CHALLENGE

The forestry sector in Asia and the Pacific is undergoing sweeping and rapid change. Recent years have seen an increase in demand for both wood products and forest-related environmental services. This demand is anticipated to intensify in coming years, bringing with it the potential for greater revenue for forest goods and services. To successfully capture these emerging opportunities, countries will need to demonstrate effective forest law enforcement and governance (FLEG) and instill confidence among buyers that progress is being made in efforts to manage forests sustainably.

APPROACH

The East Asia FLEG process has focused on building up collaboration with ASEAN, a key regional institution. These efforts have met with significant success and ASEAN has issued a Statement on Strengthening Forest Law Enforcement and Governance, at its 29^th Meeting of the ASEAN Ministers on Agriculture and Forestry (29^th AMAF) on Nov. 1, 2007. This statement reaffirmed the region’s commitment to improve forest law enforcement and governance, and paved the way to take action on illegal logging issues in ASEAN in collaboration with regional partners and international organizations.

A work plan for strengthening FLEG in ASEAN is under development and finalization. ASEAN has established a technical ASEAN Regional Knowledge Network for FLEG (ARKN-FLEG) to develop methodologies and exchange knowledge. The World Bank’s FLEG program supported this (in collaboration with GTZ) via technical inputs.

RESULTS

Work with the ASEAN Regional Knowledge Network has consisted of support for preparation of technical papers, a regional workshop on fleg reporting held in Kuala Lumpur November 2009 and the publication of a guide for country assessment and reporting on FLEG in partnership with FAO. The country reports were published in June 2010: they provide an overview of FLEG-related initiatives for 16 of the most forest-rich nations in Asia and the Pacific.