Opening Statement by Mr. Shigeru TAKAGI
Director, International Forestry Cooperation Office
Forestry Agency of Japan
at
The 3rd Meeting for the Promotion of
Asia Forest Partnership (AFP)

21 November 2003
Kisarazu, JAPAN

Good Morning,
Distinguished participants,
Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure for me to have this opportunity to deliver a few words at the opening of this 3rd Meeting for the Promotion of Asia Forest Partnership (AFP), in front of the distinguished representatives of a number of governments, international organizations, and organizations and individuals from civil society, including NGOs and industries, from all over the world. As one of the organizers of this meeting, and on behalf of the Government of Japan, I would like to express my warm welcome to all of you present here.

Taking this opportunity, I would also like to thank the participants who attended the "International Expert Meeting on the Development and Implementation of National Codes of Practice for Forest Harvesting" which just concluded yesterday. As will be presented by our staff later, this International Expert Meeting produced solid outcomes, as summarized in the meeting report. Fruitful discussions and sharing of common understandings we had at the International Expert Meeting on the current issues and possible options on forest harvesting would enrich this Meeting of AFP, I believe.

AFP is a new type of partnership which was launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in 2002, in which each member is subjected to participating as a equal partner to contribute to concrete and coordinated approaches towards the achievement of SFM in Asia. In light of such a new nature of this partnership, it is very much encouraging to see so many participants gathered from a broad spectrum of the society, not only the governments.

We can recall that concrete steps have been discussed at the past 2 meetings for the promotion of AFP held in November 2002 in Tokyo, Japan and in July 2003 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, respectively.

The purpose of this 3rd Meeting of AFP is to examine further concrete actions to be taken by AFP in such fields as combating illegal logging, preventing and fighting forest fire, and rehabilitating and reforesting degraded lands, building upon the consensus achieved through the 2 previous meetings, particularly in line with the actions proposed by the partners of AFP at its 2nd meeting. At this meeting, we should discuss and build commitment to taking concrete measures forward in these 3 fields and others as appropriate.

In addition, this meeting would discuss some organizational matters; for example, information networks and decision-making mechanisms among AFP partners, fund raising and management, and the measures to enhance and expand AFP. These matters are also important particularly in view of such a broad participation of different stakeholders with different views and backgrounds. By clarifying how information shall be shared, decisions be made, and resources be managed in an open and transparent manner, this partnership will materialize its significant strength of diversity of the partners.

I strongly believe that the discussions to be held today will yield significant progress in the promotion of this partnership. This could even set a precedent to similar partnerships in other region as Africa and Latin America, and thereby contribute greatly to the development of actions towards sustainable forest management on a global scale.

For these reasons, I very much look forward to seeing active exchange of views among all participants here on how to meet the challenges of promoting sustainable forest management in Asia. It is my sincere hope that this meeting will turn out to be a significant milestone for the promotion of AFP and for the sustainable management of forests worldwide.

Thank you very much for your kind attention