 It's now my pleasure to introduce the first of our two keynote speakers this morning. Dr. Helen Gichohi is another award-winning woman, having been named to the Order of the Great Warrior by the President of Kenya in 2006. And at least to me, it remains undisclosed whether or not that came with pound sterling. Now, since 2011, she has led the African Wildlife Foundation, and in that role has worked across Africa, across stakeholder groups, and across the many ecological, social, political, and ecological issues necessary to promote conservation. So I can think of no better speaker to help us cover the ground from policy to practice. Dr. Gichohi. Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I think I will be comparing notes to the minister this afternoon about whether we are owed some checks for these awards that we win. But let me start by congratulating SIFO for this very impressive turnout for Forest Day and to thank SIFO for inviting me to be one of the keynote addresses. It's a real honor for me and for the organization I serve, the African Wildlife Foundation. My task this morning is to tell you about Africa's forests and why they matter. But before I do so, I would like to join you all in paying tribute to a fallen icon, the late Professor Wangari Badai, a Nobel-winning environmental and human rights crusader who saw the links between environment, sustainable development, and peace. She's a woman who inspired many of us, and I might speak for myself here, to take action and to care. If she was here today, she would challenge us to act decisively and seize this opportunity to restore our common future. Today and throughout COP17, we have the opportunity to shine light, the spotlight on Africa. So I'll begin by giving you a few facts about this continent. People often underestimate the size of Africa. Africa is a huge continent, measuring 30.3 million kilometers squared. To put it into context, it is larger than the U.S., China, India, Western Europe, and Argentina put together, and with some space to spare. There are approximately one billion people living on the continent, fewer than live in China, whose land mass is only one-fifth of that of Africa. It gives you a good sense of Africa's low population density. But Africa's people are distributed unevenly, concentrating in areas of high productivity along coastal areas, high agricultural potential in land-trading cities, while vast tracts of land in semi-arid areas in the north and the rainforest in the center have very few people living in them. What about the scale of the resource, the Africa's forest resources? African forests account for 17 percent of the world's forest cover, with over 582 million hectares of forested land. This includes the world's second largest rainforest, covering 180 million hectares across the Congo basin and 270 million hectares of Myanmar woodlands. The remaining African forests are comprised of various types of dry, deciduous woodlands, coastal forests, and montane forests. The Congo basin also accounts for more than 60 percent of Africa's biodiversity, and is home to three or five of the world's great apes, a large diversity of birds and mammals, and are home to many indigenous human populations. They also provide critical ecosystem services, most notably food, water, and climate regulation. They are the lungs of our continent. Despite its huge potential and natural resource wealth, Africa remains a very poor continent. Nine of the 10 countries with the largest percent of people living on less than a dollar a day are in Africa. The situation is predicted to worsen. Under various climatic change and environmental challenge scenarios, nearly two-thirds of people of the sub-Saharan continent depend directly or indirectly on forest and woodlands for food, fewer wood, building material, traditional medicines, raisins, and ecological services, such as hydrological and pollination services. As forest dependent and forest adjacent populations grow, they're putting pressure on forest resources. The combination of increasing scarcity of agricultural land globally, growing human population, and changing food preferences are bringing more attention to the bulk of underdeveloped agricultural potential in Africa. Deforestation rates in Africa are already estimated to be four times the world average and accelerating. It's also estimated that 9 percent of forests was lost between 1995 and 2005, and that this represents an average loss of 40,000 kilometers squared of forests every year. These staggering statistics make the continent an appropriate focus for forest-based mitigation and adaptation efforts. In addition, national economies of many African countries are dependent on forests, either directly through timber industry, watershed protection, or indirectly through the services provided, for example, by climate stabilization and safeguarding water supplies for key crops such as coffee, tea, and Kenya that Africa produces. They also enable hydropower generation that drives industry for many of South Saharan African countries, and I could go on. Africa is also renowned for its wildlife and is dependent, which are dependent on these forests as well. We often do not link the great world of beast migrations of the Serengeti Mara with forest ecosystems, yet the Mau Forest is the resource of the Great Mara River. The Great Cobb migration of Ethiopia and southern Sudan also depend on wetland forests. The 750,000 Cobb spent their dry season migration in Gambela National Park, and many of you here from Ethiopia. And these wetlands are fed by the forests of Ethiopian islands. The great apes that inspire us are also directly dependent on forest resources. In short, the greatness of the wildlife of these plains depends on the integrity of forest ecosystems. Now imagine Africa without migrations, without great apes, and without its diverse wildlife. But that's what would happen if we do not care for our forests. So how do we conserve and manage these forests, enabling them to remain the storehouses of vast biodiversity resources, providing the ecosystem services that are essential to life while meeting the demands of a growing human population that's dependent on the forests for food security and livelihoods. At national level, how can forests continue to contribute to economic growth through extraction and agriculture without further deforestation or loss of wildlife? And how do we balance local, national, international needs that oftentimes compete? It is a collective challenge, and I'm hopeful it is one of the challenges we'll be handling and dealing with throughout forestry today. The African Wildlife Foundation's conservation program uses landscape approach. Because we are convinced that the high dependency of natural resources demands that solutions to these challenges must be addressed at large scale. They must be practical. They must be coherent in the context of ecosystems and local livelihoods. AWF also works closely with regional, national, and local partners to assess conservation and human needs in each landscape, and use the information available to determine what the best response strategies will be. I'll give you three quick examples from the field that illustrate how we do our work. AWF is currently engaged in the Congo basin in the landscape in the Northern Democratic Republic of Congo. The Marine Galopore Wamba landscape covers 75,000 kilometers squared. It's a rainforest dominated 90 percent that dominates 90 percent of the landscape with about one quarter of the forests which are swamp and flooded and flooded forests. The MLW, as we popularly call it, forms part of the watershed of the Lopore and Moringa rivers. And it feeds the great Congo River and is an important refuge for endangered Bonobo apes, numerous rare orangutans species of the giant pangolin, the golden cat, the forest elephant, and the Congo peacock. Ecosystem integrity and landscape connectivity are threatened by deforestation, resulting from expansion of shifting cultivation and sustainable forest utilization and the bushmeat trade that relies on extraction of these forests. While traditional people made use of the MLW forests through collection of bushmeat, wood energy, and shifting cultivation, these practices moved deeper in the forest during the war as people sought refuge. They lost access to markets for their products and services, and this increased acute poverty and population. And as population has grown in recent years, the pressure on forest has also grown. In the absence of adequate land use planning, open access forest management has become unsustainable. And I must say I've had occasion to witness this when I flew over that landscape six years ago, and I was struck by the number of forest fires in the middle of that forest. With the support of the U.S. government under their CARPE program, macro-level zoning of the whole landscape has now enabled stakeholders in AWF to define areas for protection, logging concessions, community forests for multiple use, and agriculture zones. After the macro-level planning, participative micro-level zoning in key strategic areas has enabled communities to define and enhance land uses in defined areas so that livelihood opportunities are maximized along with forest conservation. We have partnered with communities and institutions such as eCraft, SEAT, and others to intensify agriculture, bringing in resilient and productive crop varieties, providing training on soil management and improvement, and appropriate farming techniques to increase yields. We have also linked these communities to distant markets by facilitating private sector participation to bring a barge that travels 2,000 kilometers away to collect produce from communities and take it to these distant markets. We've also built storage facilities to keep produce fresh as they wait for transportation. Finally, a program to improve domestic livestock and regulate hunting in designated areas is underway to enable bushmeat to be part of people's livelihoods and diets on a sustainable basis. To support protected area conservation efforts, AWF provides support to the National Conservation Agency, the ICCN, to build capacity, conduct by diversity research, and develop a noble-based adventure and scientific tourism. And of course, they are the logging concessions in this system, and they occupy 20 percent of the landscape. And we are working closely with the logging companies to develop clear plans to manage their concessions and to work with local people to support sustainable livelihoods. And this work has helped to shape national policy on land use zoning. These measures can be further enhanced through carbon revenues. Communities in this region have potential to further secure approximately 2,000, 200,000 hectares of primary forests. And this could provide direct benefits to approximately 16,000 inhabitants. AWF has begun to work with communities to enhance awareness of red plus as DRC prepares its national red strategy. And we will be piloting a carbon project with the country. Again, this emerging work is providing information and tangible lessons to climate change policy for that country. Let me take you from the rainforest of Congo basin to the dryland forests of African plains. And the previous speaker talked about the value of dryland forests on the continent of Africa. The Birikani Group Ranch in southern Kenya is a 320,000 hectare community land, which is located in the semi-arid area. It is owned by a community of Maasai pastoralists and is a ranch that supports large heads of wildlife and provides grazing for livestock, the main source of livelihood and wealth for this community. A part of the group ranch is a dryland cloud forest that measures about 20,000 hectares and serves as an important water catchment for what is a very dry and arid area. This community, like many in East Africa, have very limited options because of the aridity of the lands and the high levels of poverty. To enhance conservation livelihoods, we've been working with the community for the last 10 years with the support of the US and the Dutch governments to develop the areas tourism as a first step to strengthening incomes from wildlife and conservation. We're also linking communities directly to improve livestock markets, to increase revenues from the sale of their cows and goats, in exchange for improved rangeland management. Yet this is not enough. To divert deforestation and forest degradation, we're now piloting carbon projects so that they too can generate revenue from the conservation of these important forests. Together, these measures diversify, improve overall incomes, and support the conservation of important forests. They're also providing, helping to deliver climate change mitigation benefits to these communities. Through these programs, communities are able to leave rangelands open for their cattle, for wildlife, and together with neighboring communities, improve connectivity in landscapes. And this is needed to build resilience in areas that have suffered frequent and regular droughts through the last few years. My final example is from the montane forest of the Coral Hills, which serve as water catchment for communities in the beyond the woodlands. These hills provide water that is a source of the great Terangiri River, the lifeline of many thousands of people who live with wildlife of the Terangiri Maniara ecosystem. The Terangiri Maniara is a gem in the northern Tanzanian tourist circuit, where people from around the world are drawn to see large heads of wildlife migrating through this landscape. Resource-intensive commercial livelihood practices, such as charcoal production and brick-making, are taking trees from the forest more quickly than they can grow. In this setting, and with the support of the Norwegian government, we're working with communities to introduce better land use practices, such as agroforestry, sustainable agriculture, and reforestation, framed by management practices, such as joint forest management and community-based management. In this area, as with other forests, the objectives under a Red Cross program are to conserve the forest while providing better livelihood opportunities for all people in the area by expanding the availability of alternative energy sources, improving agriculture practices, and yields here in the pilot phase have increased eightfold, while supporting new businesses which diversify incomes. So what am I saying, ladies and gentlemen in summary, that forests are critical to climate mitigation and adaptation, but their value goes far beyond carbon sequestration alone. Forests are critical to the lives of millions of people who depend upon them for everyday sustenance. They're important to national governments for economic growth and development. They are vital for Africa's magnificent and unique wildlife. They're important for global important biodiversity. They hold climate stabilization and other services for the climate stabilization and other services that they provide. These values sometimes compete with one another and with other land use options in particular agriculture. I hope through the few examples, I have shown some ways in which, in large landscapes, these competing needs can be reconciled through integrated strategies to enable people to prosper and by the diversity of Africa to survive. We do, however, need help to take these examples to scale to make them the standard at national, regional, and regional levels in order to halt ongoing loss of forests and associated by diversity. Looking to the economics, the values of forest services that forest services provide, including by diversity, remain accounted for in our national decision making. While carbon values can be determined during carbon assessment processes, these are far from complete. Other values such as soil conservation, water capture and retention, pollination, food habitat for wildlife, and others are generally not accounted for at all. The economists behind the important study, the economics of ecosystem and biodiversity that was led by Kevin Sukta have shown us how much these values might be. They are hugely significant. It is now incumbent upon us to value ecosystem services in our accounting systems. To incorporate these values into our national decisions about the scale, the location of agriculture investments, forestry, mining, and other land uses that risk discounting our future for short-term benefits. RED is a tool for bringing the value of one ecosystem service from forest into decisions. But RED presents both opportunities and challenges as we are learning from our projects. If we get it right, we can finance long-term conservation of extensive state, private, and communally owned forests. For RED to work, however, we need to bring down the transaction costs of getting the carbon to market. We need to design ways of sharing carbon incomes fairly and equitably, particularly with those who bear the opportunity costs of forgone forest uses. And we need to share the responsibilities for long-term compliance fairly and equitably. While money is available globally for climate change mitigation adaptation, sadly, not much is flowing to people in forest communities where it would transform the prospects for climate mitigation and adaptation, livelihoods, and biodiversity. National mechanisms, therefore, are urgently needed to fast-track implementation on the ground of responsibly planned, delivered local initiatives to address climate change and the threat it poses both to people and to ecosystems. For all this to be meaningful, however, contribution to climate change mitigation. For all this to be meaningful, for all to make meaningful contribution to climate change mitigation, the large polluting countries, both historically and currently, must do their part to substantially reduce their own emission levels. Finally, let me remind us that Africa is a low greenhouse gas emitting continent. Yet it still suffers serious and disproportionate impacts from climate change. It is therefore appropriate that COP 17 is being held here. I hope decisions from this COP will provide adequate means for Africa to cushion itself from this impact. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for this opportunity to speak to you this morning. Forest Day represents a unique gathering of people from a whole spectrum of groups involved in forest conservation around the world. The diversity is important because it is just such a richness of values and views that is needed to map a pathway towards a better future for us all. We must work together with respect and compassion, but also with energy and determination, as our professor did, to create a bright future. I have faith that the deliberations throughout the rest of the day and the conference as a whole will nurture a future for forests, for forest resources, for people, for wildlife, for Africa and for us all. Thank you very much.