Posted on August, 13 2014

 On the 4th of August 2014, in the frames of the FLEG II (ENPI East) Programme a stakeholders meeting was organized by WWF-Azerbaijan in Baku. The aim of the stakeholder meeting was to present to the participants the initial draft of the analysis produced by the consultants, in order to obtain their feedback through open discussion and to incorporate their relevant comments and suggestions into the final report.

The meeting was attended by the representatives of the authorized governmental bodies, the civil society / NGOs and Universities as well as international organizations.
During the meeting several issues were discussed including Principles and Criteria of FSC on sustainable forest management, overall perspectives of voluntary forest certification in Azerbaijan, the current state of the forestry sector, other sectors related to biodiversity and ecosystem services and TEEB country study for the forestry sector.
Mr. Rovshan Abbasov, a project consultant on TEEB Scoping Study, made presentations on the draft report and preliminary results of the studies. “Forests of Azerbaijan have significant ecosystem services and it is very important to evaluate their economic, social and cultural services”, said Mr. Abbasov. Also, it was mentioned that the major threats to sustainable forests are illegal timber production, non-sustainable tourism and overgrazing which could be mitigated by improving forest governance.
The second, not less important discussed topic was the voluntary forest certification potential of Azerbaijan forestry sector. Mr. Vasili Gerasimov, an FSC expert, provided information about FSC and its mission, forest certification types, FSC’s Principles and Criteria. Afterwards the focus was on Azerbaijan’s forestry sector in terms of conditions for FSC-certification.