- Forest Day and the global perspective on forests and climate change
- Counting carbon to make carbon count
- REDD+: Location, location, location …
- Coping with climate change in Costa Rica
- Transforming tenure in Guatemala
- There’s more to conservation than wildlife
- Indonesia’s lessons for REDD+
- Cameroon’s foresters align rules with reality
- Setting the standards for small-scale forestry
Message from the Chair of the Board
2009 was a turning point for forests and forestry research, as global recognition of the central role of forests in mitigating and adapting to climate change began to affect decisions in national and international policy arenas and actions on the ground.
The international community now agrees that reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and enhancing carbon stocks (REDD+) is an essential element of the climate protection agenda, and, crucially, forests were included in the accord that came out of the UNFCCC negotiations in Copenhagen.
CIFOR can make a significant contribution to ensure that new sources of finance and political will now being focused on forests will be translated into meaningful changes in policy and practices. The investment we have made in research and in building outreach capacity in recent years means we are ideally positioned as a credible source of analysis and advice on forest-related issues.
One indication of CIFOR’s growing profile is our ability to raise funds, contributing to our sound financial health. Grants to CIFOR in 2009 totalled US $23.6 million, a 15 per cent increase on 2008. 2009 also marked the award of one of the largest project grants CIFOR has ever received: US $3.2 million from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation for the first year of a 4-year global comparative study of the effectiveness of first-generation REDD+ activities.
2009 was also the first full year in which our new strategy was operational, and we are beginning to reap the benefits. The greater emphasis on interdisciplinary research has helped to create vibrant new partnerships, both within CIFOR and beyond. Our new approach helps leverage important synergies across CIFOR’s research programmes to inform and influence diverse policy arenas, drawing on expertise related to livelihoods, governance and sustainable forest management.
The Board of Trustees believes that the new strategy has strengthened CIFOR’s position as a leading international research institute by ensuring attention to the quality of our science as well as to the significance of its potential impact.
As CIFOR cannot hope to influence the way the world’s forests are managed by working in isolation, we have concentrated on working in partnership with other organisations and policy processes to influence the global forestry agenda.
Our position within the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research remains strong. At its September 2009 meeting, the CGIAR Science Council gave CIFOR’s Medium Term Plan a strong endorsement, highlighting in particular our efforts to mainstream gender and capacity building into our research programme.
CIFOR’s relationships with our host country governments also ran smoothly in 2009. This was the first full year of having a full-time host country liaison officer in place in Indonesia, which has greatly benefited our relations with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry. A Ministry review team gave CIFOR a satisfactory rating in a March 2009 assessment of CIFOR’s benefits to the host country. In Cameroon, the Ministry of Forests and Fauna sent a formal letter commending CIFOR on our performance.
CIFOR now offsets carbon emissions through the CarbonFree® partner programme, and we are committed to reducing the amount of printed material we produce. This streamlined annual report, designed to provide a valuable overview of CIFOR’s position and activities in 2009 without excessive use of materials, is an example of these efforts.
Despite the changes the future will inevitably bring, we are determined that some things will never change. Wherever the global debate on forests leads, CIFOR will continue to provide sound science to keep that debate grounded in reality, and ensure that it reflects the interests and perspectives of people who depend on forests for their livelihood.
Dr Andrew J. Bennett
Chair, Board of Trustees