From Forest to Wardrobe’ looked at how fibres from sustainably managed forests can unlock opportunities for sustainability in fashion. Thanks to the new wave of technologies, we can now use wood fibres to produce recyclable, renewable and biodegradable textiles.
More from PEFC.
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Breaking Boundaries:
Asia-Pacific is at a critical juncture. While it struggles with a complex web of pressing socio-environmental challenges, the region is a catalyst for positive systemic change, with a population of young, passionate, and socially attuned leaders as well as a growing concentration of the world’s largest wealth-holders. To facilitate the strategic flow of financial and non-financial resources into these critical, high impact areas, the
Asian Venture Philanthropy Network
(AVPN) is leading the charge to convene a diverse community of eminent social investing practitioners and thought leaders across Asia.
The goal of the AVPN Conference 2019 is to ensure social investors are better equipped to champion and deploy capital more effectively into critical issues that matter most to them.
It's all on: Singapore 25-28 June.
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