Opening Remarks

by Andrew Speedy, FAO Representative in Viet Nam

Leaders of MARD, Secretary Heherson Alvarez, representatives of RECOFTC, distinguished participants:

I am pleased to welcome you on behalf of FAO to the First Regional Forum for People and Forests with particular attention to carbon financing, in collaboration with RECOFTC, FSSP and MARD DOF.

In doing so, I want to repeat what was said in the keynote address at the FAO Committee on Forestry in Rome, in March 2009 by Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Special Envoy for the Secretary-General of the United Nations on Climate Change. He reminded us that the Secretary-General has named 2009 the “Year of Climate Change”.  This December, crucial inter-governmental negotiations will take place in Copenhagen with the aim of forging a new global agreement on climate change.

The evidence for global warming is unequivocal. The climate is changing and most of the observed increase in global average temperature since the mid-20th century is due to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions as a result of human activity. Unless we succeed in cutting global emissions by more than half by 2050, we will have nothing less than a global crisis on our hands.

The role of forests and sustainable forest management are very important. Close to eighteen per cent of global emissions stem from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries. That is more than the emissions from the entire transport sector worldwide. And comparable to the total annual CO2 emissions of the US or China. Deforestation therefore has to be included in the new climate change agreement. While forests were left out of the Kyoto protocol, it must now find its place within the broader solution to the climate challenge. To deal with deforestation effectively, we must develop a regime which creates the necessary incentives for developing countries to act in the broader interest of the global community and the planet.

We need new and bold measures to ensure that forests and sustainable forest management become key elements of the solution.  Forests and climate change are intimately related, with forests serving both as a source of carbon, and as a carbon sink. Forests store enormous amounts of carbon. In fact, the carbon contained in forests is more than that in the atmosphere. Deforestation alone accounts for 35 % of carbon emissions in developing countries and 65% of carbon emissions in the least developed countries. The UK Eliasch review estimates that halving deforestation could result in a net global economic gain of 3.7 trillion USD annually by the year 2100. Which makes it one of the most cost effective climate change mitigation measures available. The review concludes that the total cost of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius can be reduced by 50 per cent if forest related emissions are included in the global climate regime.

In Bali in 2007, governments agreed to include Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in the climate negotiation package. It is crucial that countries now agree at Copenhagen to include reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in a post-2012 climate regime. The UN has established a Collaborative Programme on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries, funded currently by the Norwegian Government. The UN-REDD Programme (involving UNEP, UNDP and FAO) will support developing countries in designing national strategies to reduce carbon emissions resulting from forest loss. It will also establish systems for monitoring and verification.

Viet Nam is one of the nine countries taking the lead in implementing UN-REDD which demonstrates the determination of the Vietnamese Government for active involvement in mitigating climate change. Indeed Viet Nam is an example to all of a positive approach to sustainable forestry development. The Government has adopted a number of important policies in recent years, not least the Five Million Hectares Reforestation Programme. We have had to invent a new term in Viet Nam, not “REDD” because we are not talking of Deforestation but rather “REDD-Plus” because Viet Nam’s forest cover is increasing (from 27.2 percent in 1990 to 38.2 percent in 2007). And although Viet Nam itself has a negative deforestation rate, Viet Nam’s large forest industries sector helps to drive deforestation in neighbouring countries and a more sustainable approach to forest management is undoubtedly needed in the Region as a whole.

In Viet Nam, there have already been important policy developments related to payments for ecosystem services.  In April 2008, the policy on “Payment for Forest Environmental Services” was approved by the Prime Minister and applied to five provinces and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). Under this pilot policy, USAID is supporting the testing of PES in Lam Dong province (in the Central Highlands) through Winrock International, while GTZ is supporting the testing PES in Son La province (in the Northwest). In addition, since October 2007, MARD has launched a programme to promote sustainable agricultural cultivation in the sloping land and to prevent conversion of forests into agriculturally cultivated crops by providing 10kg of rice per person per month and preferential interest rate for planting forests and agricultural production. The intention is that lessons from these pilot interventions will be used in developing a national policy over the next few years.

The objective of the UN-REDD Viet Nam Programme is to assist the Government of Viet Nam in developing an effective REDD regime in Viet Nam and to contribute to reduction of regional leakage.  This will contribute to the broader goal of ensuring that, by the end of 2012, Viet Nam is “REDD-ready” and able to contribute to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation nationally and regionally. It is hoped that REDD will assist with capacity building and develop effective tools for implementing PES through sustainable forest management.

The main focus of this Forum is to discuss and develop the link between local forest communities and carbon markets, and we hope that it will provide some insights about the importance of the expanding carbon markets and the opportunities and challenges these present for sustainable forest management and for securing people livelihoods in the Region.

Many of the poorest people live in and around forested areas and the poor are often blamed for deforestation and forest degradation and poverty alleviation continues to be a central tenet within the country’s forest strategies. Since 2006 MARD has implemented a pilot community forestry programme in forty communes of ten provinces with support of the National Trust Fund for Forest (TFF).  Second, ADB is supporting the “Forest for Livelihood Improvement in the Central Highlands” (FLITCH) Project. This project is expected to provide sufficient guidance to develop a future legal framework and benefit sharing system for community forest management and support for livelihoods improvement.   Also, there are continuing efforts across the country in allocating forest land back to local communities.

Ethnic minorities in Viet Nam are particularly important stakeholders in REDD to the extent that they depend on natural forests for their livelihoods and their tenure rights on forests and forestland,  and may make contributions to more sustainable forest management and monitoring of the state of forest ecosystems.  A growing international consensus and concern for the rights of indigenous peoples and other forest dependent communities has arisen in the development of UN-REDD.  The GoV officially recognizes 54 “ethnic minority” groups, each with its own language, lifestyle and cultural heritage. In the future implementation of UN-REDD programme in Viet Nam, the UN Guidelines for the Engagement of Indigenous People and other Forest Dependent Communities will be followed.

UN-REDD foresees a participatory role for local communities in forest monitoring and this may also provide a basis for stronger involvement in government sponsored schemes for Payment for Ecosystem Services.   With appropriate benefit sharing arrangements from REDD and clarification of land tenure, local communities may also play a key role in efforts to tackle illegal logging and cross-border trade in tropical timber.

Payments for carbon financing and environmental services are not without issues. An operational PES scheme is difficult to develop. You need to find willing buyers. Most voluntary, private-driven PES schemes have been small, have high transaction costs and deliver modest rural incomes and modest conservation gains. Government-driven PES schemes have tended to be larger and deployed faster, and they have generally resulted in improved forest practices in some instances. Regulation-driven PES with private buyers (e.g. markets for carbon credits) have generated high expectations that have yet to be fully realized. PES schemes require supportive legal and institutional frameworks, clear property rights and assistance to small farmers and rural communities.

In this context, this is an important meeting to discuss how to develop ways of carbon financing through community forestry. I hope that it will contribute to the debate and to positive conclusions. I wish you a very successful meeting, good health and happiness.

Thank you.