The Asia Forest Partnership (AFP) confirmed its commitment to sustainable forest management in Asia at its 5th annual meeting in Yokohama, Japan, November 2005.

More than 20 countries were represented at the meeting hosted by the Government of Japan.

In his opening remarks, Ichiro Nagame, Director of the Forestry Agency of Japan’s International Cooperation Office, used a railway metaphor to illustrate AFP’s work. He described AFP as a platform from where everyone can move towards combating illegal logging, managing forest fires, and rehabilitating deforested land. “We are now observing various project trains passing or stopping at the platform in terms of their effectiveness, efficiencies and contribution towards the goal of sustainable forest management,” Nagame said.

The two-day meeting addressed a range of issues with day one focusing on organizational issues, particularly the Secretariat. It was decided to rename the AFP Information Sharing Secretariat as the AFP Secretariat. A Steering Committee was also established to take over the leadership role, which was previously the task of AFP's founders: the Japanese and Indonesian governments, CIFOR and The Nature Conservancy (TNC). The Steering Committee will comprise a focal point nominated by each interested partner and the Coordinator of the Secretariat.

The second day’s forum was co-chaired by Koes Saparjadi, Director General of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation at the Indonesian ministry, and Mutsuyoshi Nishimura, Ambassador of Global Environment, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Day two was open to both AFP partners and non-partners and attracted representatives from 23 countries. In addition to the Asian countries represented, participants came from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, UK, USA, Canada, Netherlands, Finland and Russia.

AFP’s increasing significance in promoting sustainable forest management was evidenced by the presence of a broad range of forestry stakeholders, including government agencies, NGOs, universities and research institutions. However, some observers felt the forestry industry is still under-represented in AFP.
In his keynote speech, Mahendra Joshi from the UNFF said AFP is clearly committed to promoting sustainable forest management. He said UNFF would like to learn from AFP’s experience, which could be scaled up to other regions.

Illegal logging received considerable attention during the day’s discussion. Concern was raised that China’s rapidly increasing demand for timber imports has led large private companies in China to accept timber of unknown origin from Indonesia and Russia.

In response, Zhongtian Zhang of the People's Republic of China's State Forestry Administration, said this timber arrives in China with authentic papers. Any concerns about the legality of China’s timber imports would be more appropriately addressed by the exporting countries.

Bambang Murdiono from Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry said illegal logging contributed significantly to the country’s deforestation and caused annual tax revenue losses of around $3 billion. He said the government had banned log exports, put forest guards in place and was seeking cooperation at the bilateral and multilateral levels.

Valentinus Ardi from Indonesian NGO, TELAPAK, said illegal logging was a major factor in the annual loss of 3.3 million hectares of forest. He said solving the problem requires a commitment from both suppliers and consumers, because illegal logging is driven by supply and demand factors.

Takeshi Toma from Japan’s Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute drew attention to the possible use of an international legal standard to fight illegal logging. “Having a standard to evaluate the legal requirements in different countries and different schemes might help in assuring that logging is conducted legally,” Toma said. TNC’s representative, David Cassells, said TNC and it's partners have been working for the development of a legal standard such as this.

Anatoly Lebedev from Russia raised the problem of illegal cross-border logging activities between Russia and China. He also noted that despite the implementation of Russia’s decentralization policy, forestry corruption was increasing. These issues could provide useful input to a regional workshop on decentralization to be hosted by the Government of Indonesia and organized by CIFOR in mid-2006.

The forum agreed illegal logging and forest fires have a regional impact and need the kind of regional response that AFP offers. To work effectively the partnership needs to enhance the exchange of information on what is happening where, and to what scale. This can be done by putting information on the AFP website, publishing authentic data from partners, and participating in the regular AFP meetings. 

For more information about AFP visit: www. asiaforests. org. To receive regular updates about AFP’s activities email afp@cgiar.org