Sustainable wood for sustainable world: ATIBT present in Latin-American Dialogue

The Sustainable Wood for a Sustainable World (SW4SW) initiative is an FAO-led joint initiative of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) launched in May 2018 with the objective to strengthen sustainable wood value chains to enhance the generation of social, economic, and environmental benefits contributing to the SDGs.

The importance of sustainable forest production is enlarged by the climate emergency and the alarming imbalance in the consumption of material resources vis-à-vis the natural resources base and the carryout capacity of the planet.

According to SOFO 2022, the annual consumption of natural resources is expected to double until 2060 and 37% increase in global roundwood consumption between 2020 and 2050.

Latin America is the global region with the highest forest area as a proportion of total land and plays a critical role in global wood production. However, is also a region with alarming rates of deforestation and degraded land, and therefore has a strong role to play in nature-based solutions that optimize forest contributions to climate change and the SDGs.

Over the five-year period 2016-2020, production of industrial round wood amounted to 1.2 billion m3 in Latin America. During the same period, the export for sawn wood has increased by 18 percent with the total production value of 154 million m3.

In this context, more then 60 participants from all the region on the SW4SW Dialogue, had as a prime concern to identify priorities for developing sustainable wood value chains capable of contributing to carbon neutrality as well as to the SDG`s; promoting responsible production and consumption patterns; and supporting local producers to comply with steadily growing number of ``due diligence`` regulations to correspond the increased demand for legal and sustainable wood.

According to IBGE recent data for Brazil shows that 96% of wood for local industry comes from planted forests with around 10 million hectares, however Brazil has 500 million hectares of forests. That means that only the 2% of the area is supplying the 96% of local industry.

_SW4SW

The main objectives of the dialogue were:

1. Raise awareness and build capacity to unlock the full potential of sustainable wood value chains’ contributions to the SDGs, in particular poverty eradication, sustainable growth and decent employment, sustainable rural and urban landscapes development, climate neutral economies, and the circular bioeconomy;

2. Promote and share examples of inclusive forest value chains, including their contribution to the bioeconomy and social inclusion;

3. Deliver actionable recommendations and a roadmap to address priorities to strengthen sustainable wood value chains; and

4. Catalyze investments in sustainable wood value chains.

The discussions were divided in 5 thematic areas: The business case for wood from natural forests, increasing production from planted forests, wood in the bioeconomy, governance and policy for SW4SW and finance and investments.

Precious Woods, as a member of ATIBT and with support of the association, represented by Jorge Eke, was part of this relevant dialogue leading the first thematic topic: "The business case for wood from natural forests", in which the following 10 more significant outputs resulted:

1. Landowning control to build trust on the sector.

2. Simplification of government regulation without losing traceability.

3. Processing facilities investment.

4. Credit Lines access.

5. Continues technical assistance.

6. Business mindset and skills development.

7. Creation of processing hubs.

8. Product testing & marketing campaign.

9. Continues participation on international wood fairs.

10. Training on niche & standard market requirement.

The event finalized presenting the outputs of each thematic area on the 17 of October on the plenary from the IUFRO Latina America Summit, where it was also announced the coming global events; including a Global Dialogue SW4SW on February 2024 and the 27th FAO Forest Committee on July 2024.

The presentation is available