 Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening to everybody and welcome to this site event at the UN Forum on Forests on turning the tide on deforestation Thank you everyone for joining us from around the world. My name is Tim Christophersen I work at the UN Environment Program where I had the nature for climate branch. I'm also a focal point for the UN decade on ecosystem restoration. Thank you for FAO to bring us all together as the chair of the collaborative partnership on forests. Today we'll be hearing about joint messages from all the key international organizations working on forests. So this is an exciting moment when we have joint messages for all of us and you and the world at large here at UNFF on halting deforestation. We will have a panel that will look at this from different perspectives. I would like to note that this session is being recorded. And we would like to encourage all of you to post questions in the chat in the event that we don't have time to come to your question before the end of the event. The FAO team has kindly offered to follow up on questions that are being posed. Forests, as you know, are key to the sustainable development agenda. We lose, however, still 10 million hectares of forest each year, an area about the size of Portugal. So it is high time that we turn the tide on deforestation. How do we do that? And what are the most critical areas to address that is the theme of today's event. And the role of the collaborative partnership on forests is essential in uniting the voices of all the international agencies working on this. And when all the international experts and the science speaks with one voice on an issue, the world does listen. And this is the case today where we launched these joint messages on forests that will hopefully also help the UK government to host COP26, the Chinese government to host the Convention on Biodiversity, COP15, all the other key meetings that are coming up in the next few months and years where forests will be on the agenda. We have an exciting panel lined up and before I get to the panelists, we have a keynote address from a special guest, Lord Zach Goldsmith, who is Minister for the Pacific and the Environment in the United Kingdom. And Zach Goldsmith will set the scene for us on turning the tide on deforestation. So please, if we can have the keynote address from Zach Goldsmith. Hello, it's a pleasure to be able to say a few words about what is undoubtedly a defining challenge of our age. And I won't rehearse all the facts and figures of destruction as you will be depressingly familiar with them. And today's joint statement is a powerful contribution to a huge and growing body of evidence telling us that we're heading for disaster. But you don't need to be a scientist, an expert, or even an economist to understand the fundamental importance of forests, or that if current trends continue, we will pay a truly terrible price. Indigenous people have been sounding that alarm for decades. And although the poorest suffer first as the free services that nature provides and on which they depend most directly begin to fail, none of us can insulate ourselves from the effects of degrading the natural world. Forests, for instance, underpin the livelihoods of a billion people, yet we continue to lose them at a rate of 30 football pitches every minute. More than half the world's agricultural land is now degraded and the diminishing yields are affecting 500 million small farms already. And in a vicious cycle, agriculture, forestry and land use are now the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions after energy. And we know climate change means wildfires, drought, floods, crops failing, pest thriving, sea levels rising. And to make matters worse still, we know that our broken relationship with the natural world, habitat destruction, the illegal wildlife trade, industrial farming increases the likelihood of deadly zoonosis like COVID-19. So there can be nothing more important than turning this trajectory around. And the good news is that we can. Nature restoration and nature protection works for people and for the planet. And the magic of focusing on protecting and restoring the diversity, abundance and connectivity of life on Earth is that in doing so, we're also tackling hunger, poverty, pollution and of course climate change. In fact, it's impossible to tackle any of these issues properly without helping nature recover. Now globally, nature can provide around a third of the most cost-effective solution to climate change. And with every dollar invested in forests and mangroves paying its way up to six times over. And I encourage anyone in need of inspiration to look at Costa Rica. They've managed to double their rainforest cover in a generation, putting more than half their country under canopy and growing their economy alongside their nature. Organo and Cote d'Ivoire have managed to halve the rate of forest loss in just one year to 2019 from a high initial rate. So change is possible as the joint statement makes clear, but the action we're seeing at the moment is nowhere near enough. And we need to raise global ambition and finance fast. So as presidents of the G7 and COP26, we're putting nature at the heart of our response to climate change. And we're urging governments around the world both to increase their international climate finance and to spend more of it on nature. We're calling on the multilateral development banks to mainstream nature across their entire portfolios and to support countries in fulfilling their commitments, essential to achieving the ambition of the leader's pledge for nature to put biodiversity on a road to recovery by 2030. And we're asking countries to join us in shifting land use subsidies away from destruction and towards supporting good environmental stewardship and to work with us to clean up the global commodity supply chains that are responsible for vast deforestation. We're leading global alliances to protect at least 30% of the world's land and ocean by 2030 because we know there will never be enough public money available. We are supporting efforts to get private finance flowing as well. So we're establishing global frameworks for climate and nature related financial disclosures to help businesses understand and reduce environmental risk. And we're also working with international partners to help draw together guidance on high integrity voluntary carbon markets that will benefit people, climate, nature. And we're proud to work with others to shape the future of the Exciting Leaf Coalition. We've had countless forest declarations and deadlines have come and gone and yet deforestation continues apace. So we hope and believe that this collaboration between governments and businesses will be the largest ever commitment of finance for protecting tropical forests and that it will genuinely move the dial on deforestation. And all this will help front runners in the race to zero and will inspire others to raise their game. And as Professor Dasgupta's seminal study explains that's really the heart of it. The need to reconcile our lives and our economies with the natural world on which we all depend. At this point none of us can say that we're doing enough. But turning this trajectory around is the UK's top international priority and we welcome the leadership that the new US administration is clearly willing to provide. We have an opportunity now to make this the year we catalyze a decade of meaningful action and to fundamentally reset our relationship with the natural world. The UK is committed to working with you to achieve that. Thank you for what you do. Tim, we can't hear you. How's this? Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. Sorry. That was just a time delay and unmuting it seems. Thank you very much for the very clear call to action from the UK government from Lord Zach Goldsmith who of course is also central in preparing the climate COP 26. And without further delay, I would now like to hand over to none other than Matthew Wilkie, who is as many of you will know the director of forests at the FAO forestry division and also the chair of the collaborative partnership on forests. Matthew, please over to you to tell us what are these joint messages on forests, what's in them. Thank you very much, Tim, and good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening to all of you. I'm really pleased to see so many of you here where we're trying to launch the CPF joint statement on challenges and opportunities in turning the tide on deforestation. But before I start, maybe I should just introduce at least the collaborative partnership on forest. There may be some were listening in who haven't heard about this before. This is a collaborative partnership voluntary partnership between 15 major forest related organizations or organizations that have a major area of work on forest. And they've been working together since 2001 in support also of the United Nations Forum on forest. Let me go straight to the point deforestation jeopardizes climate stabilization biodiversity conservation and rural livelihoods. Since 1990, we have lost 420 million hectares of forest through deforestation. That's an area that's a lot bigger than the country of India. We know that forest and land use account for 11% of greenhouse gas emission and that's primarily through deforestation. We also know that forest are heavily degraded and only about 40% of them still have a very high level of integrity. And they're affected by forest fires every year. But in terms of livelihood, we also know that about a third of the world's population are highly dependent on forest and forest products 2.4 billion people use wood to cook their daily meals. Around 1 billion people depend to some extent on forest foods. But we also know that human health and forest health are very closely related. Forest destruction and fragmentation increases the risk of transmission of zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19. The rate of deforestation is going down. That's a good news. It's gone down from 16 million hectares per year in the 1990s to 10 million hectares per year in the last five years. But that's still twice the size of Costa Rica. We just heard how they had managed to change their forest area around. So the responses to deforestation are lagging behind and they must be accelerated. There are multiple and very strong international commitments to hold deforestation. We have a sustainable development goal on that. We also have the New York Declaration on Forests from the private sector. But there's been a failure to comply and to achieve those commitments. Very few countries have met their bond challenge commitment to restore degraded forests and forest lands. And while reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation is included in more than 50 national determined contribution of countries. Unfortunately, it's not backed up by finance, only about 2% of climate finance for investment in land based mitigation measures. We also know that the corporate responsibilities have increased, but they need to include more companies and they need to be better accountability. And while progress in legality of timber production and trade has improved a lot, we still have illegal flows valued at between 50 and 150 billion dollars per year. So we need to scale up action to hold deforestation and forest degradation. And as I mentioned, we have a target on the sustainable development goal 15 and it actually is one where countries have come together and decided that by 2020 we would hold deforestation and restore degraded forests. We clearly haven't met that target. And if we look at the results of affairs global forest resources assessment, it also shows us that we are not likely to meet that target by 2030, unless we scale up action. So the UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez is already on board. He is speaking out very loudly and saying we must hold deforestation restore degraded forest and change the way we farm. We are heeding that call and actually within this collaborative partnership on forest all the members have been doing a lot over many years to help support countries decrease the rates of deforestation and forest degradation. And back in 2018 we came together and had a global conference to work across sectors to hold deforestation and increase forest area. Looking to see how we can work with other sectors and looking at how to address the drivers of deforestation. Then in 2019 that's when we had the call from the UN Secretary General, but he also asked FAO and UNEP to lead a concerted effort of UN agencies to hold deforestation and forest degradation. We decided to involve a bigger partnership, the collaborative partnership on forest in that endeavor. And as part of that in 2020 we worked together to identify what are some of the key messages, what are some of the evidence behind this. And as part of that we have now got this joint statement on the challenges and opportunities in turning the tide on deforestation. And you will hear much more about that tonight, no this morning depending on where you are from our other panel speakers. But of course that's only a first step we also want to enhance collective action and we are convinced that collective action can turn the tide on deforestation. We need to do three things, we need to transform our food systems to hold deforestation since 73% of all tropical deforestation is caused by agricultural expansion. Secondly, there are a number of different underlying drivers of deforestation and also from other sectors and they need to be better understood and taken into account. And thirdly and this is the big one we need to act coherently at different levels and in different fields. And there's a range of actions that we need to take and you will hear more about those later but very importantly we need to have increased policy coherence in countries we need to have better governance we need to have participation of stakeholders in finding the solutions. We need to have very clear policy and legal frameworks and including secure land tenure. We need to have reforms of our fiscal instruments and agricultural subsidies and to send stronger market signals about the value of standing forest. We need to enhance the corporate responsibility and accountability and to seek appropriate public and private funding, including but not limited to climate finance. And clearly we need to come up with some innovative solutions and synergies between agriculture and forestry for example. And lastly we need to have that global partnership and cooperation nobody can do this on their own. That's why the collaborative partnership is doing this together and in support of countries and their efforts. So here again you have the 15 organizations we have a number of issues that we will be dealing with taking up as part of a joint initiative to turn the tide on deforestation. And I'm sure there will be a lot of discussions about how we can best do that and we're really looking forward to your questions and also to your suggestions on how we can provide a more coherent support by all of these organizations together. The joint statement is now available at our website and I'll encourage you to have a look at it and you will hear more about it in a little while. I just want to say thank you so much for being with us today and for listening in and as we say we are hoping that you will be very actively participating in this session and give us your ideas as well. Thank you very much. Mette thank you so much and also thank you for staying well within time which gives me the opportunity to ask you a little follow up question. First of all thanks to the FAO team who already on the chat posted the link to where you can download the statement as of now. And there was a request to also make your presentation available Mette which I'm sure is also not a problem for the CPF team and FAO. So in the CPF we have the Rio conventions we have the World Bank we have you saw all the logos ICN will speak later the Jeff will speak later. So what can we do as the CPF to support member states really what are the concrete actions that are most important for us as the international organizations to really turn the tide on deforestation. That's a good question Tim and as you know many of these organizations are already doing a lot there's a lot of individual initiatives projects in place some of them together with a couple of the partnership members and some of them by the individual organization. What we really need to do is to look at where we are working and how we can increase the synergy, but also looking at what are the gaps. What are the perhaps the areas that we haven't looked at yet, and how we can work together to make sure that we step up our support there so that we can provide that coherence support to countries so one of the first steps we're going to do is basically to map what each of the organizations are doing. And trying to see also in what geographies that they are working to see how we can make sure that we don't just tackle one of the topics that we looked at, but all of them in a coherent manner so that's going to be the first step of what we do. And at the same time looking at what are these critical gaps that perhaps we don't have dealt with yet that we can find out which is the best organization or how we can do that that together. And of course, speaking with a common voice, as you say, we'll also make sure that perhaps more people are listening, making sure that we get that evidence out those solutions out on how to how to tackle that and so that would be some of the tasks that we have ahead. We will put together sort of a plan of what it is that we can provide of support to countries and make sure that we share that for comments and suggestions for how to further improve that so very open to suggestions also from here today and further when we launch it. Thank you very much, Mette. And with that, we're now coming to a panel that will dive a bit deeper into how this can actually be done. So it's my great pleasure to introduce our panelists for this event. We have Roslyn Fosua Agil, who is Director of Climate Change at the Forestry Commission in Ghana. Pascal Martinez from the Global Environment Facility, where he's the Senior Climate Change Specialist. Adriana Vidal is Senior Forest Policy Officer at IUCN and Maria Delmar Moso-Muriel. I hope I pronounced your name more or less correctly. Maria is Director at the Directorate of Forests by Diversity and Ecosystem Services of Columbia. So an exciting panel, various different viewpoints towards a joint goal of halting deforestation. And I would like to start with Roslyn. And first of all, thank you for joining us from Ghana. I like a sticker that my children have, which says, save planet Earth. It's the only planet with chocolate. Of course, Ghana is an important country for forests, but it's also an important country for many of the agricultural commodities that can come into conflict with forests. So in your perspective from Ghana, what has been the success and lessons from Red Plus in halting deforestation? And how can we maybe even more focus on the supply chain approaches and private sector action? And maybe Coco is one area where this might work. Roslyn, please, over to you. Thank you very much, Tim, and greetings from Akra, Ghana. It's good to connect with everybody in these sort of interesting times. And to move straight to the question and also to acknowledge the words that have already gone ahead in this particular webinar. Quite strong words and messages, some we have heard over time and also getting to know that there are country examples of what is working. And today I bring to bear what we are also doing in Ghana. I mean, the Red Plus mechanism, to me, I see it as very phenomenal because it encompasses all that we are talking about. We are not just addressing deforestation and forest degradation or enhancing carbon stocks before you can even understand the full scope of what your Red Plus actions are. First, you would have to do your assessment of the drivers of deforestation, which are in most cases beyond the forestry sector. So then the issues of cross sectoral policy coordination and coherence that's coming because you can't achieve success in any Red Plus intervention when you are not linking up with the other sectors. Particularly agriculture. And then you get into what we are doing in Ghana in terms of linking our Red Plus actions with the commodities we find in our landscapes. So we have an entry point to invite and involve private sector because in order we talk about sustainable financing. Sometimes we hear it become more like a rhetoric, but it's an issue. If you don't have sustainable financing, you don't expect to push any of these interventions, no matter how good they are. And when I talk about sustainable financing, it's not just about the quantum of the funds that are coming in, but even channeling the funds to the right interventions. Also, that's contribute to how sustainable that funding will be because you can use funding in such a way that it revolves and also invest and gives you return that you still invest into the interventions you are engaged in. And that's where private sector comes in. So in Ghana, in our landscapes, we have developed our Red Plus interventions are key commodities like cocoa, like share, that gives us share butter, because there already is just a chunk of private sector financing. We just talk about realignment to ensure that the practices now are climate smart. And it's not just about the financing bit. It's also about the fact that for you to achieve success in any Red Plus intervention, you must involve the grassroots people, people who are in touch with the very resources we are talking about. So communities, farmers within the landscapes, understanding what it was 10, 30 years, 20 years before and what it is now and coming to terms together to understand that climate change is happening. There are implications going forward. And the fact that they have to rise up to the occasion and own whatever process that comes on board. And this is what we have done in Ghana. I believe that Red Plus gives us a very good platform. One, the whole process of readiness. I joined the Red Plus process in 2008, right when Ghana went into readiness. The whole process of readiness, building the strong frameworks for governance, for carbon accounting, for feedback and grievance redress. It gives us a lot of learning. We've done this for 10 years. I believe we have the right lessons. We have the best practices. At this stage, what I see that we need is how to package all this and to get needed attention, more visibility to expand the scope of implementation. Because for all that we are talking about, no matter how much Ghana does, if it doesn't have any effect on what is going on in other countries, we will not see the impact or skill. And that is the sort of impact we want to see. Every country should be able to come to some appreciable level of significant impact for us to know that, yes, this is working. We are curbing deforestation. We have tangible, verifiable impacts that we can measure and we can claim any benefits for. And it has been quite phenomenal for us here. Having two key programs now, one resource-based, one also that's with the carbon fund that's in the cocoa sector. One also with the Green Climate Fund on the shared landscape, complementing each other, helping us address issues on safe gas to do with leakage and displacement. Because these are two different ecological landscapes in the country. We are not drifting or enhancing movement of people across because we are building programs in different landscapes that help to empower the communities and also make a business case on how they can enhance the communities for themselves. And we don't just focus on private sector outside. We also focus on private sector within because they have the power to use their networks to influence change. And I believe there's a story that together with what other countries are doing, we should be able to package as the CPF and champion this and move this forward. Thank you. Thank you so much, Rosalind. Very clear and strong messages there that Ghana is very clearly ready after 10 years of readiness. And hopefully so are many others. Your point on international collaboration and joint action is also very important as is the point on finance and including smallholder finance, channeling the finance to those who most need it. So clearly ready to scale up is the message from Ghana. I, if we have time I might come back to you later on this point of international collaboration but let's first hear from the other panelists so Pascal Martinez at the Jeff Pascal. You, the question to you will not come as a surprise because it's about funding that Jeff is the is the global funding mechanism for some of the key conventions that have to do with forests. So what type of new or additional funding mechanisms or ways to channel funding as we just heard from Rosalind could be developed to help transform this field of fighting against deforestation. We've been talking about this for many years so what are the what are the ideas that are new now and that can really help us to turn the tide. And how can the CPF support Jeff and countries in doing that. Hello everyone thank you very much team for your question actually it's a tough question because if we if we knew the solutions maybe we will have resolved the problem. Very important issue that we can, we can, we can discuss some key elements because when you look at the very good state CPF statement that made just just spoke about, we really can see that we have many, we have well identified the problems and there is already a good vision of the possible solutions and challenges. So if I may I would like to maybe to highlight some some some key issues here that could help maybe accelerate the transition and the change that that we need. First of all, I think it has already been said by the Minister of UK. It's about the value of nature. It's very key that maybe a central element to recognize the value of nature and prioritize the nature as the main foundation on which economic and social activities depend on. I think there is no no other way and maybe it's a starting point. And then also, and I'm very happy to have to have listened to Rosalind before because because we actually work with Ghana on the very strategic program and maybe I could discuss this a bit further afterwards. It's very the question of, of this, the promotion of the integrated approach and mainstreaming forest as far as provide many environmental benefits and they also are the course for the many different economic, social and competing interests that doesn't need to be to have a very holistic and integrated view of and consideration of forest and here to speak about the financial mechanism that you are mentioning team. I think that one, there are already many funding mechanisms and initiatives. And maybe there is something that should which can try to further develop is the mobilization of domestic resources. I think it's key because the finances might not be the limiting factors. We certainly need to increase the mobilization of financial resources from all sources. But we also need to channel existing resources to our natural positive outcomes. And I think here is where the where the domestic resources are very key. To do that, there are some several possible ways to think about but first I think it has been highlighted earlier is the need for institutional reforms, policy reforms and as Mette said, policy coherence to improve the mobilization of domestic resources and one tool that can be further developed it already exists but I think it is maybe not enough developed is the development of a payment for a custom services that constitute a powerful tool to deal with what our CEO used to call the market failure which strongly which wrongly makes activities destroying nature more profitable than sustainable activities. And to do that also one key element is the fact to the need to secure land tenure and the right of local people. We spoke about the private sector engagement also it's very much very much needed and here maybe we could of course we need to further incentivize and work with the private sector landscape and jurisdiction level. But here there is something that maybe we could try to develop even more is a blended finance and Jeff has an experience on with through its non-grant instrument window on blended finance and I think this is something that can be also explored and developed and then also another point is at international level that we need also to further valorize forest. There are many commitments that need to be now translated into implementation and in particular, as we got to red plus the many countries have included red plus in their strategies in their indices, but so far a lot of efforts have helped to improve enabling conditions but the social and ecological outcomes of these initiatives have stayed somehow limited and the future of this process is still uncertain and that's why in this regard a positive outcome in the negotiation of the article six of the peace agreement at the next UNFCCC will be very important to move in the right direction and in any case, whatever we consider as financial mechanism, cooperation and synergies among the existing financial mechanisms are crucial and the Jeff is strongly engaged in that way to make the best possible use of existing resources. As you mentioned, Tim, Jeff is a very important partnership because of its own definition, its partnership of 183 country members, 18 specialized organizations including some CPF members and all the kind of partners including private sector, Jeff is a CPF member. So the Jeff mandate as financial mechanism of several material environmental agreement is very unique because it's very powerful to put together all the different aspects of the environment and the forest because of their integrated essence have logically been a key element in the Jeff's strategy since the beginning. Jeff supports the Global Agenda on Forest such as the implementation of NDC, the bond challenge, the LDN, the UN strategic plan for forest. Just in a nutshell, Jeff is about $1 billion per year including 150-200 million for forest, 90% of these resources are grant, so yes it's maybe relatively small as compared to the scale that we need but the Jeff impact comes from this ability to bring together all these partnership governments, international organizations, civil society, private sector so that we can support innovative solutions that can be scaled up. Sorry Pascal, I would like to link what you're saying to a point Meta made in her presentation, $50 to $150 billion are lost mostly to developing country governments in revenue because of illegal deforestation. So this is more than the entire official development of assistance in the world by some estimates I mean 50 to 150 billion is a pretty wide margin but it is a lot of money so clearly your point on mobilizing domestic finance is essential. There's a question in the chat that came up that I would like you to look at and if again we have time I'll come back to you but otherwise maybe you can answer in the chat on smallholder finance. How do we channel in particular money to smallholder farmers who can be accused of being agents of deforestation and this is a problem in Cote d'Ivoire in Ghana and other countries where the smallholder farmers could be part of the solution but they're often seen or are part of the problem. So if you could also the other panelists ever help me view the questions that are coming now into the chat that's very good from the audience. We will move on to IUCN and again I'd like to make the point, repeat the point Meta made about finance and the money that is currently being siphoned out of forest through the illegal activities. If we take the estimate for the UN decade on ecosystem restoration that around $1 trillion between now and 2030 would be needed to turn deforestation and other land degradation around this is without the oceans on land. IUCN is the champion of the bond challenge on forest and landscape restoration so Adriana can I turn to you now with the question that focuses on building back better. We live through an unprecedented phase in our lives where each of us are in some way or another affected and impacted by COVID-19, which poses a lot of problems but also holds some opportunities in terms of building back better from that pandemic, including through stimulus measures. So from IUCN's perspective, Adriana and the bond challenge perspective. What actions and tools could be developed to enhance private sector investments into forest and landscape restoration projects and how could we use the building back better window after COVID-19 to really promote forest and landscape restoration. Thank you team for inviting us to share some ideas with the audience and with all of you. And indeed, we see huge potential for increasing private sector investment in forest landscape restoration which by the way is a very comprehensive and holistic approach and nature based solution. So that starts with improving companies operations. For instance, we have heard many calls and pledges for net zero targets or biodiversity targets across the company's value chain and operations. We have seen organized hundreds of companies, if not thousands of companies making pledges to achieve these net zero targets, many of them operating in the forest and land use sector. What we know is that in order to implement these pledges, they need to decarbonize their value chains and operations as well as investing in nature based solutions such as FLR. So that landscape approaches and restoration and conservation activities are implemented across the board. For companies beyond carbon offsetting and private sector investment in forest landscape restoration can be counted as a financial and a mitigation contribution to countries and disease for instance. So there is definitely there the opportunity of collaboration between private sector and governments to enhance ambition on actions to restore and conserve landscape. As to the role of governments to scale up investment in FLR the first critical way and we heard that from Pascalis by integrating restoration investments into national budget and national accounting practices. There is data and science that shows that forest landscape restoration activities sustainable forestry management is proves its capacity to provide a positive return on investment from government funds spent so it's just that to do this and to, you know, mainstream these activities in national budgets, but most importantly, the role of governments to provide an adequate policy and regulatory enabling environment that allows for private sector investment is fundamental. We are talking about clarity on land tenure issues access and rights access to markets and policy harmonization to ensure that there are no policies or incentives that promote deforestation land conversion or degradation. You will see the CPF key messages and this is one of the fundamental activity actions that need to be done. Other successful measures include tax incentives for green investments or carbon taxes to be reinvested in restoration activities. For instance, in the case of Columbia, which is a great example. In the case of technologies for investment there is a great opportunity to work with the private sector on expanding the use of monitoring and financial financial technologies like artificial intelligence blockchain for instance, with these measures that the government could promote. There is a concrete chance to reduce the risk of investment and provide the right market infrastructure. One last thing that I'll say regarding private sector is, and I think many of us are familiar with that as copta report. I mentioned before that the financials the financial sector needs to internalize the cost of environmental risks to their operations but as well as the impact of their own operations into nature so the idea is that there is this two way assessment of the impact of to nature from private sector operations and that is expected to trigger the redirection of capital towards better practices and nature based solutions investment. And just one idea to touch upon your what you mentioned team about the connection between private sector investment or investment in recovery efforts. And we know that there are many short term job and employment opportunities. To recover from this crisis and their nature based solutions can generate as a matter of fact can generate immediate employment and income opportunities examples of these. Include land and seascapes ecosystem restoration forestry community based management and green and gray infrastructure and and I'll share with you some numbers under the barometer of restoration progress. For the implementation of one challenge pledges we track that the US forest restoration program and work on 2.3 million hectares on land between 2010 and 2019 generating nearly $2 billion in local labor income supporting an average of 5,400 jobs annually so the evidence is there. I think investments need to be redirected from the whole package of COVID recovery to more green and resilient activities. Thank you so much Adriana and following on your last points. Unab launched a report a few weeks ago where we looked at the $15 trillion of economic stimulus and only 18% of that could be classified as somehow being green so there's certainly quite a ways to go and a lot of opportunities. And of course the figures on job creation from investments in restoration but also in sustainable forest industries are important in this regard so that we make sure governments know that these are good investments that not only return economic value but value for social capital and natural capital as well. And in that context, you mentioned the private disclosures. There is also good news that Task Force on Nature related disclosures is starting to have the same systematic approach to this as the Task Force on carbon disclosures had for the climate space and for the private sector and for the governments. Of course, now all the governments can use the official system of environmental and economic accounting to register their national wealth at the UN statistics division so we now have a measure. Although few countries are using it yet but more and more are coming that clearly goes beyond GDP. As a measure of what is really the national wealth. So if your natural capital goes up or down the Minister of Finance will see that just like they now see whether GDP goes up or down. These are the kinds of changes that might not make the headlines but that move the needle. So, again, thanks for that insight also into the one challenge in particular that is champion activity also under the UN decade on ecosystem restoration that we're now in. I would like to come next to Maria del Mar, most of where Maria is director at the director of forest by diversity and ecosystem services in Columbia and of course Columbia being a mega diverse country with a lot of forests and successes in the fight against deforestation. And what I would like to ask you Maria is, what are the most promising approaches that you've seen in Columbia and in particular what role do indigenous people's local communities women and youth groups play in that effort to turn the tide on deforestation. It's a high field effort into all. Thank you for the invitation and as you say, there's around 60 million hectares of forest in the country, we are a mega diverse country, and 52% of the continental surface are forest. And as you said that is a very, very difficult region, but we Columbia, the government of Columbus highly highly committed to reduce deforestation. We have an ambitious target in our updated national determined contributions of reducing emission by 52% by 2030 and reduce deforestation play a center role in the mid discharge it. The data of the natural monitoring system shows that the trends of the first station start to decline from 2013 to 2016, but the recent increase of the first station in 2017, mainly in the Amazon region. After the peace agreement signature challenge our actions, you know that so. Our approach settle in the out in the Amazon vision that aims to progressively reduce the first station while promoting sustainable development in the region is effective. We saw that trends as start to decline again from 18. After nowadays, we are going down. So we are doing very good in getting those gold complete. So our vision Amazonia. I'm telling you is a program which proposed a model of sustainable development for the Amazon. This initiative empowers local population and articulates economic and social sector to promote the quality of life it promotes I have biodiversity conservation productivity and recognize the limitations and opportunity of the region. The indigenous practice the indigenous people for conservation and for sustainability of the territory and strengthen the local institutions. So it's very, very complete the program. And we are very, very pleased of what the results aren't going on in that in that path. And the support, we are having a support of Germany, Norway and UK through the red early movers, the, and the green climate found through the results based payment pilot programming. Plus, there are key pieces to achieve this ambitious target. We know that without international help on this pressure. This is not, they won't be complete. So and we also know that indigenous people, and a for descendant communities are also a key part of the solution. And they, they also own more than 50% of the natural for land for land in the country. So in that context, for example, in the Amazon vision program that I just told about. On the basis of a consultation process, the priorities of indigenous people were include, and we include territory and environment, we also include indigenous self government economy and production, strengthening the indigenous woman and cross current issues. The resources from, from the red early movers are in this project have been assigned to ensure those priorities to be implemented. So the project have been doing a great job, we still have a lot of issues, but we tried because you know the insecurity in Colombia is very is a is a trade. And we're aware historically that forest and indigenous are triple territories that have suffered much less destruction than the region. In the other forest, but nowadays with all what's going on in the country are very a lot of factors that are protected is for our very weak nowadays. So with the vision and massive program, we are aiming to contribute to strengthening communal communal territory rights so compensating the indigenous people for environmental services the payment for services that we talk about, not just in the indigenous regions but in the older community, we are aiming to that compensating the environmental services very strengthened country. So at this point we are reviving revitalizing traditional cultures and knowledge. So we thought we, we work with these cultures and their knowledge we don't work with something different. So this is to strengthen territorial governments, governments and indigenous and tribal organizations. So this is a little what we are trying to do in the country in order to help the deforestation, and we know that we have many other actions to implement and with the local and the laws within the country, we have for example, which is from from the presidential level Institute that guards the entire country and they said monitoring and another kind of measures to to help us fight against the deforestation. And we're not fighting just against the gorilla and we're fighting against the frustration as well. So that's, we are very, very compromises in those in all those those things that we're doing to hold the frustration in the country. Thank you very much, Maria and indeed, thanks for highlighting the role of indigenous people's local communities and the effectiveness that indigenous managed territories in the Amazon and elsewhere can have as a protection measure against deforestation. And also thanks for highlighting red plus I mean as the UN red program FAO UNDP UNEP we've been with you for part of that way at least the same for Ghana and many other countries. And we have to see that the readiness is now over and we need to scale up. I think everybody's everybody's ready to scale up and the finance is coming as we heard from Zach Goldsmith with project leaf that was launched at the US summit on climate. And we have a few minutes left and I tried to accommodate some of the questions from the audience. Can I ask you and the others to for very brief responses there was a question of turning voluntary standards into laws and the role of flagged tea and other efforts to curb illegal deforestation. And I would like to see that as an avenue of turning the tide. Thank you, Tim and I saw the question and was about to answer it, but certainly the forest law enforcement governance and trade that that we are promoting and helping to promote legal and sustainable value change would value change is very important to help reduce illegal logging and making sure that we provide livelihoods to those that are dependent on forest, but we should also keep in mind that it is not actually the illegal logging that's the biggest driver of deforestation. It is expansion of agriculture. It is cutting down the wood to replace some other crops on the land so people are not that interested in getting certification for that wood because most of it is actually going to be just burnt. So it will help address some aspects of it, but it won't on its own turn the tide on deforestation, but it's one of the tools in the tool box and should certainly make use of that too. Indeed, and even on agricultural commodities the EU and others are working on stricter imports to reduce their footprint on forests and other ecosystems. There are a couple of questions on smallholder finance and one of them directed to Roslyn, maybe you can take that and then followed by Pascal if both of you can reflect in particular on smallholder farmers of which there are almost a billion in the world and every third job is in agriculture. How do we help these people be friends of the forests rather than having to burn it down to make a living. Thank you very much Tim. So I saw one of the questions on the fact that the smallholders are the contributors or drivers in some instances to deforestation so how do we convince private sector to still invest. The point is private sector is engaging smallholders already in one way or the other, either directly or indirectly so that engagement is already there what we have to do now is to build the confidence in that engagement and that's why I really value the process we have gone through in direct last mechanism, the fact that we've invested so much on governance structures. When you have these governance structures we are bringing every stakeholder on board and we're all around the same table. Putting across our interests, putting across what our challenges are, putting across what our fears are in some instances and then coming up together with solutions that support each and every stakeholder to understand what it means for their interests or for their benefits to be achieved so we can easily do that but we need to do that in a very transparent and inclusive manner where each stakeholder is confident of the fact that I am coming to the table and my benefits will not be compromised, there wouldn't be any elite capture of my benefits eventually and private sector is okay, smallholders are okay and also to the point where we support smallholders to diversify their income sources. Another strength of red glass in Ghana not just focusing on their farming, there are other farm activities that they can engage in to diversify their income sources and we have examples in Ghana where wherever this has been promoted, the farmers have kept up the forest because in the absence of feather income to cater for their families in some instances large families then they would have to depend on the forest but if you're able to diversify and give them viable alternative and additional livelihoods that they can add to whatever they are doing it helps. I guess this might be the last time speaking so just to chip this in that in the way that we are doing realize that there is a huge challenge of bureaucracy which we hardly talk about. Now even with a limited funding that we have coming to the forestry sector or for major based solutions, even with that little percentage of about 2%, there is too much bureaucracy. And going back to the fact that the CPF has been made up of members of all the entities we engage with the World Bank is in the UNFGCC is in there can we reduce the bureaucracy to some extent not just at the international level but also nationally because you realize that for some small funding that should get to a small holder to make impact the levels of bureaucracy are just too much. Even for me at times I get a bit impatient I think that we have come way too far. We should believe and trust in the people within the landscape that they can put their own resources to very good use we do not need too many managers. We don't need too many checkpoints I am not saying we shouldn't be transparent or accountable. But at a certain point whilst we are being bureaucratic deforestation is not bureaucratic somebody gets into the forest and is destroying COVID-19 was not bureaucratic it just came and we have to grapple with it. So we have to think about the different bureaucracies that we put in a technical and financing support channels we should reduce them possibly have a research environment where there's a control. In that control we don't do anything and let's analyze what it is when we don't do anything and when we have all these bureaucracies and how it eventually pans out I think that we have a great potential we should be able to reduce these bureaucracies. I appreciate what is already going on in countries in landscapes that are thriving that are putting all their efforts in there and also try to encourage and motivate people to do more. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We certainly live in a time in history when it's good to become a little bit impatient. So well done for that I fully subscribed to your call to reduce bureaucracy Pascal does the Jeff have tools to use blockchain to replace all this bureaucracy and quickly and effectively monitor small holder finance. Thank you. Actually, we are beginning to introduce in our Jeff eight thinking the possibility. But it's still in being negotiated because we are the beginning of the process to to to incorporate new technologies and blockchain are one of them to improve the possibility and and the track of the data so so this is something that it is in our in the possibility but we have not yet experience on the field. This it would be more in the future but to to to respond to your to your first question regarding the small orders. Actually, this is what we are trying to to focus on very strongly because it's it's again what was beginning at the beginning. What I was saying sorry to be in my intervention is regarding the value of nature. It's about being able to to to demonstrate that another economic model is possible for for the small orders and we have many different kind of activities that we support in our programs and especially this program on the food system learn use our restoration the biggest program of Jeff seven and Ghana is one of the countries participating in one of the 27 countries participating in this in this program and it's about empowering small orders about connecting them with the with the market support, helping them to diversify their production it's about the sustainable intensification of their production. So it's a mix of several variety of activities and all aiming at bringing them to another level and to improve their livelihood so that they don't need to go further in the in the forest. So yes indeed we are we are working on strongly on that and it's part of our strategy to combat different diversification to helps small orders to to better to better use land. Thank you Pascal. And I see if a Miller from the German government is ready to close our event before that maybe Maria and Adriana if I may come to you for very quick answers one is a question on red plus maybe Maria please to answer that the red plus pilot project of GCF has already run out. How can red plus countries now receive payments for their results from a country that is also working on this with various programs. Maria please you can hopefully share some insights on that. Thank you so much for joining me with the community. So, we go in within the, in the field, they do well, we have the land support, and we also pay for the environmental guard for the, for example, indigenous people who have been working with them so they do a model where we can go with them and pay them for what they are doing for conservation. So, for that is very technical and I just know the little spaces but we are working with around the whole country not just in the Amazon with the indigenous people around the whole country doing this payment for the community that are working in the conservation process of how did the forestation on changing the fact that they are before they were used in the land differently and now they're using it for the right, for the right path so that are working with the the environmental authorities within the different regions and with them working together with our, our path we were doing a great job with that. Thank you and I hope the FAO team can also perhaps answer that other part of the question that came in, where is the finance for red plus actually coming from or where could it come from public private sources project leaf etc. So maybe FAO can share some information about that after the event with those who asked. Adriana can I ask you for a very quick statement on turning the tide, which means not only halting deforestation but reversing deforestation and restoring forests and other ecosystems. If the bond challenge could change one thing, what would that be to come to the 350 million hectares that are committed by 2030. I'm not changed but redouble on on efforts that meter described very well at the beginning of the event collective efforts. It is, it has become obvious that progress only happens and implementation on the ground only happens when a multiplicity of actors are aligned towards same objective. So it is not only a matter of reaching out to a particular sector of the government or a particular level but it has to be an effort that grow goes across the board, and all levels of government. And as Rosalind was was explaining from their experience in Ghana, really investing in governance structures and connecting with the people who work on the ground who make restoration possible as well as the private sector who are who are already there and particularly in this current international context. I think the opportunities have expanded now that companies are more and more willing to invest in nature based solutions as a way of expanding their impact, positive impact towards nature, whether they are working on the forest and use sector or not. So we have to find that these common ground to expand the types of very involved into an, you know, advanced action. Thank you for that strong call for collaboration and collective action and generation restoration is on the move for the year and decade as you know which you're part of. So with this, I would like to hand over the floor to Dr. Eva Miller, who is Director General for Forests, Sustainability and Renewable Resources at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. If I'm very good to see you and thank you for agreeing to close this event please. The floor is yours. First of all, can you hear me well. Yes, loud and clear. Okay, great, because I had some technical problems and I know I'm now on my iPhone. Okay, thank you for inviting me to this side event. This is very interesting for me because it's sort of a follow up to the international conference working across sectors to all deforestation and increased forest area that the CPF organized in 2018. And for me personally that particular conference is also very important because at the time. I was the FAO forest director and I was deeply involved in the organization of the conference as you may remember. Germany was also one of the co funders of the conference, which to me demonstrates the importance the topic of holding deforestation has for us. I'd like to first congratulate the CPF for continuing and strengthening the work in this area of building on the outcomes and the key messages of the conference. And I would also like to think of course the panelists and decide event for their insights and their really inspiring contributions to the discussion of this important topic. In the 2018 conference we use as a subtitle from aspiration to action. And we did this because we strongly believe that holding deforestation and increasing forest area urgently needed scaling up and accelerating action beyond the usual silos. We don't need it now because the SDG target 15.2 on holding deforestation by 2020 has not been achieved. So, Germany, therefore very much appreciates the secretary general's call to scale up action on turning the tide on deforestation. And also as a member of a number of multilateral initiatives, we have been very active in developing supporting and implementing creative and innovative initiatives to accelerate action and we have also continuously supported the CPF. In Germany, we have developed national guidelines for sustainable and deforestation free supply chains. And we have set up a dedicated platform for all stakeholders along the supply chain for these to implement these guidelines. And last year, when we chair the Amsterdam partnership we pushed for joint engagement of European governments to achieve sustainable and deforestation free supply chains of agricultural and forest products with the CPF and jointly with FAO we have organized a series of so donor meetings to help mobilize support for innovative and synergetic CPF actions in the framework of CPF's work plan. And we have also actively supported about half a dozen CPF initiatives and activities. We have supported strategic developments within the CPF, we have co financed a dedicated associate professional officer at FAO for the CPF, and have always advocated for coherent action in the respect to governing bodies of the CPF members. Now we are in 2021 in the time when the world is in an exceptional crisis due to the pandemic. And we do more than ever see the need for concerted engagement of governments, the private sector and civil society to create the right policy and fiscal frameworks to achieve the transformational change in food systems to strive for more sustainable agricultural value chains on to build back better after the pandemic. We in Germany strongly believe in the enormous potential, the forest based solutions have to address global challenges for the quadruple planetary emergency crisis as stated in the CPF statement. And while it is great to see all this new motivation, most recently at the Earth Day Summit of last week. We believe that is only through coherent and concerted action that all those actors together will be able to hold deforestation. And this for us is why the collaborative partnership on forests is of paramount importance, because its core function is to enhance coherence cooperation, as well as policy and program coordination at all levels, and it can make significant contributions through its joint initiatives. And with a quote of Albert Einstein, who said, in the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity. I call on you to use the opportunity of the existing crisis and this super year of nature we're having to comply with you indicate of action and make use of forest based solutions so let us together finally bring deforestation to an end. And I thank you. And we will or deforestation will bring us to an end so thank you very much Eva we don't have a choice and we have to turn the tide. Thank you very much to FAO for organizing this very informative event. Thank you for this fantastic panel for our guest speaker from the UK for Germany for the closing remarks and thank you to all the participants and to the technical at FAO and a particular thanks to Metta as the new chair of the collaborative partnership on forests, which will become even more collaborative with you at the helm. Metta and with that, thank you all. And good evening good night or a good rest of the day wherever you may be. Bye bye. Thank you. Bye.