Brussels, 09 January 2007
The Hon. M.S. Kaban, Minister of Forestry of Indonesia met Commissioners Louis Michel and Stavros Dimas, responsible for Development and Environment respectively, in Brussels on 8th January 2007. They agreed to initiate formal negotiations towards conclusion of a voluntary partnership agreement (VPA) on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT), which will provide assurance that Indonesian forest products imported to the EU are verified to be legal. The agreement will also provide for cooperation, including capacity building, market and technical studies and knowledge-sharing.
The commitment to proceed with formal negotiations followed a series of informal consultations between Indonesia and the EU over the past year as well as intensive consultations amongst stakeholders in Indonesia.
Commissioner Dimas said: "Indonesia has played a leading role in placing illegal logging on the international agenda. The EU and Indonesia recognise that as consumers and producers of tropical timber we have a joint responsibility to eradicate illegal logging and move towards our shared goal of sustainable forest management".
Minister Kaban stated that "The Government of Indonesia appreciates EU’s support to Indonesia’s commitment in implementing the principles of sustainable forestry management. In the view of the future negotiations, Indonesia has already undertaken numerous multi-stakeholders’ consultations and it is hoped that the final VPA will provide both parties, Indonesia and the EU, with a sound basis for preventing export and import of illegally-harvested timber".
Commissioner Michel concluded by stating that "good governance is fundamental if the benefits of trade in forest products are to be shared by Indonesian society. The start of FLEGT negotiations is thus a very positive step for Indonesia's development and the sustainable management of its resources."
2019 has only just begun, but it is already hard to imagine that there will be other extreme weather events with disastrous consequences such as cyclone Idai happening again this year. In all likelihood, such events will continue to occur as 2019 rolls on. Idai is, once more, proof of how devastating and toxic the mix of climate change, extreme weather events and poverty can be: Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe – countries that rank low in human development but contribute very little to global greenhouse gas emissions – suffer from some of the worst impacts of climate change.
adelphi has relaunched its exhibition Environment, Conflict and Cooperation (ECC) Exhibition to illustrate how unprecedented environmental changes interact with social, political, and economic risks to exacerbate conflict. We invite you to explore our online exhibition and to learn more about urgent issues of our time: climate, energy, migration, extractives, food and water.
Climate security risks are, by all interpretations, a global threat. But when it comes to setting a political climate security agenda, a handful of countries stand out. In an interview with Climate Diplomacy, Michaela Spaeth, Director for Energy and Climate Policy at the German Federal Foreign Office, highlights some of Germany’s goals and challenges in forwarding the issue during its 2019-20 membership in the UN Security Council.
The Planetary Security Conference 2019, which concluded on 20 February, saw a number of workshops being held on the Sahel region and specifically Mali, one of the Conference’s three spotlight regions. These workshops examined the region’s climate-water-security risks as well as the #doable actions and solutions to address these issues.