Audio and Video: Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister opens Katoomba XVII, vows to Integrate Economy and Environment

Payments for Ecosystem Services as Financial Vehicles for Biodiversity Conservation, Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, Poverty Reduction and Rural Development

James Peter, Chief Technical Advisor, Asian Development Bank EOC

James Peter stresses the importance of PES in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region and explores the benefits and challenges faced in implementing PES. He goes on to explain the ideas behind the Core Environment Program and its various phases, while providing insight on what will make the CEP successful and beneficial to the GMS countries. He closes by providing an example of how the program’s methodology was tested by Vietnam’s government and is considered to be a success by the Mekong people.

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Roles of Multilaterals in Forest and Ecosystem Investments

Richard Caines, Principal Specialist, East Asia and Pacific Environment and Social Development Department, International Finance Corporation (IFC)

Richard Caines describes the role the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has in REDD and forestry by providing IFC’s three core areas of activity. He explains IFC’s current annual investment in forestry in relation to other annual investments while explaining the struggles and challenges IFC has faced in investing in forestry.   Richard provides four core areas IFC plans to focus on, including increasing forest access to the carbon market and promoting global standards, and concludes by stressing the importance of private sector participation in ecosystem services.

Forest Carbon and REDD Architecture

Post Copenhagen is a period of “interim financing” and the challenges of ensuring that investments flow efficiently to produce mechanisms for carbon emissions reductions, accountability, and equitable benefits distributions.

UN REDD Program

Tim Boyle, Asia Regional Coordinator, UNREDD

Tim Boyle gives a brief overview of the purpose and history of the UN REDD program in Asia specific regions and explains the importance of the various partnerships the UN REDD program has. He describes lessons learned from UN REDD programs and provides six different components of REDD readiness, which include stakeholder participation and capacity for national monitoring and reporting. Tim ends his presentation by explaining the importance of the experiences in Vietnam in relation to REDD.

You can find out more about UN REDD on their website here

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Voices from the Markets: Panel Discussion

This is the panel discussion, chaired by Michael Jenkins, that followed Walter and David’s presentations. The first video is the introduction to the Q&A and the second is the Q&A itself.

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Comparative Analysis: Policy and Implementation, Approaches Across Southeast Asia Region

Kurt McLeod, Vice President, Asia and Eurasia, PACT

Kurt McLeod stresses the importance of peat landscapes in terms of REDD and Indonesia.   By explaining the amount of carbon storage peat can potentially have, he describes how conserving and protecting peat land is an essential REDD project. Kurt goes on to make direct linkages between poverty, climate change, REDD and carbon while underscoring the importance of maintaining natural resources, and by extension, sustaining the livelihoods of millions.

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Experiences from Aceh Province, Indonesia

Mr. Yakob Ishdamy, Head of Aceh Green Secretariat, Aceh Province, Indonesia (tbc)

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PNG Forest Authority Perspective

Goodwill Amos, Forest Authority, Papua New Guinea presents the work of his organization and its perspective on REDD

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Designing National REDD Programs from the Bottom-Up

Eveline Trines, Silvestrum

Eveline Trines, from Silvestrum, takes us through her work in designing national REDD programs from the bottom up. Apologies for the initial blank screen. The video is fine after the first second or two.

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Keynote Speeches: Voices from the Markets

Enabling policy environments which encourage public-private investment partnerships, catalyzing flows of private capital into local climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives .

Moderator: Michael Jenkins, Forest Trends

Public-Private Investment Partnerships

David Brand, Managing Director, New Forests Pty Limited

David Brand describes New Forest’s investment strategies and various developing programs around REDD in Asia and Indonesia. He stresses the importance of pricing ecosystems and highlights different struggles in legislation and leadership in the United States. David goes on to describe the private sector’s role in financing REDD projects and finishes up by exploring different funding options in order to maintain momentum.

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How Payments for Carbon Sequestration Create New Forests of High Biodiversity and Social Welfare in Vietnam

Dirk Walterspacher, Forest Finance Group

Dirk Walterspacher explores Forest Finance Group’s main goals, which include investment, carbon storage, and green energy. He explains that by offering different services, the reduction of carbon emission is possible. To illustrate this, he describes the reforestation project in Vietnam last year while putting a strong emphasis on the role that national and regional stakeholders played in the project.

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Projects, Products and Measurement Reporting and Verification (MRV) Strategies

Identifying key roadblocks, priority action areas and research/capacity building needs, and generating a provisional road-map to measuring carbon .

REDD Carbon Measurement, National Inventories, Nested and Sectoral Approaches

Joerg Seifert-Granzin , Forest Carbon Consultant, Forest Trends

Joerg Seifert-Granzin explains how future REDD implementation framework should look like while providing insight on how to share benefits from REDD with different stakeholders. In addition to giving examples of various measurement approaches in different countries, Joerg also describes 6 categories for dealing with inconsistencies between project based approaches, national approaches and sub-national activities.

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How Projects Measure Up: Key Successes of REDD+ Projects and Lessons Learned for Design and Evaluation of REDD+ Activities

Adam Gibbon, Initiative Technical Specialist, Rainforest Alliance

Regional REDD, Governance and Leakage Issues

Gary Bull, Professor, University of British Columbia

Gary Bull explains the problems of leakages and proposes solutions on how to tackle the issue while stressing that international leakage should be the main focus. He presents two types of trade models, and explains that engaging key stakeholders from government, industries, and NGOs is key to solving the problem.

Optional Side Panel and Interactive Discussion: Demystifying the Verification Process

The panelists, who each have experience with a different aspect of forest carbon project validation or verification, will share their perspectives on standards, preparing for an audit, the audit process and how to share the results of your verification/validation. The session aims to create a dialogue for maximal exchange.

Moderator, Adam Gibbon, Rainforest Alliance

Overview of the Validation and Verification Process for Voluntary Standards

Indu Sapkota , Forest Management and Verification Services Coordinator, Rainforest Alliance Asia Pacific

Experiences with the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS)

Eveline Trines , Silvestrum

Climate Community and Biodiversity Standard (CCBS) Validation of the Philippines Penablanca Sustainable Reforestation Project

Yoji Natori , Conservation International

Experiences with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)

Phuong Vu Tan , Director, Research Centre for Forest Ecology and Government

Katoomba XVII: Day Two

Welcome and Recap

Kerstin Canby, Director, Forest Trade and Finance, Forest Trends

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The Vietnam Experience

Vietnam’s Pilot Policy for Forest Ecosystem Services (PFES): Government Perspective

Nguyen Tuan Phíº , Office of the Government and Pham Xuan Phuong, Legal Department, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam

This presentation is in Vietnamese.

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Part Two

Contributions of Winrock International and GTZ to the Formulation and Implementation of Policy on Payment for Forest Environmental Services in Viet Nam

Nguyen Chi Thanh , Senior Policy Advisor, Winrock International, Vietnam; Juergen Hess, GTZ Vietnam

This presentation is in Vietnamese.

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Experience with REDD Pilot Projects in Vietnam

Pham Minh Thoa

Pham Minh Thoa gives a detailed presentation about the current status of REDD implementation in Vietnam while presenting the concept of sustainagility. She goes on to provide different paradigms of Payments for Ecosystem Services and concludes by presenting various pointers on how to facilitate different actors working in PES.

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Richard McNally, SNV and REDD working group in Vietnam

Richard McNally describes in detail the three different projects his organization is currently working on in Vietnam. After explaining the roles illegal logging and agriculture expansion play in Vietnam, he emphasizes the importance of trying to balance agricultural reduction and forest conversion.   He finishes his presentation by explaining the need for an integrated approach in which governments, businesses, and small holders all take part in trying to solve the problems.

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Forest law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT), and Potential Implications of REDD for Local People: Impacts of Small-Scaled Illegal Logging Operations

Rene Boot, Tropenbos International.

Rene Boot explores the impacts of small-scale illegal logging operations while using Ghana’s forest degradation and dwindling forest resources as a prime example. He addresses the issue of chainsaw milling in Ghana , describes how it links rural livelihoods with REDD+, and identifies the low prices and high employment rates as the fundamental drivers behind it.

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Payments for Watershed Ecosystem Services

Understanding how to maximize ability of market mechanisms to increase watershed services while also providing incentives for improved land use in catchment areas .

Overview of China’s Eco-Compensation Programs

Jin Leshan, China Agricultural University

Jin Leshan describes ecocompensation in China in comparison to PES and gives examples of several significant programs occurring in the late 1990s, including natural forest protection programs and natural slope conversion programs. She explains how these programs are voluntary, conditional, and based on negotiation and illustrates how government is central in China’s ecocompensation programs.

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Lessons Learned Facilitating Linkages between ES Providers and Sellers

Dr. Delia Catacutan, from ICRAF/RUPES, takes us through the lessons learned through facilitating linkages between Ecosystem Service providers and sellers.

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Emerging Markets and Market-like Approaches to Watershed Quality

Mark Kieser, Senior Scientist,Kieser & Associates

Mark Kieser gives his presentation from a practical perspective on what it takes for watershed programs to be successful. He explains the basics of ecosystem market framework and discusses the differences between regulated markets and voluntary markets, giving examples of both. Mark concludes by presenting key opportunities in Payment for Watershed Services in the United States, particularly in the Chesapeake Bay and Ohio River bank.

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Biodiversity Markets and Market-Like Instruments

How to get beyond public finance for biodiversity conservation and how markets can be used to achieve more and better cost effective conservation outcomes from infrastructure development.

State of Biodiversity Offsets and Biodiversity Market Instruments

Kerry ten Kate, Director, Business and Biodiversity Offsets Program (BBOP), Forest Trends

Kerry ten Kate discusses potential payments for biodiversity payments and gives basic information on the Business and Biodiversity Offsets Program (BBOP). She emphasizes that various steps need to be taken to avoid biodiversity impacts as much as possible and makes the distinction between biodiversity offsets and PES. Kerry concludes by presenting numerous principles of biodiversity offsets, including no net loss and additionality.

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REDD+ and Biodiversity Conservation

Terry Sunderland, Forests and Livelihoods Programme, CIFOR

Terry Sunderland breaks down the relationship between biodiversity and REDD while giving the history and evolution of REDD itself. He describes how REDD+ works, explaining the co benefits it can provide as well as the potential risks and challenges related to biodiversity. Terry discusses the governments’ role in REDD and explains the various challenges governments face when financing REDD projects.

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Basics of Biodiversity Offsets and Conservation Banking: Lessons from the State of Victoria and Ideas for the South-East Asia Region

Michael Crowe, Government of Victoria, Australia

Michael Crowe goes over policy approaches to biodiversity offsetting while taking a look at three main levels of biodiversity policy. He explains setting standards for biodiversity and stresses the importance of establishing marketplaces where buyers and sellers can come together. Michael ends his presentation by presenting biodiversity in the State of Victoria as a case study.

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Coastal and Marine Markets (Including Mangrove Ecosyste