Page 42 - Bulletin, Vol.80 No.2, September 2021

In 2012, we brought together more than 150 partners working in Latin America, West
Africa, Central Africa and South-East Asia – to establish the Tropical Forest Alliance
2020: a global public-private partnership to facilitate investment in systemic change.

The Alliance, made up of businesses, governments, civil society, indigenous people,
communities and international organizations, helps producers, traders and buyers of
commodities often blamed for causing deforestation to achieve deforestation-free
supply chains.

The Commodities and Forests Agenda 2020, summarizes the areas in which the most
urgent action is needed to eliminate deforestation from global agricultural supply chains.
The Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 is gaining ground on tackling deforestation linked to
the production of four commodities: palm oil, beef, soy, and pulp and paper.

By adopting the following principles, companies can ensure that their investments in
forests successfully generate business value while supporting nature, climate and local
communities.

– PROTECTING existing forests: protect existing primary and intact forests as a priority
to avoid and reduce deforestation and forest degradation, since they are biodiversity
hotspots, long‐term carbon sinks and a repository for bio-innovation in the search for
new drugs or novel materials.

– PARTNERING with local communities, Indigenous peoples, governments, NGOs and
other businesses: co-develop and implement projects with local partners, communities
and municipalities to ensure that activities are effective, build on local knowledge of
forests, and protect local land-use rights, with a long-term approach in mind.
– PREVENTING greenhouse gas emissions and nature loss as a priority: invest in
forest conservation and restoration as a complementary measure to broader strategies
focused on avoiding and reducing emissions as part of net-zero targets, and to reverse
negative impacts on nature and biodiversity.
– PRIORITIZING projects that deliver both environmental and social benefits: set clear
goals on the mix of environmental and social indicators that a project prioritises and
develop milestones throughout implementation to track progress.

– PLANNING for growing the right trees in the right way and in the right regions: pick
the most appropriate regions and trees to ensure climate resilience and permanence of
new forests in the long term, while avoiding unintended negative consequences.
Businesses embracing this movement have a unique opportunity to pledge their
contribution to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to conserve, restore and grow
a trillion trees by 2030 while accelerating resilience, profitability and value creation.

Sources : Gill Cassar Head, 1t.org, World Economic Forum
Jean-Charles Guinchard, Associate Partner, Dalberg
Wijnand DeWit Partner, Dalberg
This article is published in collaboration with Forbes

AAFI-AFICS BULLETIN, Vol. 80 No.2, 2021-09 41