The International Resource Panel (IRP) was launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2007 to build and share the knowledge needed to improve our use of resources worldwide.The Panel consists of eminent scientists with expertise in resource management issues. It studies key questions around global resource use and produces assessment reports that distill the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic findings to inform decision-making. The Panel’s specific mission is to: provide independent, coherent, and authoritative scientific assessments of policy relevance on the sustainable use of natural resources and, in particular, their environmental impacts over the full life cycle; and contribute to a better understanding of how to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation.
How to integrate the different scales from local to global in the preservation and restoration of forests?
Establishing a new nature positive relationship combined with Net Zero by 2050. This positive relationship involves restoration beyond NBS, allowing a balance among mitigation, adaptation and resilience efforts. The integration from local to global will be achieved when we start to consider the local actors as global players, as they have a key role on the route to decarbonization and for long-term solutions to deal with the increase of 1.5°C on the global average temperature.
We are not talking about scale integration in the future, but right now, where this urgency is defined by the exposure to extreme events and the unsustainable conditions we experience today in the loss of biodiversity and environmental services associated with well-being.
This scale integration is also very important to help to guarantee needs related with human rights and social justice. We need to value the use of local knowledge for setting permanent solutions with positive global impacts.
In Brazil, we have some new political and technical multistakeholder initiatives that commonly recognizes the importance of plurality and local inclusiveness, respecting the diverse voices and visions for promoting the necessary integration, as Amazon Concertation, Brazilian Coalition on Climate Forests and Agriculture, Mapbiomas, Climate and Development, Amazon 2022 and Amazon 2030.
Initiatives to fight deforestation or restore forests as well as funding are launched by both private and public actors. How can we strengthen cooperation between these sectors to accelerate action for forests?
The main theme here is governance. It is essential to realign and coordinate the current global environmental governance systems with local realities to gain effectiveness. The connection of private and public actors must start from an understanding of the local and regional conditions and the environmental integrity goals associated with it. Therefore, the necessary funding must accommodate not only the diversity of local realities but also demand diversity in leadership. For instance, small and medium companies, as well as the subnational government, are very important to developing economies, so this public and private cooperation cannot just consider big players.
In cases of territories with continental dimensions like the Amazon, you have to think about the global, regional, national and subnational, as well as the diversity of territories within the biome, which is not homogeneous, to ensure the integrity of protected areas.
Furthermore, to tackle deforestation and promote restoration it is important to consider both the internationalization of local initiatives and the regionalization of international policies, promoting a better integration of the global, subnational, and local instances.
What are the 3 priority actions to implement to reach the Global Forest Goals by 2030 in your opinion?
- Define arrangements and paths that allow a world without deforestation. This is not trivial, since if you want to leave deforestation behind you have to eliminate the system leakages, such as environmental crimes, corruption, and consumption of products from deforested areas, among others.
- Assume that standing forests are the political role of forests in the world, avoiding the idea that preservation and restoration are related to plaster territories, but a way to protect assets of national interests, giving to the countries’ autonomy based on a very effective vehicle that drives climate security.
- Observe the diversity of forest landscapes and actors, and integrate them on the different levels of governance for inclusive, resilient and long-term solutions.