Public Forest Reform and Green Growth Post-Paris
The eleventh meeting of MegaFlorestais was held in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, on April 19-22, 2016, and co-hosted by the State Forestry Administration of China and the Rights and Resources Initiative, in collaboration with the US Forest Service and the European Forestry Institute. Delegations of the following countries attended the meeting: Brazil, Canada, China, DR Congo, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Peru, Sweden and the USA.
At the meeting, participating leaders signed a “Forest Agency Leaders’ Statement” emphasizing the “important role [played by MegaFlorestais] in accelerating learning and innovation among public forest agency leaders for more than a decade.” Through this official document, they also expressed their “continued support for the work of the MegaFlorestais network.” The full statement is available below.
Topics discussed
- Post-Paris: The future of forests, forest industry and trade;
- Challenges and lessons on rethinking public forests and engaging local communities;
- The role of forests and forest agencies in green growth; and
- What future for forest agencies in the post-Paris world?
Field trip: Visit around Xishuangbanna
The group visited: 1. a new concept of rubber plantations that increases biodiversity and income of local farmers by cultivating several species instead of one; 2. the Xishuangbanna Asia Elephant Propagation Center, the only one of its kind in China; and 3. Manzhang village, a traditional village and heritage site celebrating the culture of Dai people.
Resources
- Agenda and List of Participants
- Synopsis in English, French and Spanish
- Country Overviews
- Forest Agency Leaders’ Statement signed on April 20, 2016
Presentations
- Sally Collins and Glenn Mason – Introduction to MegaFlorestais
- Andy White – Implications of the Paris Agreement
- Don Roberts – The Paris Agreement: Implications for Forest Industry, Energy and Forest Agencies
- Xu Jintao – China and the Paris Agreement
- Kundan Kumar – Public Forest Reforms Underway in the World Today
- Wei Guihong – State Forest Reform in China: Status, Issues and Next Steps
- Doug Konkin – Negotiating Public Forest reform with Indigenous peoples: Experience and Emerging lessons from British Columbia, Canada
- Solange Bandiaky – The International land and Forest Tenure Facility, Securing Rights, Protecting the World’s Lands and Forests
- Don Roberts – New Developments in green Growth Around the World
- Doris Capistrano – Green Growth and the Role of Social Forestry in the ASEAN
Additional Resources
- MegaFlorestais, 10 Years of MegaFlorestais: A Public Forest Agency Leaders’ Retrospective, 2016 (available in English, French, Spanish, and Chinese, read the press release)
- MegaFlorestais, Public forest agencies in the twenty-first century: Driving change through transparency, tenure reform, citizen involvement and improved governance (available in English | Spanish | French | Chinese | Portuguese | Bahasa)
- MegaFlorestais and Rights and Resources Initiative, Rethinking Forest Regulations, Overcoming the challenges of regulatory reform, 2016 (available in English, French and Spanish)
- Rights and Resources Initiative, Closing the Gap: Strategies and scale needed to secure rights and save forests, 2016 (available in English, French and Spanish)
- Rights and Resources Initiative, What Future for Reform? (also available in French and Spanish)
- Rights and Resources Initiative, Recognizing Indigenous and Community Rights: Priority Steps to Advance Development and Mitigate Climate Change (English | Spanish)
- Rights and Resources Initiative, Who Owns the World’s Land? A global baseline of formally recognized indigenous and community land rights, 2015 (available in English, French and Spanish)