(Training Report) AFoCO-ITTO Capacity Building Workshop on Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) in the Asia-Pacific Region - Accessing Climate Finance and Carbon Benefits for FLR

(Training Report) AFoCO-ITTO Capacity Building Workshop on Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) in the Asia-Pacific Region – Accessing Climate Finance and Carbon Benefits for FLR

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31 August 2023

[KN2023-002] 979-11-92009-38-4 (electronic copy)

AFoCO Secretariat

Asian Forest Cooperation Organization (AFoCO) and International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) have been jointly organizing capacity-building workshops on Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) in collaboration with partner organizations since 2021. The workshops are targeted at government officials and forestry experts from the Asia-Pacific Region to improve their understanding of the FLR. At its first workshop in 2021, critical FLR principles and guidelines were introduced, and the participating countries recommended ‘Preparing good proposals to Finance FLR projects’ and ‘Successful FLR efforts in the Region’ for the next year’s capacity-building workshop topics.

Emphasizing the benefits of implementing FLR, the second AFoCO-ITTO Capacity Development Workshop on FLR in the Asia-Pacific Region with a focus on “Accessing climate change finance and carbon benefits for FLR” is organized on 28-30 September 2022. Following the workshop, as its post-session, AFoCO RETC organized an intensive discussion by inviting 14 AFoCO Member Parties on 5-7 October 2022 in the Forest and Wildlife Training Center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement pertains to the establishment of compliance markets where climate change mitigation benefits can be traded while ensuring “corresponding adjustment” to ensure that double counting does not occur and global emission reductions are not overestimated. These corresponding adjustment requirements extend beyond compliance markets to the voluntary carbon markets also in cases where demand is driven by the private sector’s voluntary commitments made under the aegis of the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions. Further, Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement establishes a new cooperative framework for carbon trading cooperation among countries in order to meet the carbon neutrality targets announced by various countries.

With an emphasis on FLR implementation benefits, the workshop on “Accessing climate change finance and carbon benefits for FLR” was organized on 28-30 September 2022. The workshop aimed to to enhance an understanding of the role of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement that can play in actively promoting FLR across the world. It further pursues improving the FLR implementors’ knowledge of carbon sequestration in preparing FLR proposals that enhance their chances to access climate change finance available from the Green Climate Fund and other multilateral and bilateral financing agencies.

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