17.05.2019
The 13th of May 2018, the inaugural session of AFD’s CST Forêt was held, attended by experts from the institutional, research, and private sectors, but also from civil society and consulting agencies.
This Committee aims to make operational the guidelines issued by the GNFT (National Group of Tropical Forests), which meets 2 to 3 times a year, and which has many stakeholders from all backgrounds involved in issues related to tropical forests .
The elements that constitute the basis of the CST Forests are :
• The forest management that integrates ecological, economic and social factors,
• The creation and good management of protected areas and
• The inclusion of the rights and interests of local populations through appropriate governance, territorial planning and recognition of tenure rights in forest lands.
The priorities of the CST will be to use the experience gained on the traceability and certification of timber for traded products that may have an impact on forests (agriculture, bioenergy, mining), as well as zoning, integrated management of territories, and controlling the effects of global demand.
The work of the CST will be guided by:
• The New York Declaration (2014) whose goals are to reduce the rate of deforestation of natural forests by 2020 and stop deforestation by 2030,
• The Amsterdam Declarations (2015) whose goals are to integrate consumption impacts on deforestation within EU trade policies, the Paris Agreement, the CBD Strategic Plan and the Sustainable Development Goals.
• The National Strategy to Combat Imported Deforestation (SNDI, 2018)
With this CST, the AFD aims to support its policy regarding the territorial land management for sustainable forests and forest-friendly agriculture, the improvement of the competitiveness of the timber sector and the forest governance.
