PROGRAMME ELEMENT 2: INSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC ENABLING ENVIRONMENT
GOAL 2.1: Enhance the institutional enabling environment
2.1.1. Improve the understanding of the various causes of forest biological diversity losses
Activities:
- Each Party to carry out, in a transparent and participatory way, thorough analysis of local, regional, national and global direct and underlying causes of losses of forest biological diversity. A distinction should be made between broad socio-economic causes such as demographic growth and more specific causes such as institutional weaknesses and market or policy failures.
- Each Party on the basis of the above analysis to implement their recommendations.
- Parties to report through the clearing-house mechanism of the Secretariat on successful experiences involving control and mitigation of the underlying causes of deforestation, which would make it possible to understand lessons learned.
2.1.2. Parties, Governments and organizations to integrate biological diversity conservation and sustainable use into forest and other sector policies and programmes
Activities:
- Parties to formulate appropriate policies and adopt sets of priority targets for forest biological diversity to be integrated into national forest programmes, national sustainable development strategies, poverty reduction strategy papers, related non-forest programmes and national biological diversity strategies and action plans. Ensure that there is coherence and direct interaction between the different programmes.
- Seek ways of streamlining reporting between the different forest-related processes, in order to improve the understanding of forest quality change and improve consistency in reporting on sustainable forest management.
- Develop a set of indicators that might be used in assessing progress in implementing the national biodiversity strategies and action plans and relevant work programmes;
- Donor bodies and other financial institutions to incorporate forest biological diversity and sustainable use principles and targets into forest and related programmes, including watershed management, land-use planning, energy, transport, infrastructure development, education and agriculture, mineral exploitation, and tourism.
- Seek to harmonize policies at regional and subregional levels in the area of forest biological diversity.
- Develop strategies for effective enforcement of sustainable forest management and protected area regulations, including adequate resourcing and involvement of indigenous and local communities.
- Parties and donor bodies to develop and implement, strategies, in particular national financing strategies in the framework of national biodiversity strategies and action plans and national forest programmes, and provide adequate financial, human and technical resources.
- Encourage the Executive Secretary to coordinate and seek synergies between Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Forum on Forests and the members of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, including establishment of memoranda of understanding, as appropriate, between the Convention on Biological Diversity and the other members of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, and recommend such an memorandum of understanding with the International Tropical Timber Organization and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as a first step.
- Increase emphasis on capacity-building, research and training, public education and awareness, access to and transfer of information and technology, technical and scientific cooperation, with focus on capacities required to address forest biodiversity-related issues.
2.1.3. Parties and governments to develop good governance practices, review and revise and implement forest and forest-related laws, tenure and planning systems, to provide a sound basis for conservation and sustainable use of forest biological diversity
Activities:
- Develop appropriate measures and regulations to secure a permanent forest area sufficient to allow for the conservation and sustainable use of forest biological diversity.
- Seek to resolve land tenure and resource rights and responsibility, in consultation with all relevant stakeholders including for indigenous and local communities, in order to promote the conservation and sustainable use of forest biodiversity.
- Encourage Parties and countries to ensure that forest and forest-related laws adequately and equitably incorporate the provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the decisions of the Conference of the Parties.
- Implement effective measures to protect traditional knowledge and values in forest laws and planning tools.
- Develop legislation, administrative or policy measures on access and benefit-sharing for forest genetic resources, taking into account the draft Bonn Guidelines on Access to Genetic Resources and Fair and Equitable Sharing of the Benefits Arising out of their Utilization.
- Invite Parties, Governments and other relevant organizations to submit case-studies and research on the role of performance bonds in forest concessions, in the conservation and sustainable use of forest biological diversity; and request the Secretariat to make these available.
- Parties, Governments and relevant stakeholders to develop mechanisms and processes to work toward good governance to promote conservation and sustainable use of forest biological diversity.
- Develop and apply environmental and socio-economic impact assessment methods as appropriate prior to land-conversion decisions.
2.1.4. Promote forest law enforcement and address related trade
Activities:
- Invite Parties, Governments and relevant organizations to provide information on a voluntary basis to enable a better comprehension of the effects of unsustainable harvesting, exploitation of other forest resources and associated trade, as well as on the underlying causes, on forest biological diversity. On the basis of dissemination of this information countries may decide to take relevant measures such as enforcement actions.
- Evaluate and reform, as required, legislation to include clear definition of illegal activities and to establish effective deterrents.
- Develop methods and build capacity for effective law enforcement.
- Develop codes of conduct for sustainable forest practices in logging companies and the wood-processing sector to improve biodiversity conservation.
- Encourage and support the development and implementation of tracking and chain-of-custody systems for forest products to seek to ensure that these products are legally harvested.
- Invite Governments and relevant organizations to develop and forward to the Secretariat case-studies and research on the impacts of unsustainable timber and non-timber harvesting and related trade.
GOAL 2.2: Address socio-economic failures and distortions that lead to decisions that result in loss of forest biological diversity
2.2.1. Mitigate the economic failures and distortions that lead to decisions that result in loss of forest biological diversity
Activities:
- Develop mechanisms to ensure that monetary and non-monetary costs and benefits of forest biodiversity management are equitably shared between stakeholders at all levels.
- Develop, test and disseminate methods for valuing forest biological diversity and other forest ecosystem goods and services and for incorporating these values into forest planning and management, including through stakeholder analysis and mechanisms for transferring costs and benefits.
- Incorporate forest biological diversity and other forest values into national accounting systems and seek to estimate such figures for subsistence economies.
- Elaborate and implement economic incentives promoting forest biological diversity conservation and sustainable use.
- Eliminate or reform perverse incentives, in particular subsidies that result in favouring unsustainable use or loss of forest biological diversity.
- Provide market and other incentives for the use of sustainable practices, develop alternative sustainable income generation programmes and facilitate self-sufficiency programmes of indigenous and local communities.
- Develop and disseminate analyses of the compatibility of current and predicted production and consumption patterns with respect to the limits of forest ecosystem functions and production.
- Seek to promote national laws and policies and international trade regulations are compatible with conservation and sustainable use of forest biological diversity.
- Increase knowledge on monetary and non-monetary cost-benefit accounting for forest biodiversity evaluation.
Goal 2.3: Increase public education, participation, and awareness
2.3.1. Increase public support and understanding of the value of forest biodiversity and its goods and services at all levels
Activities:
- Increase broad-based awareness of the value of forest biological diversity through international, national and local public awareness campaigns.
- Promote consumer awareness about sustainably produced forest products.
- Increase awareness amongst all stakeholders of the potential contribution of traditional forest-related knowledge to conservation and sustainable use of forest biological diversity.
- Develop awareness of the impact of forest-related production and consumption patterns on the loss of forest biological diversity and the goods and services it provides.
- Increase awareness of the value of forest biological diversity amongst public authorities and decision makers through specific information and training actions.
- Implement effective measures to recognize, respect, protect and maintain traditional forest-related knowledge and values in forest-related laws and forest planning tools, in accordance with Article 8(j) and related provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
- Develop awareness of the value of forest biological diversity among forestry workers, owners of forest land, logging contractors, and consulting firms.
