Asean will pursue revisions to a forest preservation and greenhouse gas reduction programme at a meeting in South Africa in December to ensure that efforts to protect woodlands in the Southeast Asia region continue.
Delegates at the Asean Senior Officials on Forestry meeting yesterday agreed to push for extending the United Nations’ Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (Redd) scheme, which aims to cut carbon emissions that result from forest destruction, such as flooding and deforestation.
Redd offers financial incentives to developing countries to help them with preserving their forests in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The reductions allow them to sell that saved carbon on the market to industrialised countries as credits to offset their own emissions.
Only forest plantations are eligible for financial support from the Redd scheme.
Asean representatives want to expand the programme to also include natural forests, such as wildlife sanctuaries and national parks. Asean will push for the expansion of Redd at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held in South Africa in December.
Speaking on the sidelines of the senior forestry official meeting, which ends today, Thailand’s forestry chief Suwit Rattanamanee said Thailand and other Asean countries agreed the Redd scheme would benefit developing countries as it provides financial support for forest protection activities.
Asean officials believed the scheme should not only cover man-made forest plantations, but also natural ones.
”Asean countries think the Redd scheme, which was drafted mainly by European countries, should be more flexible and practical for developing countries,” said Mr Suwit.
Developing nations have worked hard to protect their natural forests so the Redd scheme should support the effort, he added.
The scheme would bar all human activity in the affected forests.
The forestry chief said the department would carefully select areas to prevent conflicts with villagers and to allay environmentalists’ concerns that adopting Redd would prevent local people and indigenous people from using and managing the forests.
Asean forestry officials also agreed yesterday to strengthen cooperation on sustainable forest management.
The delegates agreed to create ”Asean Data”, a store of information compiled about herbal plant species which are found in Asean forests.
