Statement by Achim Steiner,
UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive
Director
2011 is the International Year of Forests
(IYF) and celebrations will officially be
launched today during the 9th Session of
the United Nations Forum on Forests in New
York.
This Year, which comes
in the wake of the International Year of
Biodiversity, represents an opportunity
for evolving our work on sustainable forestry
to a higher plain.
Forests are an issue
with essential links to livelihoods, addressing
climate change and other environmental challenges;
the UN's Millennium Development Goals and
sustainable development as a whole.
This is in part why
forests are a key sector within UNEP's Green
Economy work - a landmark report which will
be launched at the upcoming Governing Council/Global
Ministerial Environment Forum (GC/GMEF)
- as we work to strengthen all three pillars
of sustainable development on the Road to
Rio+20 taking place in May next year.
Forests represent many
things to many people including spiritual,
aesthetic and cultural dimensions that are,
in many ways, priceless. But they are also
cornerstones of our economies, whose real
value has all too often been invisible in
national accounts of profit and loss.
This mismatch between
reality and perception emerged with full
force in The Economics of Ecosystems and
Biodiversity (TEEB) work.
It estimates that deforestation
and forest degradation are likely costing
the global economy between US$2.5 and US$4.5
trillion a year, more than the losses of
the recent and ongoing financial crisis.
If one further considers
the loss of ecosystem services - from water
supplies to soil stabilization and from
carbon sequestration to recycling of nutrients
for agriculture - then perhaps the imperative
to better manage these natural or nature-based
assets becomes clearer.
This is given further
urgency from the TEEB work which indicates
that in some countries close to 90 per cent
of the 'GDP of the poor' is linked to nature
and forests in particular.
In Kenya, UNEP has been
applying TEEB-based analysis to assist the
government and donors towards catalysing
the restoration and rehabilitation of the
Mau forest complex.
These assessments indicate
that the Mau may be worth up to US$1.5 billion
a year to the Kenyan economy in terms of
river flows for hydro, agriculture, tourism
sites and drinking water alongside moisture
for the tea industry and facilitating carbon
sequestration.
Rehabilitating and restoring
lost forest ecosystems is now a key pillar
of UNEP's work in Haiti as part of the UN's
wider strategy to reduce vulnerability,
eradicate poverty and deliver a sustainable
future for the Haitian people.
UNEP's involvement in
forests and forest ecosystems dates back
many years and includes some 100 forest
projects in the last decade.
But over recent years,
this involvement has gained ever broader
and deeper traction in part as a result
of TEEB, and in part as a contribution to
combat climate change.
With the UN Development
Programme and the UN's Food and Agricultural
Organization, UNEP is assisting at least
a dozen countries to participate in the
Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and
forest Degradation under the UN-REDD or
REDD+ programme.
Accelerating this work
to meet the expectations of countries and
supporters involved, such as the Government
of Norway, will be a cornerstone of UNEP's
work in 2011 in advance and beyond the UN
climate convention meeting in South Africa.
2011 is a special year
both for forests and our sustainable forestry
work including a new strategic direction.
The full details of
this direction will be launched over the
next few months in the run-up to World Environment
Day on 5 June where there will be a central
focus on the Green Economy and forests.
This will also form
part of UNEP's public awareness and outreach
work that in turn can contribute to a successful
International Year.
In advance of this,
UNEP will be launching a new forest-focused
coffee table book in collaboration with
such famous photographers as Yann Arthus-Bertrand;
a special media pack and a new website on
forests at www.unep.org/forests
The Sasakawa prize,
which will be awarded during the GC/GMEF
this month, will also carry a forest theme
and I would encourage those that can to
join the celebrations.
I would urge all staff
and their families and friends-through their
work or through their communities-to get
involved starting with appending the International
Year of Forests logo onto your e-mail signature
and by planting a tree at home, at work
or at school under initiatives such as the
UNEP Billion Tree Campaign whose patrons
are Wangari Maathai and Prince Albert of
Monaco.
The logo can be downloaded
at www.unep.org/downloads/IYF/iyf-logo.zip
and at www.un.org/en/events/iyof2011. Getting
involved in the Billion Tree Campaign is
just a click away at: www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign
Let
us spread the word to the wider world of
the importance of these ecosystems to our
lives and livelihoods and of course through
acting - being part of 'Celebrating Forests
for People' - in 2011.
