Report of Fifth Meeting , Japanfs Forest Policy Forum
Date: March 8th 2008. 11:00 a.m. ~ 3:00 p.m.
Venue: Yoyogi-no-mori Forest Study Room, Yoyogi, Tokyo
Participants: seven people

In the opening remarks by Dr. F. Ozawa, he showed the letter of Mr. Peter Besseau, Director IMFN (International Model Forest Network) expressing the will to invite Kyoto Model Forest people to the 2008 Global Forum of IMFN in Canada on June 16-20 this year. The international network of model forests plays an important role to provide opportunities of communications among the people concerning model forests at various countries.

Then, Mr. Tanaka made a progress report of the fourth meeting of JFPF and outlined the discussions. In the former meeting, participants were seven. Dr. Ozawa continued explaining about Japanese Forestry. Mr. Nakayama discussed the history of national parks in Japan in the opportunity of 50th anniversary of its establishment, and referred to the newly emerging concept of Japanfs national parks including environmental aspects like bio-diversity. The final topic was illegal logging presented by Dr. Fujiwara.

After Mr. Tanakafs report, as usual Dr. Ozawa explained about Japanese Forestry. This time he discussed Japanfs international cooperation in the forestry sector. He followed the explanation on page 14 in the booklet of Forestry in Japan. Besides, he referred to examples of international cooperation with which he had close relations. He showed slides of a project of multi-layered plantation in Ipoh, Peninsula Malaysia. He said that two lines of Shorea seedlings (a kind of Meranti) which were planted after two lines of trees were cut in the established plantation of Acacia mangium showed good results, and this method was adopted by Malaysian government for extension. He showed other examples in China. In an area of Ningxia Region where the rain fall was small (300-400mm), plantation project between Japan and China was implemented successfully. Straws were used to cover the ground and planting was made by either direct seeding or seedlings (planted species were pines, poplars, willows, etc.). After these trees were established, it became possible to plant other plants like dates. Another example was planting in Shanxi Sheng where the land had been devastated after long use for agriculture.

After these explanations, there were some questions and answers. A question was whether the existing grassland had been grassland or forest land. Dr. Ozawa answered that in some portions there remained forests of 300 year old Pinus sylvestris. There was also a discussion that changing of grazing methods from shifting to fixing the grazing area may have been a cause of desertification. Dr. Ozawa also explained that the forest area in Asia in FAO statistics had been increasing and this figure owed much to the planting trees in China, and he emphasized that Obuchi (former Japanese prime minister) Fund, although the amount was not very big, had played important roles in promoting planting trees in China. There was a discussion that desertification was going on even near Beijing and people were aware of this fact very much, and that Japan had been cooperating in planting trees but that this fact was not sufficiently covered by the mass media, and the Japanese cooperation was not well known by people in China. Model forest existing near Shanghai, was one of six model forests in Asia and the communication among the people concerning the model forest may play useful role in improving communication between those people related to forests in Japan and China.

In the afternoon, Mr. Satoshi Akahori of Forestry Agency, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries discussed gForest-related Discussions at COP13, COP/MOP3h. COP means gConference of Partiesh and MOP means gMembers of Partiesh of UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) . For example, USA and Australia are members of COP but not members of MOP.

Mr. Akahori talked about 1) Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries (REDD) and, 2) Change to the Limit of Small-scale Afforestation/Reforestation CDM (Clean Development Mechanism). About the first topic, he explained the recent decrease trend of forests in the world (7.3 million ha/year) and mentioned that although the forests in Latin America and Africa were decreasing, the forest area in Asia especially that in China and Vietnam were increasing with the exception of Indonesia where forests were decreasing.

Afforestation/Reforestation by CDM (AR-CDM) was possible, but actual planting by AR-CDM was so far only one example (in South China). About conserving existing forests and preventing damage to the forests, there had been no good incentives. In such a circumstance REDD had been proposed and discussed. This method was to finance the relevant country in accordance with the amount of forest area prevented from decreasing, which was calculated from the historical trend of deforestation as a base line. Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica were proposing terminology of Additionality, Leakage, and the method of monitoring. For discussing these methods, workshops were held. In the workshop, among the technical discussions, monitoring of the decrease of forest and its devastation by using satellites had been discussed.

About policy issues, whether emphasis should be placed on market mechanism (credit method) or non-market mechanism (fund method) had been discussed. Brazil had shown interest in fund method. Another issue was whether advanced nations should adopt gdeeper cuth to the target of the reduction of CO2 emission. Japan had difficulty in coping with this. Countries like EU and Norway were in favor of market mechanism, whereas Australia disclosed the proposal of a monitoring system of the relation between forest and climate with a cost of $200 million. Brazil proposed a fund mechanism, but was flexible in COP13. Congo Basin Countries were proposing fund-based mechanism for sustainable forest management.

Japanfs view was 1) measures should be effective with tangible outcome, 2) measures should be consistent with discussions of future framework, and 3) for introducing techniques, effectiveness should be thoroughly analyzed.
As a result, in COP13, regarding REDD, it was decided that capacity building, technology transfer, and demonstration activities should be encouraged, and that by March 2008 member countries and organizations were supposed to present opinions on the methodology . Also REDD was regarded to be one of the mitigation issues of Bali Action Plan (Framework agreed at COP 13).

Japanfs Forestry Agency is willing to participate in the climate change negotiations for the future framework to contribute to mitigation of climate change through sustainable management of forest.

In this context, Mr. Akahori explained one example in Indonesia of the transfer of technology of the method of analyzing satellite data which can be collected even where clouds are covering the land (ALOS PALSAR). Also, among the various projects that Japan had been involved, he showed examples of a social forestry project in Kenya and a research project in Malaysia.

He then explained about FCPF (Forest Carbon Partnership Facility) related to World Bank and showed the move of financing to the demonstration to reduce deforestation, and the negative opinion of some NGOs saying the timing was too early.

The second major topic of COP13 was gChange to the Limit of Small-scale AR-CDMh. Currently the approved methodologies of AR-CDM were 10, whereas the registered project was only one (1). Small-scale AR-CDM was a simplified monitoring methodology for small scale AR-CDM. but the approved project was so far zero (0). In this situation, Latin American countries like Colombia and Bolivia were requesting to expand the upper limit of small-scale AR-CDM, while Brazil was reluctant. Participating countries were asked to present their opinions and further discussed at SBSTA26.

After the presentation of Mr. Akahori, questions and answers were made. There was a question of why only one project in the field of forestry was adopted as CDM project, and there was an opinion that the system of AR-CDM might be too complicated.


Muneo Segawa
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