Ursula Heinen-Esser: Germany participating with at least 350 million euro
The Global Forest Partnership which is aimed at conserving tropical forests worldwide was officially launched in Oslo today by more than 50 high-ranking representatives from industrialised and tropical countries. Thus international forest conservation is taking shape. Within the framework of its fast-start financing for international climate protection Germany will support global forest conservation with at least 350 million euro from 2010 to 2012. "There is not much time left to save our forests from destruction. Therefore we need a strong international alliance of like-minded countries and governments who are ready to jointly promote forest conservation", stated Ursula Heinen-Esser, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Environment Ministry.
Germany will actively support the partnership in order to help achieve the ambitious EU goal of stopping deforestation worldwide by 2030. "Our financial contribution is an excellent investment. Intact forests provide immeasurable services, in particular for climate protection, biodiversity conservation and for the water balance", said Heinen-Esser.
The Global Forest Partnership plays a vital role in climate protection: one fifth of all global greenhouse gas emissions are due to forest destruction. The global partnership thus supports international climate negotiations with concrete measures to prevent emissions from deforestation and destructive forest utilisation in the tropics, and is providing four billion US dollars over the 2010 to 2012 period for this purpose.
Within the framework of development cooperation Germany has pursued successful forest conservation for many years. Support has been provided to set up conservation areas in partner countries, to control illegal logging, to improve fire prevention, to enable land title allocation and to launch communal forest conservation programmes and sustainable forest management. Thanks to these pilot programmes, the instruments for efficient forest conservation are now widely known.
At the conference, an overview was submitted for the first time, providing transparency on forest conservation projects and initiatives that are currently supported worldwide. Ms Heinen-Esser outlined: "This is a first and a very important step towards establishing a solid foundation for coordinating forest conservation measures between donor and partner countries and to thus improve harmonisation between all those involved".