IPC Chairman Piet Bukman, HS Dylan, Her Excellency Mari Elka Pangestu, Minister of Trade of Indonesia, and Ms. Frances Seymour, CIFOR’s Director General attend a media conference in conjunction with the IPC seminar
Bogor, Indonesia, May 12, 2008 – The International Food & Agricultural Trade Policy Council (IPC) hosted a seminar on Climate Change, Agriculture and Trade, which addressed issues surrounding global demand for food, fuel and forests. With the international spotlight on Indonesia to take the lead in sustainable forest management, it was particularly appropriate that the seminar took place in Bogor.
Organized in collaboration with CIFOR and the Asian Latin America Agrifood Research Network (ALARN), the seminar convened key Indonesian agriculture and trade government officials, academics, private sector representatives and other international experts.
Delegates investigated linkages between global food, feed, and biofuel, demand and global deforestation. The current competition for increasingly scarce resources is having distructive effects on the environment, particularly in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, water quality, and soil fertility existed. The situation will only be exacerbated by climate change.
There was a particular focus on how to facilitate trade’s role in promoting economic, environmental, and social sustainability.
Her Excellency Mari Elka Pangestu, Minister of Trade of Indonesia, delivered the keynote address on the prominent role that Indonesia plays in the nexus between climate change and trade policymaking. Dr. Pangestu presented the recommendations for merging trade, agricultural, and environmental agendas, which emerged from the Trade Ministers’ Dialogue at the UNFCCC conference in Bali.
Dr. Pangestu commenced her speech by making the point that “impossible to de-link food security and energy security” and suggested that to address such issues requires the removal of barriers for environmental goods and services and “the elimination of subsidies for goods and services that have adverse effects on the environment.”
Ms. Frances Seymour, CIFOR’s Director General, presented “Options for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) in a Post-Kyoto Climate Protection Agreement, while Dr. Daniel Murdiyarso, from CIFOR’s Environmental Services and Sustainable Use of Forest program, discussed “Causes of Deforestation”.
The seminar was also attended by members of CIFOR’s Board of Trustees (BOT), as it coincided with their regular meeting at CIFOR’s campus. It proved an ideal opportunity for the Board to witness CIFOR’s pivotal role in the global dialogue around forests, climate change, agriculture and trade.
“We are pleased to bring together leading actors in agriculture and trade to address the complex challenges facing the agricultural sector and the environment,” IPC Chairman Piet Bukman stated. “Creating synergy between the environment and food and agricultural production is the trade agenda of the future.”
IPC is a non-governmental organization based in Washington, USA, which seeks to promote a more open and equitable global food system by pursuing pragmatic trade and development policies in food and agriculture to meet the world's growing needs. IPC convenes influential policymakers, agribusiness executives, farm leaders, and academics from developed and developing countries to clarify complex issues, build consensus, and advocate policies to decision-makers.