IFAD-funded project to help preserve Amazonian forest - NaijaAgroNet

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The UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of the State of Maranhão signed a financing agreement today for the implementation of the Amazon Sustainable Management Project (PAGES). Implemented in Brazil’s state with the highest poverty and food insecurity rates, the project will address the entrenched environmental degradation of the Amazonian forest.

The total project cost is US$ 37 million, of which IFAD will contribute with a grant of US$ 17 million, provided by the Government of Germany through the Enhanced Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP+). The Government of Maranhão will contribute $ 16 million, and the beneficiaries will provide in-kind contributions of $ 4 million.

CoFo to examine forest contribution to SDGs - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

The Heads of forestry services and other senior government officials from around the world will participate in the Committee on Forestry (CoFo) meeting held at FAO in Rome, Italy, report NaijaAgroNet.

The Committee on Forestry, NaijaAgroNet gathered, will also examine what contributions forests could make to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Participants, NaijaAgroNet reports, will identify emerging policy and technical issues affecting the forestry sector.

Some of the agenda, NaijaAgroNet reports, include halting deforestation, managing forests sustainably, restoring degraded forests and adding to worldwide tree cover - forests, trees play crucial roles in food security, drinking water, renewable energy, and rural economies and they provide around 20 percent of income for rural households in developing countries.

In particular, the Committee on Forestry will explore the contributions that forests can make to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and discuss actions related to the contributions of forests to food security and nutrition, including within the context of climate change.

The COFO meeting will be opened with a message from FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva, while, the keynote speakers consist of Maithripala Sirisena, President of Sri Lanka, Daniel Gustafson Deputy Director-General (Programmes), FAO, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, Minister of Environment and Forestry, Indonesia; and Tomasz Chruszczow Special Envoy for Climate Change, Ministry of Environment, Poland.

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Pix: Forest, courtesy FAO

129 million hectares lost to deforestation

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About 129 million hectares of forest, an area almost equivalent in size to South Africa, have been lost since 1990, NaijaAgroNet reports.

The world's forests continue to shrink as populations increase and forest land is converted to agriculture and other uses, but over the past 25 years the rate of net global deforestation has slowed down by more than 50 per cent, according to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) comprehensive forest report-- The Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015-- published today, September7.

The FAO study covers 234 countries and territories and was presented at this week's World Forestry Congress in Durban, South Africa.

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva, launching the report in Durban, said, "Forests play a fundamental role in combating rural poverty, ensuring food security and providing people with livelihoods. And they deliver vital environmental services such as clean air and water, the conservation of biodiversity and combating climate change,"

"The direction of change is positive, but we need to do better. We will not succeed in reducing the impact of climate change and promoting sustainable development if we do not preserve our forests and sustainably use the many resources they offer us," he added.
Meanwhile, the net annual rate of forest loss has slowed from 0.18 per cent in the early 1990s to 0.08 per cent during the period 2010-2015, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

Africa and South America had the highest net annual loss of forests in 2010-2015, with 2.8 and 2 million hectares respectively, but the report notes how the rate of loss has "substantially decreased" from the previous five year period.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE
 
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New Zealand loses 100,000 hectares to dairy expansion

NaijaAgroNet

Wood Processors and Manufacturers Association, New Zealand has allayed fears that dairying boom expansion is eating into forest blocks and threatens wood security, as it claims to have lost 100,000 hectares of forest land in the last few years to dairy farming, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The Board Chairman of the Association, Brian Stanley, in a forum of over 40 industry experts and community representatives at the Trailways Hotel, lamented that forestry and wood products producers were in a far tougher market than the agricultural sector, stating that it's not a wall of wood any more, but a hedge.

Expressing his dismay, Stanley established that although the nations wood industry offers a solution to the dairying's carbon emission problem but its being hurt by the dairying's expansion and stressed optimism that wood processing and manufacturing - the country’s third largest export sector at $2.5 billion a year, stands to risk its position.

Nationally the industry, as gathered by NaijaAgroNet, produces 70 per cent of its energy needs by burning waste wood, saving $1.1 billion annually, and Landscapers has estimated a $12 billion  "environmental value" of  forests made up of components such erosion control, nutrient recycling and soil formation.

Though the industry sees itself as the answer to dairying's need to offset carbon production and a solution to climate change; the association frowns at the level of government support regional producers get compared to other regional primary industries that didn't provide similar numbers of jobs. 

"Nor do they provide the same level of water quality or climate change control that the forest growing and wood processing industries are renowned for." Stanley stated.

Simultaneously, Association Chief Executive, Jon Tanner, also pointed out that the competition internationally, against governments owning 85 per cent of the world's forests and associated processing and setting their own rules, puts the organization on a tough unbalanced scale in the agricultural market.

Tanner submitted that the industry has a highly productive and efficient workforce, and a great opportunity as a solution to climate change, but faced major supply problems caused by logs being exported to China, and dairy conversions swallowing forest land. 

"We are an incredible industry building economic, social and environmental capital simultaneously. Trees are the pollution solution." He said.

The association NaijaAgroNet learnt was formed through a merger of the Pine Manufacturers' and Wood Processors' Associations and is holding a series of gatherings around New Zealand to tell what it says is a fantastic story of innovative and sustainable production providing thousands of jobs in the regions.

Daniel Nsolibe/GEE
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Adopt Forest and Land-use policies to alleviate global hunger – IUFRO

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International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), at a United Nations Forum on Forests in New York, called on countries with big forest-dependent population to adopt national policies and land-use strategies that support the planting of multi-functional trees to provide food, timber, fuel wood, medicine and a host of environmental services that could access safe nutritious food for all, NaijaAgroNet reports.

The Union, NaijaAgroNet gathered, estimates that some 805 million people – one in nine citizens of Earth – are undernourished, primarily in Africa and Asia. At the same time, between 1.2 and 1.5 billion people worldwide depend on forests for all or most of their diet and livelihood.  

Stepha Mcmullin, social scientist and member of the Union report’s Authors, also concurred that forests and tree-based farming systems such as agroforestry can complement agricultural production to ensure greater food security and better nutrition for some of the world's most vulnerable communities.

“If you're familiar with shade-grown coffee, then you have an idea of what agroforestry is all about. By planting fruit trees and other useful species, selectively weeding and otherwise managing the forests as intensively as any farmer might tend their fields and rotate their crops; people all over the world have created gardens that resemble natural forests in many ways, including providing suitable habitat for a diverse array of flora and fauna.” He said.

McMullin who, NaijaAgroNet gathered, advocated that forests and tree-based systems also benefit people indirectly, sited an instance in the Sahel region of Africa, noting that by planting trees, poor farmers have turned millions of acres of what had become semi-desert by the 1980s into more productive land, where trees now account for 80 per cent of average household incomes in the region, largely through shea-nut production.

Coordinator of IUFRO’s Global Forest Expert Panels initiative, Christoph Wildburger, told NaijaAgroNet that tree-based farming can help prevent climate change calamities, which is also a threat, not just to the productivity of agroforests but to conventional agricultural operations, as well.

“Large-scale crop production is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, which may occur more frequently under climate change. Science shows that tree-based farming can adapt far more better to such calamities. We know that forest already play a key role in mitigating the effects of climate change. It should also be made very clear that they also play a key role in alleviating hunger and improving nutrition.” He said.

Ultimately, lack of community control over forests and, of course, deforestation could limit the abilities of forests to enhance food security. Forest management in most countries is fragmented across different governmental agencies and administrative jurisdictions.

Daniel Nsolibe /Ed, Ops.

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New forest investment guidance to triple returns

A man siting next to a felled tree at the Afi mountain
forest reserve near Ikom, cross River, Nigeria 

Various discussions between investors and forest rights-holders in the recent times have led to a new guideline for investment with the capability of returning three-fold on investments.

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) revealed to NaijaAgroNet in a press statement that the investment guideline if followed will provide livelihood security for local communities and protection for forests.

The guide emanated from eleven meetings organised by The Forests Dialogue (TFD) on behalf of Growing Forest Partnerships and with the support of IIED, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, FAO and the World Bank.

Commenting on the advice on investment in locally-controlled forestry, Gary Dunning of TFD said that the guide shows how investors and forest-dependent community form mutually-beneficial partnerships that would deliver social, environmental and economic gains.

The meetings have in attendance indigenous people, family foresters, researchers, government representatives, investment bankers, donors and philanthropists to share views on the role of investment in the forest sector.

The new guidelines, according to IIED is a representation of the insights of the meetings' participants with many case studies from across the globe showing how investment in locally-controlled forestry offers investors secure access, reduced risks and better long term management opportunities and an evidence of social and environmental sustainability.

The lead author of the guide, Dominic Elson said investing in locally controlled forestry not only leads to improved economic outcomes but it also leads to an improvement in the political economy in a way that can help governments of developing countries to shift into a more sustainable, low-carbon development path.

The guide looks in detail at how to encourage a happy marriage between ‘enabling investments’ that prepare the ground for commercial success and ‘asset investments’ that seek a return, usually as profit or products.

The leader of the team that produced the guide, Chris Buss of IUCN said strong businesses generate profits worthy of asset investment, “But growing those businesses may need enabling investments from NGOs, philanthropists or governments for infrastructure, capacity building or to secure and formalise commercial forest rights."

Another contributor to the guide, Duncan Macqueen of IIED that forests provide livelihoods for a billion people, adding that “About a quarter of the world’s forests are locally controlled, by members of three major alliances of indigenous peoples, forest communities and private family smallholders."

Macqueen revealed that forests also provide goods and services worth $75 - $100 billion annually, stressing "What’s missing is the investment that can boost these benefits in a sustainable way and put local people in the driving seat.”

Yinka Awosanya/LS

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Invest in forestry, get triple investment returns - IIED

Duncan Macqueen, IIED Forest Team Leader

Forestry experts at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) have called on investors to invest in locally controlled forest as the sector offers a triple investment returns.

The Head of forest team at IIED, Duncan Macqueen said the investment would also lead to secured income streams for people that depend on forest for survival which would in turn give better prospects for forest protection.

Macqueen revelation, according to NaijaAgroNet findings show that investment in locally controlled forestry also needs advocacy in a bid to secure and formalise commercial forest rights as well as business capacity development to convert the rights to self-sufficient businesses.

He also preached organisation should build to achieve scale efficiencies and market negotiating power, and deal brokering so as to ensure that investors play fair with local groups.

Yinka Awosanya

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Assessment shows a global decline in natural teak

An assessment report by Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) titled 'TEAK RESOURCES AND MARKET ASSESSMENT 2010' revealed that there is a decline in global natural teak forests.

The assessment which was conducted in 60 tropical countries, NaijaAgroNet gathered revealed that the quality of natural grown teak wood is deteriorating.

A press release made available to NaijaAgroNet also made known the result of a-day survey that planted teak forests are increasing in area where good management practices are applied thereby producing high quality wood.

Natural teak forests grow in only four countries of the world: India, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand with a total of 29 million hectares of land.

Commenting on the result of the assessment, a Forestry Officer at FAO, Walter Kollert said data provided by the survey must be handled with care as there is no better up-to-date information on teak resources available at the moment.

"It is difficult to obtain precise figures on teak forest loss, because teak trees do not grow in pure stands in nature. Natural teak forests are mixed deciduous or tropical evergreen forests which have a share of teak of between 4 and 35 percent," Walter Kollert.

NaijaAgroNet further gathered that Asia holds more than 90 percent of the world's teak resources, and India alone manages 38 percent of the world's planted teak forests.

Yinka Awosanya

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