Innovative partnerships to promote legal and sustainable forest-risk commodities

The production and global trade of agricultural commodities, such as palm oil, soy, beef, cocoa, and coffee, drive deforestation and forest degradation. To address this challenge, all public and private supply chain actors in producing and consuming countries need to collaborate to shift mainstream commodity markets towards sustainability. 

Panellists will reflect on their experience with innovative tools and approaches to shape partnerships that support enabling environments for forest-friendly development and investment in tropical forest countries. They will also discuss how to help commodity producers in meeting consumer market requirements.

This World Forestry Congress side event hosted by the European Forest Institute (EFI) will explore how to increase the impact and inclusiveness of stakeholder collaboration, recognise progress made at jurisdictional levels, and gain positive visibility in global commodity markets. 

The panellists will discuss how improved accessibility and transparency of information along complex commodity supply chains could help improve governance, build trust among trade partners, and support increased accountability while ensuring that smallholders, local communities and Indigenous Peoples can benefit from international trade.

Chay Senkhammoungkhoun, FLOURISH Project Field Coordinator at RECOFTC, will highlight why it is innovative to partner with local communities living in and near forests across the Asia-Pacific. For countless generations, Indigenous Peoples and local communities have been the custodians of forests. They can provide solutions to the complex forestry challenges we face today—from addressing climate change to stopping deforestation and degradation, halting the loss of biodiversity, and overcoming poverty, inequality and exclusion, food insecurity and conflict. At the same time, these partnerships can provide livelihood resilience for these local communities.

Moderator

• Satrio Adi Wicaksono, Forest and Land-Use Governance Expert, European Forest Institute

Panellists

• The Ministry of Environment for Water and Ecological Transition in Ecuador
• Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) 
• Daniel Kofi Abu, Project Manager at Tropenbos Ghana
• Chay Senkhammoungkhoun, FLOURISH Project Field Coordinator, RECOFTC
• Tran Quynh Chi, Regional Director Asia Landscape, The Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH)