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Papua New Guinea To Develop National REDD+ Strategy To Protect Its Forests Press Release United Nations
Papua New Guinea To Develop National REDD+ Strategy To Protect Its Forests 26 Mar 2015
The new Forest Carbon Partnership Facility project was launched yesterday by the Office of Climate Change and Development and the United Nations Development Programme in Port Moresby. The project was launched by Minister for Environment and Conservation, John Pundari and UNDP Deputy Resident Representative, Sukhrob Khoshmuhamedov. Mr. Pundari provided background on the momentum for REDD+ activities in Papua New Guinea. He discussed the importance of the UN-REDD Programme in helping to build up capacity and to seek agreement from key stakeholders on a national REDD+ framework. Climate change is real. It is here and is already affecting our communities in the Pacific. It is very important to find the right things to do. Papua New Guinea is not new to the phenomenon of climate change – we must make sure that we make significant contribution to addressing the issue. The new project is one of the way to do so, said Minister in his opening speech. UNDP Resident Representative, Sukhrob Khoshmuhamedov highlighted the important role Papua New Guinea plays in implementing REDD+ initiatives at the global level. PNG has been a global pioneer and advocate of REDD+. It was one of nine UN-REDD pilot countries and initiated it’s UN-REDD National Programme in 2011. Much has been achieved through UN-REDD and many lessons learned. The new initiative will build on those achievements and set further vision for the country, said Mr. Khoshmuhamedov. He also emphasized the need to ensure that voices of the poor and those dependent on forest resources are heard and considered in further activities. The new project is a continuation of the UN-REDD project led by Office of Climate change and Development, PNG National Forest Authority and UNDP. The previous project laid out foundation for implementing further REDD+ activities, by developing frameworks for stakeholder engagement and ensuring that voices of local forest communities are heard, by advancing the National Forest Inventory and developing a web-portal that opened up information on PNG forests to the public. The new Forest Carbon Partnership Facility project will develop PNG’s national REDD+ strategy and set out country’s vision for REDD+ implementation. The main goal of the project is to build trust and transparency between forest owners and government. The project will focus on stakeholder engagement which means that there will be systems in place to keep local communities involved, so that they can make informed decisions, said Arthur Neher, the UN-REDD Programme Manager in Papua New Guinea. The national REDD+ Strategy will give a unique opportunity to generate high-level support for REDD+ in Papua New Guinea, enhance awareness among government ministries, provinces, communities and other stakeholders on forest conservation. In addition to the National Strategy, the project will support implementation of national REDD+ management arrangements, develop capacities of provincial authorities and develop formal participation mechanisms for REDD+ . Local-level pilot projects will be also implemented to inform national policy. The new project is implemented by UNDP in partnership with Office of Climate Change and Development and is funded by the World Bank. Total budget of the project – 3.8 million USD.




















