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EU Council Conclusions: 7th session of United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF7)

Sommaire: EU Council Conclusions: 7th session of United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF7) (19 March 2007: Brussels)

EU Council Conclusions: 7th session of United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF7)2790th, Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting, Brussels, 19 and 20 March 2007

The Council adopted the following conclusions:

"THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

1. RECALLING its earlier conclusions on the international forest policy dialogue, including the Council Conclusions adopted on 26 April 2005 on the future of the International Arrangement on Forests (IAF), consisting of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) and the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF);

2. REAFFIRMING its strong commitment to sustainable forest management (SFM) and RECOGNISING the important contribution it can make to sustainable development, poverty eradication and the achievement of internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals, as well as to combating climate change, desertification and biodiversity loss;

3. EMPHASISING the continued need to strengthen international cooperation and action at all levels to combat continuing global deforestation and forest degradation, inter alia by taking advantage of synergies and facilitating active cooperation and coordination with other forest-related conventions, agreements and processes;

4. REITERATING its conviction that an international legal instrument would be the most suitable means of ensuring a coherent global approach to sustainable forest management;

5. ACKNOWLEDGING the outcome of the sixth session of the United Nations Forum on Forests 2006 (UNFF6) set out in ECOSOC Resolution 2006/49 and in particular its decisions to work towards the achievement by 2015 of four global objectives on forests, to conclude and adopt at its next session (UNFF7) a non-legally binding instrument (NLBI) on all types of forests aimed at achieving those objectives and strengthening political commitment to that end, and to review the International Arrangement on Forests in 2015, including the option of a legally binding instrument;

6. RECOGNISING the need for UNFF7 to adopt a multi-year programme of work (MYPOW) to guide the Forum's activities until 2015 and those of the wider IAF in addressing the four global objectives on forests and in the implementation of the NLBI;

7. AFFIRMS that the NLBI should provide real added value to existing agreements and ECOSOC resolutions, in promoting and implementing sustainable forest management in a coherent way, in particular through:

- clear and credible commitments at both national and international level to the achievement of the four global objectives on forests;

- a process of facilitation and dialogue at a UNFF member's request to enhance its national implementation of the NLBI;

- further refining the conceptual framework for SFM at global level;

- better promoting the formulation and implementation of national forest programmes or other forest strategies;

- strengthening the science-policy interface;
8. Recognising the universal membership of UNFF and the adoption of the NLBI by the UN General Assembly, TAKES THE VIEW that, in order to enhance political commitment at both national and international level, an appropriate mechanism to demonstrate the commitment to achieving the objectives of the NLBI should be incorporated into the NLBI;

9 STRESSES that the EU is committed to the principle of ownership of development strategies and programmes by partner countries;

10. ACKNOWLEDGES the continued need to strengthen and adapt existing financing sources in support of SFM and STRESSES in this regard that creating an enabling environment for financing of SFM and incorporating SFM among the priorities under Poverty Reduction Strategies and similar cross-cutting strategies are indispensable for achieving SFM;

11. RECOGNISES that a value-added NLBI, as described above, will also require the development of new mechanisms and innovative ways of efficient SFM financing from all sources;

12. CONSIDERS that further coordination of international and public forest-related funding is needed and that UNFF7 should invite the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the World Bank and other financing institutions and mechanisms to come forward with proposals to that effect;

13. In this regard, NOTES with appreciation the ongoing assessment of SFM-related funding in the review of the GEF focal area strategies;

14 NOTES that the NLBI should clearly identify the role and functions of the UNFF acting as the intergovernmental forum for the NLBI;

15. STRESSES that UNFF's MYPOW until 2015 should, on the basis of the main objective and the principal functions of the existing IAF, address the four global objectives on forests and the implementation of the NLBI;

16. RECOMMENDS that the MYPOW should address a limited number of issues as politically important contributions to the ongoing forest dialogue inside and outside the forests sector, strengthen the interface between the UNFF on the one hand and regions, major groups and the science community on the other, and at the same time keep the necessary flexibility to take up emerging issues;

17. STRESSES in this regard that the MYPOW should take advantage of synergies and facilitate active cooperation and coordination with other forest-related conventions, agreements and processes.

  • Ref: CL07-073
  • Source UE: Conseil
  • UN forum: 
  • Date: 19/3/2007


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Etats Membres de l'Union Européenne