Posted on June, 08 2011

Emphasizing this year's World Environment Day (WED) theme: Forests: Nature at Your Service - the report says investing an additional US$40 billion a year in the global forestry sector could halve deforestation rates by 2030, increase rates of tree planting by around 140 per cent by 2050, and catalyze the creation of millions of new jobs.

WWF’s Heart of Borneo Initiative team leader, Adam Tomasek, said the economies of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia were well placed to benefit from this new ‘forest solutions’ approach within a green economy, as they had already committed significant support to the conservation and sustainable development of the vast area of tropical rainforest known as the Heart of Borneo.

“The green economy approach has been supported publically by heads of state and senior government officials in Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia.  For example, the Malaysian Prime Minister recently convened the first meeting of the Global Science and Innovation Advisory Council (GSIAC) for Malaysia, in New York, on delivering science and innovation for a green economy. Also in Jakarta, just last month, the Indonesian President highlighted Indonesia’s Green economy credentials at B4E - one of the world’s premier environmental conferences.”

“The UNEP report represents a welcome sign for investing in forests as a means to protect ecosystem services, tackle climate change and expand economic growth” he said.

This was a sentiment echoed by the UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, Achim Steiner in a press statement released with the report.

"The Green Economy initiative has identified forestry as one of the ten central sectors capable of propelling a transition to a low carbon, resource efficient, employment-generating future, if backed by investment and forward-looking policies.”

WWF believes that the 220,000km2 area of largely intact rainforest called the Heart of Borneo (HoB) is a natural priority for riding the wave of green economy thinking through to action to deliver long-term economic, ecological and social benefits.

Indeed for the past year, WWF and the HoB member governments have gathered an impressive array of leading experts and partners to begin building  a green economic approach to help deliver the conservation and sustainable development vision embodied in the historic 2007 HoB Declaration.

WWF calls on the HoB member governments to develop and showcase living examples of green economy in the Heart of Borneo at Rio+20 - United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, to be held in June next year in Brazil, where the world will come together to try and forge a new and more decisive response to the sustainable development challenges of the 21st century.

 

For further information, please contact:

Adam Tomasek, Leader, Heart of Borneo Initiative, WWF
Tel: +62 21 5761070 Ext. 228, Fax: +62 21 5761080, mob: +62 811991 7855
E-mail: atomasek@wwf.or.id

Christopher Greenwood, International Communications Manager, Heart of Borneo Initaitive, WWF
Tel: +60 128281214, E-mail: cgreenwood@wwf.org.my

 
Notes to editors

A UNEP Media Advisory note can be found at:  www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp

More information on the UNEP Forests in Green Economy synthesis report can be found at:  www.unep.org/wed/news/forestreport.asp

The Heart of Borneo Declaration
In February 2007, the governments of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia signed the Heart of Borneo Declaration to protect an area of more than 220,000 square kilometres in the centre of the island and bordering all three countries. Together they emphasised the  fact that these tropical rainforests have strategic, global, national and local functions, not only for citizens of these three countries but for the global human race.

The declaration is supported under important regional and international agreements such as Association of East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines East Asia Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA), Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC), and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD).

For more infomation visit: www.panda.org/heartofborneo