Thursday, October 01, 2009

Conservation of world’s forests key to planet’s survival !

By Joanie Bergeron Poudrier

This week is all about our forests. Yesterday Prince Charles’ Prince’s Rainforests Project (PRP) launched its new Rainforest SOS campaign in an effort to send the world’s biggest SOS on behalf of the rainforests before the international climate change meetings held by the UN in Copenhagen this December.

Joined by personalities such as Sting, Prince of Wales recorded an SOS message on video to invite citizens to take action to stop tropical rainforest destruction.

Watch Sting's SOS to the world 30 years later





Watch Prince Charles' video





Today, with only two months to go before a new climate deal is negotiated in Copenhagen, it is turn to The Forests Dialogue (TFD) to call on industrialized nations to ensure robust financial commitments for conservation and sustainable management of forests and on tropical countries to make sure that these new financial streams are fairly shared with forest dependent communities. TFD is a group of individuals from diverse interests and regions that are committed to the conservation and sustainable forest management.

"This is one of the main recommendations published by The Forests Dialogue (TFD) in “Investing in REDD-plus” which is launched today and which reflects unique consensus amongst forest stakeholders across business, environmental and scientific sectors and from indigenous peoples and forest-based communities, who met in a stream of intensive dialogues this year."

“Consensus amongst disparate stakeholders in the forest sector is rare,” says Stewart Maginnis, Head of the Forest Programme of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). “Today’s recommendations provide a timely roadmap for the financing of forest-related CO2 emission strategies and show that REDD-plus can combat climate change in a cost-effective way while generating crucial, additional benefits for indigenous peoples, local communities and biodiversity.”

Safeguards must guarantee equitable participation and distribution mechanisms for indigenous peoples and local communities as well as biodiversity conservation.

More than 100 stakeholders have been involved in this collaborative initiative facilitated by TFD to build an effective international mechanism for tackling the climate, community and biodiversity issues associated with deforestation.

For more information visit www.theforestdialogue.org