Executive Summary
In the forestry sector technology transfer has a broad definition, which includes
sustainable forest management practices, forest conservation and Protected Area
management systems, silvicultural practices for afforestation and reforestation
programmes, genetically superior planting material, efficient harvesting, processing,
end-use technologies and indigenous knowledge of forest conservation. Some of
the potential roles for Governments to promote environmentally sound technology
(EST) transfer in the forestry sector are as follows:
- In the forestry sector, governments could provide targeted financial and
technical support through multilateral agencies (such as GEF, World Bank,
FAO, UNDP, UNEP), CGIAR institutions (such as CIFOR, ICRAF) and ODA for: capacity
building (institutional and human), to adopt sustainable forest management
practices, forest certification, reduced impact logging practices, high yielding
silvicultural practices, bioenergy technologies, and forest area and status
monitoring techniques, and so on.
- Governments could play a critical role in developing and enforcing the
regulations to adopt sustainable forest management, timber certification,
recycling, reduced impact logging practices, etc. through financial incentives
and regulatory measures.
- Governments could promote the participation of communities, institutions
and NGOs in implementing forestry projects and in enforcing regulations.
- The forestry sector is highly regulated in many regions and Governments
could create conditions to enable participation of industry and farmers --
with adequate guidelines to ensure biodiversity conservation and interests
of local communities, and to enable the private sector to have an increasing
role in developing and transferring technologies through commercial mechanisms
between countries. Relaxing government ownership and control to include private
and community ownership and mid-term to long-term leasing may enhance technology
transfer.
- One of the most important approaches that governments along with multilateral
agencies can do to promote forestry mitigation technologies and projects is
to develop and transfer methodologies for monitoring, measuring and verifying
carbon mitigation and forest area changes to enhance the credibility of forestry
mitigation projects.
- The governments and private sector in Annex I and non-Annex I countries,
as well as multilateral agencies, have a critical role in establishing and
operationalising financial and regulatory mechanisms, monitoring, verification
and certification arrangements, and capacity building for technology development,
transfer and assimilation. Governments could prepare guidelines and set up
institutional mechanisms to process, evaluate, sanction, and monitor forest-sector
mitigation and adaptation projects.
- The role of private sector funding of projects needs to be promoted under
the new initiatives, including the proposed flexible mechanisms under the
Kyoto Protocol. GEF could fund projects that actively promote technology transfer
and capacity building in addition to the mitigation aspects.
Appropriately designed forestry mitigation and adaptation projects contribute
to other environmental impacts as biodiversity conservation, watershed protection,
and socio-economic benefits to urban and rural populations through access to
forest products and creation of jobs, especially in rural areas ultimately promoting
sustainable development.
