David Carter
21 October, 2009
Keynote Address to World Forestry Congress
Good morning and thank you for the warm welcome. It is a great privilege to be able to give the New Zealand keynote address to the 2009 World Forestry Congress.
Forests are remarkable things.

They are variously the source of life and livelihoods; sacred places and workplaces; carbon sinks and wildlife sanctuaries, and of course, a source of wood.

In my own country, about a quarter of the land area is forested. Depending on where you are in New Zealand, these stands of trees provide jobs for thousands of people in the logging and milling industries; homes to rare and diverse species of plants, birds, bats, lizards and frogs; hold the soil together on fragile hill country; or provide a place to simply enjoy the outdoors.

Part of the marvel of forests is how they can span many human generations. In New Zealand, there are native trees that were growing centuries before European settlement.

But there is no doubt that globally forests and the forestry sector are facing considerable challenges.

The FAO records that between 1990 and 2005 the world lost 3 percent of its total forest area; and loses an average of 0.2 percent annually.

Most of this deforestation came from land use changes, as land owners clear trees for more profitable ventures such as horticulture, agriculture and housing.

This is a concern on a number of fronts, not least because as the nations of the world sit down in Denmark in December to try to move forward on a global agreement for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, they will be only too aware that 20 percent of these emissions are from deforestation.

Without an agreement that adequately addresses deforestation - much of which is in the developing world - the global effort to avert catastrophic climate change will not succeed.

That would in itself be bad news for forests and the global forestry industry.

Evidence is mounting that forests will be profoundly affected by climate change, with increasing damage to forest health caused by proliferation of fire, storms, pests, and diseases.

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report also makes it clear that changes in climatic conditions will change the world's forests, affecting their diversity and viability in some places.

It's not all bad news, however.

The emergence of an international carbon market means there are new opportunities for those who own large quantities of trees.

"Carbon farming" is taking the carbon storage potential which was once an untapped by-product of forestry and bringing it to the fore.

New Zealand's forestry sector was the vanguard of my country's emissions trading system when it entered our cap and trade scheme last year.

Other innovations in forestry include replacing fossil-fuel based products with new and more sustainable biomaterials, including energy products; and recognising the importance of using timber in new and innovative ways in buildings.

All this is taking place against a backdrop of a global recession and a change in fundamental economic forces. These forces are affecting the demand for resources, global land use patterns, the geographic distribution of production, and generating a new environmental awareness by consumers, industry and governments.

Forestry, then, is at a crossroads. Down one road, innovation and adaptation that generates increased profitability and sustainability in the global sector. Down the other, ongoing decline to forests and the communities and ecosystems that rely on them.

We must reconcile what role forests have been seen as playing, with what role they could and should play in the future.

Today I want to address some of the key opportunities for development in the global forestry sector. I will spell out the best bets for developmental growth in the developed and developing worlds, and identify the greatest threats to that development.

In its report on the State of World Forests, the FAO put quite succinctly the question at issue today: "The world is faced with an increasingly complex challenge: is it possible to achieve sustainable forest management and to achieve equitable economic progress at the same time?"

The critical phrase in that quote is "equitable economic progress". The developing world is striving to use its resources, be they people, trees, soils or minerals to drive growth and achieve the sorts of lifestyles developed nations take for granted.

In addressing challenges over the future uses of forests and timber, we need to bear in mind the underlying goal for developing nations is not maintaining the status quo, but progress.

One such challenge is illegal logging.

Illegal logging, and the trade in illegally-sourced timber, is depressing world timber prices by between 7 and 16 percent.

Another challenge is population growth. World population is projected to reach 7 billion early in 2012, and surpass 9 billion people by 2050, according to the UN.

These additional 2.5 billion people over the next 40 years will need food and shelter, and in many parts of the world, forests stand at grave risk of falling victim to these needs, either through being cleared for housing, or replaced with crops and agriculture.

On the other hand, population growth expands the market for timber and other wood products. As incomes and socio-economic levels increase, the ability and desire of people to access forests for a variety of purposes also increases.

And this leads us down the other direction at our crossroads.

I spoke earlier of the ‘new' opportunities provided by carbon farming, but the reality is that many of the "new" roles for forests are not new at all.

What is happening is that the world is only just beginning to acknowledge the importance of the natural roles that forests fulfil.

Forests have always sequestered and stored carbon, just as they have always housed biodiversity, and protected clean water and other resources.

But we are also asking forests to take on some important new roles.

This includes replacing fossil-based energy with biomass-based energy products, which will prove more sustainable in both an environmental and economic sense for many countries, as well as potentially removing the volatility associated with fossil fuel supply.

It also includes recognising the importance of using timber in new and innovative ways in buildings.

One of the ‘old new' uses for timber is in large-scale construction, which is likely to be a prime focus of countries where mega cities on the scale of Sao Paulo, Mumbai and Tokyo take shape.

These include second generation biofuels, bio-oil and bio-char, solid wood and wood pellet technology, and wood residue recovery.

They also include bio-materials, such as bioplastics, biofoams, moulding structures and packaging composites that could make an enormous difference to the sustainability of consumer products currently derived from petroleum-based materials.

So the question is, what steps must be taken to ensure the road the global forestry industry takes is the one that results in lasting and sustainable development?

First, I believe, we must recognise that we live in a dynamic and changing world, and that the factors that make an industry viable or attractive can change dramatically.

To illustrate this point, we need look no further than the global financial crisis of the past 12 months, which reduced new house building to a trickle and wreaked havoc with industry players' access to credit and investment.

As another example, consumers around the world are increasingly looking at the environmental, economic and ethical implications of the products they buy - the carbon footprint, the water footprint or the certification of sustainable harvest.

In New Zealand, the forestry industry has responded by researching the greenhouse gas footprint of the products it makes, to understand and mitigate the contributors to carbon emissions.

Research has been completed into the comparative carbon footprint of multi-storey buildings made of metal, concrete and wood products, with wood the clear winner.

Second, in order to meet demands being placed on forests for all the varied roles I outlined earlier, we need to acknowledge the role of planted forests and address the balance between planted forests and conservation forests.

While just seven percent of the world forest is planted forest, the FAO estimated last year that it had the potential to contribute two-thirds of current global wood production.

Globally the area of planted forests continues to expand and will soon account for more global wood production than primary forests.

FAO information gathered in 2005 on trends in planted forests indicates that the area of forests planted for production and those planted for protective purposes are both steadily increasing in all regions except Africa.

New Zealand has, for the past 50 years or so, used plantation forests for wood production so that natural indigenous forests can be conserved.

This works for New Zealand largely because the plantation forest grows so much faster than the native species, and is one option for conserving certain types of forest that may work for other countries.

And while planted forests have a clear commercial imperative at play - be it for wood products or for carbon sequestration - that is not to say they can't also contribute - as conservation forests do - to recreational and social values.

I believe we need to do more collectively to promote the good that forests can do in producing for development and in benefiting communities.

Wood is a renewable resource with low embodied energy. Again, this is not new, as anyone who has ever sat by a camp fire will know.

But the range of new technologies under development - besides subsistence fuels - creates new opportunities and challenges for the industry.

And they include engineered wood products that can bring wood back into contention as a viable building material in large-scale developments.

As I've already mentioned, we are going to need to deal with deforestation and illegal logging.

These two issues go hand in hand and any solution has to address both problems.

Illegal logging undermines efforts to establish standards of global sustainable forest management and environmental sustainability, and causes economic, environmental and social harm to those countries engaged in the practice.

This destructive and irresponsible practice must stop, but it will continue unless those involved can find an equally profitable livelihood through sustainable practices. The global challenge is to break the cycle of need that creates the economic imperative for illegal logging.

Given the anticipated low cost of reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, the high percentage of emissions attributable to deforestation, and the seriousness of climate change, REDD [Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation] deserves to be high on the agenda at forums such as this, and in international climate change negotiations.

There is also action that can be taken away from the forest. Encouraging consumers and retailers to demand certifiably legal and sustainable timber products is one way to slow the trade in illegal timber and reduce the profit motive from illegal logging.

Equally, market mechanisms can be developed that acknowledge the economic value of all forest services, not just wood and by-products.

Finally, an important step to production for development is being able to measure, monitor and report the progress being made in addressing forest sustainability.

The FAO makes it clear that there is a need to "invest in basic information and knowledge management to ensure that forest related decisions are based on sound data".

Without a viable monitoring regime, accountability is lost, and so too is the ability to compare progress across nations and regions, and gauge the successes that all countries can learn from as well as identifying the stumbling blocks.

Agreement among countries on criteria and indicator frameworks for Sustainable Forest Management will go a considerable way to achieving this.

On that note I would like to acknowledge the work of the Montreal Process Working Group countries in their development and adoption of the Criteria and Indicators and, related to that, work done by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in New Zealand in preparing our Montreal Process C&I Report, which will be presented at this Congress.

In conclusion then, there is clearly a lot to do to ensure world forestry is directed at a path of producing for development.

At the beginning of this address I outlined what forestry means to New Zealanders; it will be a different story in every country.

What we must agree on, however, is that more can - and must - be done to ensure that the forests of the coming decades meet the needs of a growing world, on a planet with finite resources.

Thank you and enjoy the rest of the Congress.

ENDS

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