Welcome Note from the FCPF Chair

Welcome Note from Katherine Sierra, FCPF Chair and Vice President, Sustainable Development, The World Bank

 Welcome to the web site of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF). This is a unique global partnership dedicated to REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, plus the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks).  It was launched during the Bali climate change negotiations in December 2007.

We’ve come a long way since then.  Initially, we thought that having 20 REDD Country Participants in the FCPF would be a reasonable target.  Today, 37 REDD+ countries are participating.

I would like to thank donor countries and FCPF participants for their financial commitments, particularly given the current economic turmoil.  I’d also like to acknowledge their support to REDD+ initiatives in general.

The financial crisis should not stop the world from taking action to meet development challenges such as climate change.  And the challenge is considerable: with about 13 million hectares of forest lost every year, deforestation is a major contributor to global warming.

The REDD+ agenda, however, offers reasons for hope.  There is renewed attention and financial resources to address the root causes of deforestation and forest degradation, and to promote biological sequestration in forests and agro-ecosystems in general.

Naturally, REDD+ initiatives will not, by themselves, solve all problems affecting forests.  But incentive payments can help boost efforts to address these problems.  The FCPF was conceived as both a Facility and a Partnership – its impact ought to go much beyond its capitalization target of $385 million.

More to the point, the FCPF must produce results that can inform the UN climate change negotiations. We are committed to this objective.  At the same time, speed must not come at the expense of inclusion and sharing benefits with civil society, including indigenous and other forest-dependent peoples.

I hope this web site is useful in your work, and I hope it conveys some of the approaches that are being piloted and tested by the FCPF as we move forward in partnership to help solve the immense challenge before us.