 Dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this webinar with the title Protect, Restore, and Sustainably Used Forests, Building Blocks for Environmental and Economic Recovery, organized by the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, on behalf of the collaborative Parpe Gipeng Forest. My name is Alexander Buk and I am the Executive Director of IUFRO, the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, and for the next 75 minutes or so, I am going to be your moderator and guide you through the webinar. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, wherever you may be, it's really great that you have decided to join this webinar to coincide with the Stockholm Plus 50 conference. Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, as I think you will agree with new forests and sustainable forestry can indeed help the world recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and combat looming environmental crisis such as climatic changes and biodiversity loss. However, this requires society to better recognize the considerable value of forests and their crucial roles in building inclusive, resilient, and sustainable economies. Important commitments regarding the forest forests have been made at a variety of international fora such as the United Nations Food Systems Summit, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that recently held its COP26, the United Nations Environmental Assembly 5.2, or the United Nations Farm and Forests which recently met for its 17th session. But I should also like to mention the even more recent important documents adopted at the FAO World Forestry Congress 2022, including the sole forest declaration and the ministerial call on the sustainable wood adopted at this World Forestry Congress. Ladies and gentlemen, the state of the forest forest 2022 published by the FAO provides three pathways to implement this new perspective of making development work with the environment. Protect, these are measures to halt deforestation, restore meaning to make land more productive and use denoting investments in building economically viable revalue chains that provide resilient livelihoods. Today's event will look at the interfaces between the three pathways, protection, restoration, and the sustainable use of forests. The program of the webinar videos follows. First, we will hear openly remarks by FAO's Deputy Director General, Ms. Maria Helinas-Medo. Then the president of my own organization, Jufro, Dr. John Perotta, will set the scene for us diving into the three building blocks. Our panel, and I will introduce our distinguished panelists in a moment, we look into how these building blocks can simultaneously conserve nature, better provide for human well-being, and contribute to inclusive recovery that builds resilient and sustainable economies. After the panel, it will be your turn and we will have some time for exchange with the participants where our panelists will be happy to answer your questions. And already now I would kindly ask you to use the Q&A function of this webinar for posting your pet questions to the panel. So please feel free to post your questions using that Q&A function. Towards the end of the webinar, Ms. Mayrae Attala, who is the coordinator for Nature for the Climate Branch from the United Nations Environment Program, will close the event reflecting on how to build forward through investing in forest-based solutions. And needless to say, we hope the event will provide insights on the environmental and economic recovery potential in view of contributing to forthcoming international discussions. Ladies and gentlemen, now without any further delay, it's my pleasure to give the floor to Ms. Maria Helena Semedo for her opening remarks. Actually, I believe Ms. Semedo needs no introduction. Nevertheless, I would like to say that she is the deputy director general of the FAO and in that role leads major parts of FAO's work ranging from transforming food systems to dealing with climate change, including the work of the forestry division. Ms. Semedo, the floor is yours. Thank you, Alexander. And good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Dear participants, friends, happy to see some of you on the screen after Seul and very also happy to join this event today as we are starting the Stockholm Plus 50. In 1922, the world came together for the first United Nations conference on the human environment. Yet today, as we look back on 50 years on global environment action, the world still faces huge challenges. We have to overcome the social and economic consequences of COVID-19 aggravated by conflicts and face the climate crisis. We need solutions that can be applied at scale that are cost effective and equitable and that can be implemented rapidly in an inclusive manner. Forest and trees provide powerful solution. They are a source of sustainable livelihoods, prosperity and resilience for both people and the environment. If you use them more wisely, we can address both pressing environmental issues and economic recovery needs. We have seen some progress on forest since 1972, but it's not enough. We lose fewer forests per year than two decades ago, but it's still too much. We have more forests under protection than before, but still too little. At the same time, our population continues to grow. More people need more materials, most of which are neither renewable nor sustainably produced. The recently launched State of the World Forest 2022 provides three mutually reinforcing pathways to implement a new perspective to achieve sustainable, healthy forests to help build inclusive and sustainable economies. As it has already mentioned during the opening, we have three main messages. One, protect, halting deforestation to help stop climate change and biodiversity loss, including through increasing agriculture productivity on existing agricultural land. Two, restore, making land more productive through planting or agroforestry. And three, use, for example, by using wood more wisely by building higher value chains that provide resilient livelihoods and build carbon neutral local economies. We need to ensure forest protection, restoration and sustainable use, help reinforce a wider agri-food system transformation. This is also a message that was echoed at the recently concluded World Forestry Congress, which underlined that the time to act is now to build a green, healthy and resilient future with forest. FAO is committed to support members in upscaling efforts to build forward better and greener towards more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable agri-food system. We do this, for example, in the context of Red Plus Program, where we are working across agri-food system to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, an essential part of the global efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. FAO call its UN Decade on Acquisition Restoration with the United Nations Environment Program, the aim to restore 350 million actors of the graded land between now and 2030, could generate three, nine trillion US dollars in ecosystem services and lay the basis for jobs and income from more productive land. The EU FAO flight program has supported 40 tropical timber producing countries to improve forest governance and support legal timber trade. This is a critical component to build legal and sustainable value chains and market-based on wood. As a renewable and carbon-neutral, high-value material, sustainable youth offer solutions across multiple value chains, including construction, packaging, renewable energy, biomaterials for clothing and biochemicals. FAO looks forward to Stockholm Plus 50 to further strengthen how we can make development work with the environment and to take these ideas forward at the upcoming committee on forestry. I look forward to today's exchange to see how protection, restoration and sustainable use of forests can be scaled up as building blocks for a green recovery and for carbon-neutral and resilient economy. I wish you a fruitful meeting and thank you for your attention. Over to you, Alexander. Thank you so much, Maria Helena, for your very insightful remarks on the three building blocks and especially also for providing these very compelling examples of really how forests can contribute to actually building more environmental and economic resilience and recovery. That is very much appreciated. Thank you so much, Maria Helena. And Maria Helena has mentioned both the SOFOR report and the disciplines you can find the link to the report in the chat box. She has also mentioned the important outcome documents of the recently held World Forestry Congress and you can also find the link to those documents in the chat box. The SOFOR has already been mentioned, the State of the World's Forest report, and I suggest that before we dive deeper into today's discussions, let us watch a short video about the SOFOR, sorry. Forests stand as a vital defense against climate change and biodiversity loss, while also providing livelihoods for millions of people around the world. But they are under threat. In the last 30 years, they've lost an area larger than Algeria and Libya combined. FAO's latest State of the World's Forest report identifies three pathways that conserve forests while supporting recovery, halting deforestation, restoring degraded forests, and sustainably using forests to build resilient local economies. In Kenya's Caricia Forest, the local community has a new mission of preservation, having recently taken custody of the forest after decades of government control. They now go on patrol to look out for wildfires or any illegal harvesting or cattle grazing. Since 2016, more than 100 square kilometers of forest have rebounded from deforestation and degradation. And there is massive restoration and regeneration happening, and the process of restoring that forest through engaging of community scouts on protecting of natural regeneration. Pamela Linolganja and her fellow Samburu women nurture a nursery of seedlings for future forest planting. Across Kenya, forest-based value chains are emerging and contribute to restoration efforts. Ruth Waieramu gathers firewood from dead branches on two and a half hectares of her farmland that she's set aside for a tree plantation. She will begin selling timber in a few years once the trees have grown larger. Their timber helps generate jobs across the community, from sawmill operators who process the wood to carpenters next door who craft tables, chairs, beds and more. In Finland, wood construction chains are thriving based on sustainable forest management. Innovative building materials from wood are helping to respond to climate change and the need to build more circular economies. These prefabricated wood panels are called cross-laminated timber or CLT. They're as durable as concrete, but faster and simpler to install, store carbon for their lifetime, and require no fossil-based materials, making them more climate-friendly. CLT made here forms the building blocks for schools, apartments, upper houses, and even skyscrapers across the world. Tangible benefits, whether environmental or economic, offer a strong incentive for societies to protect, restore, and responsibly use their forest resources, preserving the value of forests for generations to come. With this video we have already actually seen some really nice examples of the many benefits provided by forests if to use Mr. Mido's words, we use them wisely. And we will hear more examples in the course of this webinar from our panelists, but before we go to the panelists, please let me give the floor to John Perotta. Dr. John Perotta is the program leader for international science issues at the United States Forest Service and also the president of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, IGFRO. John will be setting the scene for us and deliberate further on the three building blocks, the protection, the restoration, and the sustainable use of forests. John, the floor is yours. Yes, thank you very much, Alexander, for your kind introduction. It's a pleasure and an honor to be participating in this event today, and in the brief time I have available, I'd like to actually pick up where Maria Helena left off and provide what I see as some of the obstacles that we're facing in restoring, sustainably using, and conserving our forests. As we know, the protection, restoration, and sustainable use of forests and their biodiversity is critical to the health of our planet and our global society. Forests, woodlands, and trees outside of forests provide a wide range of goods, as well as environmental, social, and economic services of varying importance and value to a broad range of stakeholders over differing time scales. Some are very near term, some relate to the benefits bequeathed to future generations. For example, forests in many parts of the world support food security nutrition, are critical sources of clean water, they help to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and provide livelihoods and support economies and cultures of communities worldwide. But despite their well documented importance to people and our future, forests continue to be lost or degraded in many parts of the world, and those who depend on them most directly are the first to suffer as a result. Clearly, the central role of forest and supporting life on this planet is not adequately valued by many governments and others whose investments in land management activities in other sectors currently drive deforestation and forest degradation. There are a number of reasons for this failure, but I would like to highlight just a couple which have emerged from many decades of scientific research and even longer experience. In many parts of the world, forest loss and degradation are closely linked to governance failures and lack of policy coordination among sectors. Even where there are seemingly adequate policies related to forest conservation and forest management, the legal regulatory frameworks and institutions related to forests are often very weak. This creates openings for more politically and financially powerful actors to pursue short term profits for themselves at the expense of long range benefits for the broader public, very often usurping the rights of those less powerful, including those of indigenous peoples and local communities in the process. The results of this are often painfully obvious, including severe over exploitation of forest resources, land degradation and impoverishment of those who have been the stewards of these lands for generations. Lack of policy coordination with respect to forest is all too common. In most countries, ministries or other government agencies responsible for forest as well as nature conservation are typically in a weak bargaining position dealing with their counterparts in other land management sectors, as well as in the energy, mining, transportation and urban sectors. This frequently results in marginalization of forests and forest dependent communities, conversion of forests, mostly to agriculture, and lack of investments in conservation, sustainable management and restoration of degraded forest landscapes, as well as investments in education, extension services, development of value addition and marketing infrastructure for forest products, all of which are needed for a sustainable forest based economy. But in spite of these limitations related to governance and policy coordination, there is a lot of good work and progress being made. And I'm sure we'll hear some good example of this from our panelists today. We're also seeing some progress at the global level. For example, the 2030 agenda for sustainable development provides an important framework for policy coordination and planning at the national level, recognizing interdependencies among sustainable development goals. If I may, I'd like to share a screen. Yes, thank you for your patience. In coordinating action and harmonizing policies necessary for achievement of the sustainable development goals, governments need help. They need the tools and information and knowledge to make sensible decisions on how best to harmonize the various goals. One of the tools that's, I think of great importance is natural and social capital accounting. This is an approach being explored by many governments as a tool for intersectoral policy coordination and planning to ensure the long-term values and services provided by forests as well as other natural and managed ecosystems is maintained while pursuing shorter range development goals. Developed through interdisciplinary research led by environmental economists over the past 20 years, it recognizes the relationships among environmental, social and economic components of sustainable development and the importance of governance institutions in harmonizing and development objectives. Approaches such as this can help us to reposition forests, a significant component of the natural capital in most countries of the world into a more central position in the policy and planning activities of governments. I realize that I have limited time to speak and I could go on quite a bit about this and other topics, but I think I can wrap it up here and thank everyone for their attention and I look forward to hearing our panelists and discussion following that. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, John, for setting the scene for our discussions so well and for this important reminder that indeed the role of forests in supporting life on land continues to be undervalued, but also thank you for elaborating on the underlying reasons but also on the ways on how to overcome this problem. And as you mentioned, I think the panelists later on will give us some other additional examples of how really this potential forest can be utilized more properly. So thank you again very much, John, and you will join us again later on for the Q&A part of this webinar. Thank you. And I can see from the chat that we do indeed also have participants from all around the globe who I already now also want to encourage later on to take the floor to post questions in the Q&A session so that they can be addressed by our panelists later on. Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, let us now move to our discussion on the interface between protection, restoration, and sustainable use. We are going to hear a number of country cases and each of the country cases that are going to be presented aim at linking two of these three building blocks in order to achieve more impact. And I'm very pleased to introduce our first panelist for this webinar, Johan Ekeströn. He is with us today. Johan recently joined Burauffa agroforestry in Laos as its CEO. Johan has previously been working with equipment and software for the agricultural market at the Swedish company Muntles and has been a management consultant at McKinsey and company. So hello, Johan. And Johan, if you allow me, I will straight away ask the following question. And the question will be as follows. Restoration involving trees can provide large environmental, social, and economic benefits. Globally, 2.2 billion hectares of degraded land have been identified as potentially being available for restoration. Numerous studies have demonstrated the higher productivity of agroforestry systems and the improved resilience. Yet I feel that many farmers perceive them as being less productive and thus financially more risky. So Johan, in your experience, how can restoration and sustainable use be linked in practice to assure productivity and income? So what can you tell us about this question based on your experience in Laos and, of course, based also on your previous experience in your previous roles? Thank you, Alexander, for a very interesting question. And hello, everyone. Yes, so I'm representing Burapa, an agroforestry company in Laos. And what we are trying to do is to use degraded land in a better way. And you're doing this in an ethical and sustainable matter. So all the time, I mean, the end means here is to having a profitable company. But we believe that in order to do this, we have to get all these building blocks in place. And what we do in Laos is we use an agroforestry model where we plant trees on degraded land. And the trees are later used for plywood production. And the planting of the trees is done in close cooperation with the local villages and farmers. So they do clearing of the land from bamboo, for example, weeding, planting of the small seedlings, and all of this work is offered to people living in the area. And I think from our experience, this is maybe the most important part to be able to offer a stable income to the people in the area. We believe that that is the foundation to be able to protect forests around the area, but also to be able to plant more in the degraded land. And local farmers normally increase their income per hectare with roughly three times compared to what they did before working with Verapa. And I think the other part is that we are working with a model where we offer the farmers to put crops during the first year when we plant trees. So they very often upland the rice. And this is good because every seventh year they give them the opportunity to plant on that land, which means that they don't need to look for other land to plant rice because the seven-year cycle mimics quite well how they use to plant. Every seventh year they go to that slot. And I think that it's also a key that they're trying to keep it simple and mimic what's already there as much as possible. And I also think that that having a model like this making people to see that it's possible to make money from planting trees create a lot of interest in the communities and so on. And there I think it's important then to offer the support for those interested farmers, outgrower programs, which could include training how to grow trees, but also to give them access to, for example, seedlings of high quality that they can use for for the plantation. So to help them to take that step and get to action. And if there is one final thing about what I think in order for us at least to get a successful agroforestry model which is both profitable but also good for in other aspects is to get the different stakeholders interests aligned. And it sounds very, I mean it's easy to say but I think it's difficult to do. But I think what we have been able to do in Laos is that we do get great job opportunities for local farmers. We are helping the country to build up a new industry using all these degraded land. So we get the full support from the from the government as well as as running a company profitable company. Yeah, Johan, thank you so much for sharing this really fascinating example from Laos. I think you mentioned a number of really important factors to keep in mind then going about agroforestry concepts and approaches. And I'm really impressed by what you've told us and I hope that later on we will also hear in the discussion perhaps also some reflections by participants. Thank you so very much for this important contribution Johan. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, let us now move to another continent through Europe. We do have with us Mr. Petri Heino as our next panelist. Mr. Heino is a forestry profession and has worked many years in the promotion of Finnish wood construction, lobbying for organizations such as the Finnish Timber Council and the Finnish Forest Industries Federation. He was also engaged in projects for the Nordic Timber Council. Petri Heino been worked as a research manager at the German Lascaux University of Applied Sciences for four years. And the focus of the research and development was on interior design solutions with wood. Mr. Heino is currently and he has been doing that since 2016 responsible for the National Wood Building Program at the Ministry of the Environment of Finland. And this is also what he's going to talk about today in his panel statement. Recently Mr. Heino has also acted as the initiator of the European wood policy platform, the goal of which is to help public officials in defining the measures for the increased use of wood in their respective countries. And Mr. Heino, my question to you would be the following. The annual global consumption of all natural resources combined is expected to more than double to 190 billion tons by 2016, so in less than 40 years from now. Yet again, today only 25 percent, so one quarter of the total material demand today is met by biomass and the remainder is being met by non-renewable resources. So that is quite a formidable challenge. In Finland, first of all, forests are a key economic sector and the aim of scaling up the use of wood as a renewable and carbon neutral resource is underpinned by the principle of sustainability, as we've also heard in the video that we've seen earlier. So my question to you would be the following. Can you highlight how in the wood building program in Finland you have set, which you have set up in Finland, you have managed to actually integrate the protection and the sustainable use of forests? And could you, when doing so, also highlight how you work on scaling up this national example at a European level? So how do you do that, Mr. Heino? Thank you very much, Mr. Buck. And thank you for introducing and setting me also on the states with very interesting questions and the framework. Yeah, one thing I have to mention to start with, even though the ice hockey sticks are not any more made out of wood, but Finland won the World Championship in ice hockey last night. So congratulations to Finland. So dear participants all around the world, so I'm Petri Heino. I work at the Ministry of the Environment at the Department of the Build Environment and the director of the wood building program. And as you, of course, I know Finland's forests represent the country's most significant renewable natural resource. As the demand for natural resources rises in the future, Finland's timber reserves are to become an even more important asset. Finland has succeeded to combine all the sustainability criteria and it is very economically important. We have been able to increase the forest tree growing stock and all the time also the harvested cubic meters. But of course, there is a lot and there is a need to do better. Forestry practices have to be further developed when societies need a change. There is a growing need for new products for the construction sector. There is a growing need to put more focus on biodiversity issues. But as a kind of a guiding target for the whole Finland and the development is that we have set the target for carbon neutrality by 2035. There are multifaceted reasons to promote the use of wooden construction, even though we use it a lot in Finland. We use estimated 0.6 cubic meters of wooden products per capita. We have a long tradition in using it, but there is also a need for new development. As our moderator mentioned, there is a growing demand on materials in the world, estimation of the increased demand and their apparent emissions clearly so that the business as usual is not possible. And also there is a decarbonization development of the other materials such as concrete and steel, but this development is not fast enough. Therefore, we have to change the construction sector. Thinking of the construction sector, it should be that the circular economy principles must become the basic requirement for all construction or any kind of material usage actually. And the use of renewable materials must be maximized. And it was also mentioned that wood has to be used efficiently and wisely. You can approve the use of wood when the products store carbon for a long time, longer than earlier, and then that the products can be recycled and at the end utilized as the energy source. Or they substitute more harmful materials. Rich research shows that the highest substitution or displacement factor can be reached in construction or in the fabrics and clothing industry with the newest technologies. We have a national wood building program which aims to promote the use of wooden in construction by granting support for research and development and supports municipalities. I want to say that these municipalities have a really big role in changing the construction sector. Only the wood building program cannot be effective. We need wider shoulders from in the ministries and also supported by the politicians. In Finland, the basis is the bioeconomy strategy created 2014 and recently renewed just this year. Energy and climate strategy supported the wood building program by funding so as a measure to one measure to reach the carbon neutrality. Circular economy strategy has several connections to the wood building strategy or the program. And then we have a roadmap to low carbon construction that of course naturally supports the use of wood as we are setting the limit values for carbon footprint for new construction. But the construction sector is a difficult sector. It's fixed systems with high risks and low innovation. It's also very local. The most environmentally efficient way to build and use wood are also local and need a lot of understanding. There is a European Commission's Green Deal has set ambitious goals for Europe to become climate neutral for 2050. And I quote one of their messages. Wood could even play a vital role and become a key enabler for the transformation towards a carbon neutral industry and climate positive society. These requires joint efforts among member states and stakeholders. To improve and ease that policy development in European countries, we do a joint effort as required by the Commission. A wood policy platform initiative is being created by Finland and Austria. An open collaborative political platform can facilitate a smooth cooperation among important decision makers by connecting them via various means. The overall objective of such a platform could be to showcase the added value of wood and wood-based materials towards the carbon neutral economy. Summary. Basic requirements for building the carbon neutral future with wood. Of course, sustainable forestry, circular economy principles push through the whole economy, holistic development of the built environment, meaning regulatory environment, supply of wooden solutions, demand of wood, education sector and know-how, and communication to the great public. Thank you for your attention so far. I'm looking forward to the discussion. Thank you very much Mr. Hino for reminding us that in the construction sector, indeed business as usual is not really an option if we aspire to meet environmental goals and objectives and also build more resilient economies. Thank you for sharing this very interesting example from Finland as well as the initiative by Finland and Austria to scale up that effort at a European level. Once more, many thanks Mr. Hino. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now again change continents and move to Chile. We are now going to look at two more building blocks and how they can mutually reinforce each other, namely protection and restoration. I'm very pleased to welcome Ms. Gabriela Violeta Soto-Nilo. Gabriela is trained as a veterinarian with a specialization in sustainability, climate change and natural resources. Gabriela has worked in the academic area, private and public in the past nine years and she currently heads the Department for Climate Change and Environmental Services at the National Forestry Corporation KONNAF in Chile. So a warm welcome, Gabriela. And Gabriela, my question to you would be the following one. It's also research strongly suggests the most immediate and greatest benefit for both carbon and biodiversity are likely to come from actions that reduce deforestation and forest degradation. And although, as we have heard earlier, the rate of deforestation has been declining, still 10 million hectares per year have been lost between the years 2015 and 2020. 10 million hectares per year, that's a lot. Ecosystem payments are widely used as a system to incentivize farmers and foresters to adopt more sustainable land use practices. And that is what actually brings us to Chile because in Chile you have put in place an ecosystem payment for carbon farming. Can I ask you to tell us more about how this ecosystem payment for carbon farming system allows, makes it possible to mutually reinforce protection and restoration of forest landscapes? The floor is yours, Gabriela. Thank you. Hello to everyone. Thank you for the invitation. Well, in Chile, one of the ways that we've been working to highlight the importance of the forest was to include it specifically in our NDC. I think that is a really important key that we are using. As you know, the NDC commitments are mandatory, so we have to implement a specific action to achieve the difference goal. We have four principal goals, one related to afforestation and recovery. For more than, we have to, for afforestation, recover 200,000 hectares with that at least 100,000 with permanent forest cover, which is very important because it's important to maintain and to keep the actions that we are developing on the floor. Also, we have an important commitment related to sustainable management of that native forest. This is important because it's not only, because we can't forbid the use of the forest for sure. And we are managing, we have to try to do it in a sustainable way. And for that reason, it's very important. We can provide, there are a lot of persons, as we saw in the video at the beginning, that live on the forest, inside of the forest. And for that reason, we have to encourage at the end sustainable management for it. In this case, we have a law related to sustainable management, which I think is a very important topic. We can discuss it later. Also, we have a goal related to emission reduction, implement and promote actions to reduce emission from the forestry sector related to degradation and deforestation of our native forest. This is very important. And I think Chile is different than in the other countries. We don't have that huge problem with deforestation, but we have a problem with degradation of the forest. That's one main difference that we have. And for the goal that we have is a restoration at landscape level. It's a natural landscape restoration plan, which is considered to incorporate at least one million hectares of landscapes, of landscape, sorry, in the restoration process for 2013. And here I want to highlight that we are working with other ministry of the government. John said that it's difficult and it's a barrier. The issue that we are not working the coordination between the different agents of the government. And here we have an example that we are trying to do it. It is not easy because, you know, it is not easy to work together, but we are working in that path. Yes, or yes. Also, I want to tell you about the vessel-based payment that we have already with Red Plus. For us, it's a big step. We have a natural red strategy lead by CONAF. We are the focal point of Red Plus in the country. And we are already moved forward to the third phase of Red. We have the partnering crime La Faw. We are working with Faw as an agency. And we have resolved from the GCF. We are trying to execute actions on the territory from a forestation restoration action to prevent forest fires, sustainable management too. And also education, environmental education, because that is one of the key to keep the initiatives going on. Also, as you know, Red has a different approach. We have a lot of different necessities to achieve. For example, we have to work with Indigenous people. We have to include a gender approach with all the safe work that we have. And also we have to try to work with monetary reporting and verification. It is really important if we develop some action on the territory monitoring and verify if it's working or not. That is a key issue in Red Plus. It is not easy because it's different than the vision that we have for many years. Let's go to the territory and just offer a state or restoration without asking to the community. That is really important for Red. That is the key that we think that we're going to have the sustainability at least of the activities that we are trying to execute on the territory. As economic recovery for COVID, we have to implement a plan of a recovery plan with activities also sustainable management and reforestation. That is a big step. It's been like really many years that we didn't have that amount of action on the territory. We are very, very proud of that. Conaf is leading that too. And also we have different proposals to change some topics of our nature nature law to improve it. And also we are working to in a new law related to a recovery of forest fires and afforestation. We don't have actually the instrument now to push or try the person that the landowners work actually in afforestation. And with this instrument, we hope to increase it in a way. Regarding the tax that we're talking about that you were talking about about the tax legislation, actually we had a modification one in the green taxes. With new criteria of the GHG that are involved there, but also we have a possibility of setting. But it's a huge step because all or part of the emission asset may be offset through the implementation of projects through those emissions of the same pollutant in our territory. It has to be in the country. It cannot be an investment in other countries that is very important. It had principles. It had to be additional for sure, verificably permanent, clear baseline. We have to take care about the safe work against the impact that we had. And also this is one of the more important we have to avoid double accounting. That is a really, really important thing that we have to achieve. In this SNRI, nature-based solution project has a big importance. And we are working at now. We have to clarify some methodologies. For example, the game rule for nesting to try to improve the private sector to develop this kind of project and working together with them. It is really important to try to work with the private sector. It's a main issue. Our NDC says our climate change law also is pushing that in that way. Otherwise we're not going to reach our goals that we have with the convention and all the activities that we are working. That's for me. Thank you so much, Gabriella, for sharing with us these very interesting examples of how in Chile you integrate the different policies, the forest, the climate, the fiscal policies. And I found it particularly impressive that you even develop a formal plan of which actually pays attention to forests in the COVID recovery. So that is quite special, I would say. So muchas gracias. Thank you very much. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we again change continents and we move on to Africa. And I'm very happy that today we are joined by the 2022 Vangari Matai Forest Champion, Ms. Cecil Ndibbet. Cecil has been working all her life basically on strengthening the forestry community from a grassroots level, starting with the most disempowered. Cecil is an agronomist and social forester from Cameroon, who has fought for decades to defend and restore forests and empower rural and indigenous women across Western and Central Africa. Cecil leads the African Women's Network for Community Management of Forest, the RIVACOV, and advocacy platform focusing on Africa's women's tenor rights in land and forestry forms operating in no less than 20 countries. And Cecil is also an advisory board member of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. And those of us who were fortunate to join the World Forestry Congress will recall her truly impressive recollection of her first meeting with the late Vangari Matai and how this has inspired her work. Cecil, first of all, once again, sincere congratulations on having been awarded the 2022 Vangari Matai Forest Champion award of the CPF. And here, Cecil, comes my question to you. Small-holder local communities and indigenous peoples all are managed at least 4.35 billion hectares of forest and farmland, which is nearly half of the world's forest and farm landscapes. Their involvement in forest pathways is therefore needless to say essential for scaling up the implementation of these three pathways. Cecil, your work has particularly focused on strengthening the role of women securing tenor rights and the mobilization of financial resources. Can you illustrate for us why such interventions are truly essential for restoring and protecting forests and fragile ecosystems? Cecil? Thank you. Thank you so much, Alexander. Hello, everybody. I'm very pleased to be part of this webinar and I hope that will take something from me to move forward. Yes, let me say that it's extremely important to work and to involve women and local communities in general. If we really want to recover, if we are aiming at the green recovery, it's important. And why is it important? Because first of all, when we take back in Africa, as you were now talking about African continent, women constitute more than half of the population in most of the African countries. And I think this is a key element that could, you cannot work with that with only half of the population. We have to work with everybody. When we move to the crop production for food, and you will realize that they produce not less than 70% of food crops. This is also a key element for us that should show the importance of involving them and putting them at the center. And as you said, small holders are caring for almost half of the world forests and farmland. And I think we cannot say we are aiming at green recovery. We are aiming at sustainable management of our resources. We are aiming at restoring the ecosystem and ignoring, and we can ignore that. And when we move to, now, and we'll see that within that environment, we have non-tiber forest products. And women are leading the non-tiber forest product exploitation, at least at the very local starting point of the value chain. And the challenge is also to take them all through the value chain so that they can improve the income they are generating from that. They are very much engaged in agroforestry system. This is shown everywhere. Of course, we lack statistic in this, but the initiative in many countries show that rural population, rural women are leading agroforestry activities, not less than 60% in most of the countries, at least in the sub-Saharan African countries. And of course, also, they are key actors, as it's shown, in biodiversity conservation. So when we put all this together and you realize that, if I refer to the state of the world forest 2022, where it reveals that small producers receive less than 1.5% of climate finance in 2019, and this situation does not appear to have improved since 2019. And when we take 1.5% of climate finance and we put it among the, and we share it among the small producers, if we consider that within these small producers, we have at least 60% of 50, let's say, let be humble enough and say about 50% of women, we, we, I'm not sure that within this, from this 1%, 1.5% of climate finance, women can access even 5% from that. So we see the challenges that are facing this group of, this target group and that need to be focused on and that play, and those who play key roles in all what we are saying about green recovery, about sustainable management of our resources, about restoring our ecosystem. The FAO study also recognized and showed that if, if, for example, if we increase women, if women could increase the agricultural yield by 20 to 30%, if they have the same access as meant to productive resources. So we have now to see, we have the climate finance which is there to support this effort of green recovery. But if the farmers, the, the small holders who are caring for more than half of our world forest are receiving only 1.7% within where, within which I'm not sure women can even access 5% and when we recall that women can only own so far, 1 to 3% of the traditional land in most of our countries, we have to understand that it is key to bring these challenges on the table and see how we can change the, the, the, the, the, the, all these, how can I say if you want to, we have to change all this and, and make all what we can to improve the situation. We are, we have to change these parameters. We have to change all this. If not, it will be difficult for us to, to achieve this sustainable growth, sustainable development we are aiming at and funding mobilization is, is, is a key, challenges we have to think of if we really put emphasis and we recognize the key role small holders, farmers are doing and most of among them rural women. We have to think of how to improve the security for tenure. We are talking about agroforestry. They are leading agroforestry in our continent, women. And if we have insecure tenure, how can we move? I'm also remembering what Johanna was sharing earlier. It's extremely important that the schemes like agroforestry be supported because this is almost what local communities have, have decided to go for. And for that, we need the new security for the women who are playing key roles in this. So the experience I may, I may share is that one. And the importance of having small holder farmers, women on the table of decision making, on the table of planning, on the table of funding mobilization is a must. If really a must, if we are serious about the three pillars that have, you know, we have to produce, we have to protect, to restore and to use. If they are excluded, all that will not work together. Thank you so far. Thank you so much Cecil. Merci bien. As you said, if we want to recover economically and environmentally, we need to involve the women and the small holder land managers. So I think that is really a very strong message that resonates very much. And so thank you, Cecil, for sharing with us and experiences. And thank you again also for once more for having become the this year's Wangarima Tai Forest Champion and for really, you know, not championing the cause of women in rural areas and in forestry, forestry. So colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, we are running a little bit behind schedule, but we still do have a few minutes left for questions to the panelists. So once more, I would like to encourage you to post your questions in the Q&A box so that we can pass them on to our panelists so that they can be answered by them. And actually, I can already see one question and that question actually goes to Johan. So Johan, the question is for you. And the question is how indigenous peoples have been included in your agroforestry efforts, efforts in Laos. So Johan, could I ask you to elaborate? And that's also actually a nice connector to what Cecil has just mentioned. Could I ask you to elaborate a little bit on how you work with the indigenous peoples in Laos? Yeah, thank you for that question. And for us, it's more that working with the local people, no matter what I would say, different groups of people or someone in the area, but it's about finding a model to cooperate with the people that are either using the land today or are located close to the land. So very often when we come to an area where we would like to work, we collaborate with several different villages because they often overlap in how they use land and so on. So I would say a very collaborative model to try to engage different villages and all the stakeholders around the area where we would like to plant. Yeah, thank you very much, Johan. And I think that aspect of inclusiveness of really including, you know, the whole range of stakeholders is something that is relevant to the context of all the various examples that we have heard. And actually, I would now want to ask the panel, having heard all these excellent examples, it seems to me that what is needed really is to scale them up in view of making an impact on a more global scale. So having now also just heard Johan, what he told us about Laos and so on, I would invite our panelists to let us know how you believe we could really scale up these efforts really more at the global level so that we can even have a larger impact as a whole. So who would like to elaborate a little bit on that question of scaling up? Can I? Yes, please. Yes, please. Yeah, thank you. I think that scaling up is extremely important. We have very good initiatives that are going on here and there. But they are very, as we are saying, small initiatives. But when we scale them up, I'm taking an example of the African Women's Network, what we are trying to do. We started, when we started the restoration process, we had nearly like 100 hectares to restore it. We always buried bad areas that were allocated. But we could succeed. But today, we have succeeded to bring in some government to allocate land to women, even if they are not that good piece of land, but at least the secure allocation of land. And you can find now in few of our countries, in some of our countries, in Côte d'Ivoire, in Congo, DRC, in Cameroon, in Liberia, in Togo, women having much land, even if they are degraded. But with the agroforestry system that they are putting in place, they are generating considerably income from agricultural crops and planting trees in the same time. So I think it's only like supporting what is going on, sharing what is going on, the successes, and now putting on our effort to increase what is being done. For example, for the decade, we are aiming at planting 20 million trees. So far, we are around three or four million all together when I see it. But scaling to 20 million, that's also scaling up of what is going on and that with great success. Because what we are doing can be shared, can be seen, and the impact, positive impact is there for the environment, for the economics. And I think it's just taking into account that we have some networks, some NGOs, some platform that are working. We have some initiatives like FFF that have shown supporting small-holder farmers, let invest in those so that we can scale up what has succeeded and progressively, I think we can get there. Thank you. Thank you, Cecile. I think you have given us two key terms, networking and platforms. And I sense, Gabriela, you also were actually tempted to say something. Is that right? Yes, that's right. I think to escalate and at least to have the sustainability of all the projects is basic to involve the communities that are related and depend on the forest from the beginning. It is not, we planify a design and then they come. We have to planify, design, and implement, execute together with them. And the possibility to provide sustainability and scaling with this approach, I think, is huge. Additionally, in Chile, we have an important gap related to the possession of the land, the land ownership. The majority of the land, I don't know if in the other countries, the same are men. The 80% of the land that we can use for foresting and restoration are owner, but men. And I think that is a huge gap. We are trying to work in that with the modification, for example, of our law, trying to do not, for some of the activities that we can pay as a state to don't need the possession of the land. And that way, we can also include women in the different activities that we are working out. Thank you. Thank you so much, Gabriele. And actually, this is also something that I can mention as a side note. Also is an important research area in my own organization, really, you know, how to strengthen the role of women also in terms of forest ownership, forest management, and so on. Because as you mentioned, there continue to be significant imbalances. Dear panelists, we do have a one, time for one, that short intervention before we move on to the closing segment. So I wonder if one of the other panelists, or perhaps our setting the scene speaker, would like to make just one very brief intervention also. Yes. Yes, thank you, Altander. Yeah, I would just like to support everything that Cecile, in particular, has been saying. I think the key to proper valuation of forests and ensuring that they can be sustainably managed and restored, in fact, depends on basically getting out of the way of initiatives such as those that Cecile described, making, you know, enabling local communities by focusing on secure land tenure, facilitating use of traditional knowledge, and in many other areas. But I think the key is to focus on the needs and aspirations of local communities, who are the stewards of the land, most concerned about the long term value of forests. So that would be my addition. Thank you so much, Sean. Perfect. Many, many things. So a big thank you really to everybody, to all our speakers and panelists and our audience for today's discussion, which I personally really found very stimulating. And dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, it is now my pleasure to turn to Miss Miri Adela, who is the coordinator of Nature for Climate, of the Nature for Climate branch at the United Nations Environment Program. And I would like to invite her to provide her concluding reflections on how we can build forward by investing into forest space solutions. And thank you so much, Miss Adela, for having agreed to be part of this webinar today. The floor is yours. Thank you very much, Alexandra. And first, please allow me to thank our esteemed panelists. It was a very diverse and very interesting perspectives that we heard from very different sectors and backgrounds and continents. We took a flight across the world. It was fantastic. Thank you very much. In closing, I would like to reflect a little bit on what has been said and what we have learned over several years, for example, in the red world. It's been approved or we've started the negotiations on red in Bali in 2008. So we have a little bit of time behind us as Marie Elena mentioned in her opening remarks. First, I would like to start by saying that anything we lose, we cannot recover, not in the same state. So that is, I think, a fundamental point to take into account when we look at the first pathway is that investing in conservation and the preservation of forests is of utmost importance. Because even though we may try, we are very unlikely to restore forests in the same functional way that they were and in the same richness that they were in. Second is that we have some very, very promising prospects in terms of the carbon market. We have been seeing a lot of net zero commitments coming up from the private sector, from governments, from other entities, which are an opportunity for forests in that they do provide that offset part of the net zero. However, I also think that we need to be very careful in making sure that these net zero commitments are made with integrity, that they place mitigation first before offset, and making sure that indigenous peoples and local communities are involved and engaged in anything that entails offset or nature-based solutions because we do want to avoid land grabbing and we do want to make sure that any carbon finance is essentially reaching local communities. Third is that I think this is something that Johann was mentioning, is that carbon financing alone will not be sufficient. What we need is blended finance in a blended landscape, and I think Gabriella also mentioned this from the experience in Chile, is that we need to blend multiple sources of funds in order to achieve what we want to achieve in terms of forest conservation, management and restoration. Third is that we cannot ecosystem restoration, and you can see my background is the UN decade on ecosystem restoration. Ecosystem restoration cannot be equated to tree planting. We now know that we have the 10 principles of ecosystem restoration that have been adopted. They are all encompassing principles, and it's really critical that we don't confuse oversimplify or reduce ecosystem restoration to tree planting. Why? Because we know by experience that sustainable use is not straightforward. We now know that monoculture may be very efficient from a provisioning point of view, from a timber provisioning point of view, but are also extremely vulnerable from a point of view of fires, a point of view of diseases, and a point of view of the other ecosystem services that forests provide. Hence reaffirming the three pathways that have been put forward as solutions. There was a very important question on scaling up, and scaling up is not going to be possible without finance. UNEP has issued the Finance for Nature report in 2020 in which we say that we need to triple finance for nature by 2030 in order to achieve our results. If anything, what the COVID crisis has taught us is that governments, private sector, philanthropies are very much able to put out the funding that is needed when there is a crisis, and currently environment is a crisis. We need to stop thinking that this is something that we can address in 2030. This isn't something that we should have addressed in 1972 when the Stockholm Convention started. Maybe on this issue of financing, what the panel has shown us as well is that we as foresters or as fans of forests may have to accept that financing for forests may not go to forests. Financing for forests may go to the agriculture sector. If only we see how much agriculture is one of the main drivers of deforestation, how much agriculture subsidies are essentially leading to deforestation, we may have to accept that financing for forests will go to other sectors than forests, and here the intersectional coordination that Gabriella has been mentioning means also that there may be power asymmetries among ministries, among institutions, among sectors that will need to be addressed, and we will have to be very cognizant of those. Address them straightforward. Lastly, maybe on the upscaling again, a message to the global financing community is that so far we have defragmented financing. Under my branch, I have the red team that deals with mitigation, I have the climate adaptation team, and I have the decade. If you look at what they are doing, it's pretty much the same, except that all of them have different sources of funds that they need to justify with different indicators. What this means is that we are fragmenting financing, and probably everyone operating at the country level knows that this means different projects for different sources of funds with different project management units, different reporting cycles, different teams, and that leads to fragmentation on the ground, and it leads to the capacity constraint that we often mention as one of the difficulties in addressing challenges that we have. Taking into account the fact that we've seen important commitments, everyone has called to financing small-scale producers. We know that we have less than 2% of global climate finance reaching small farmers and IPLCs and developing countries. This needs to increase, and we've also seen that with the UN Food Summit, we've got more than 140 countries that have pledged through the Glasgow Leaders Declaration on Forest and Land Use to eliminate forest loss by 2030. We need the money to be able to do that. An additional 19 billion needs to be allocated, has been promised, but still needs to be allocated in order to turn these promises into action, and this is, I think, where we need to focus our attention, our advocacy, and our efforts to demonstrate that these resources can actually lead to impacts on the ground. Thank you very much, Alexander, and thanks again for a fantastic panel. Yes, thank you again, Miri, for first of all distilling so precisely again the main points that have been made throughout this whole webinar. I couldn't have summarized this in any better way, but importantly also for adding this very important aspect of finance, international finance, to the picture, which is really also a very essential element of this whole discussion. Thank you again very much. Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, we have now approached the end of today's event. I apologize, we have gone slightly over time. I hope that we have all been inspired by the really nice and excellent examples we have heard today and also by the good atmosphere. Let us all hope that this will spill over both the substance and the atmosphere into the discussions at the Stockholm West 50 wet that is about to start and will be held in the coming days. And importantly also let us try a combined effort to really also carry these messages into other global fora that we'll meet again in the coming weeks and months, such as the high-level political forum of the United Nations, the FAO's Committee on Forestry, and importantly also the UNFCCC COP 27 in Egypt later in the year. I think really it is important that we carry these messages to all these different fora since as we have really really need also to make these sectors work much better together and to achieve more coherent and consistent commitments and policies around the bill. And importantly, let us all make an effort to scale up all these examples and experiences from the countries through networking, through communication, through sharing and so on. So thanks again for joining us today and also for raising important questions. And I wish all of you a very nice rest of your day. Good afternoon. Maybe still good morning in some parts of the world. Good night to others and hope to see you soon again, virtually or preferably even in person in the near future. Thank you very much. Goodbye.