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And their key performance target for ‘Forest management and restoration’ is “CIFOR’s research contributes to the restoration of 30 million hectares of degraded forests (including 1 million hectares in peat-swamp forests and mangroves)” (Our emphasis on ‘restoration’). Sadly, certified legal, deforestation-free logging is still as destructive as ever it was. This isn’t just CIFOR. There is a dangerous consensus emerging around forgetting about the impacts of industrial logging in degrading intact forests while priority is given to stopping deforestation and restoration. As we know all too well in Australia, at the landscape scale, clearfelling and re-establishment in the name of socalled sustainable forest management is all but indistinguishable from deforestationand restoration—leavingusfrustratedandbemused as to why folk aresohappy togoaftermajorindustrial commodities like oil palm, sugar, soya beans and beef but seem scared to similarly go after wood. Congress in Sydney later in 2014 which Australia then parlayed into the Global Rainforest Rescue Initiative launched in the margins of the Paris climate meeting. In response, HSI has joined an initiative called ‘IntAct—a small band of environmental NGOs trying to remind the world that there’s not much intact forest left in many parts of the world and holding onto what’s left is an urgent priority—for both biodiversity conservation and carbon store protection. Today, we’re but a small voice in the wilderness, but … People seem scared to go after wood As one would expect with this undue focus on deforestation at the expense of forest degradation, a 2015 FAO Report noted that, while emissions attributable to deforestation might have gone down by 25% from 1990 to 2015, emissions attributable to forest degradation (mainly logging of intact forests) have doubled. Meanwhile estimates by leading scientists on which the UK’s Prince of Wales’ International Sustainability Unit based its 2015 This reluctance to take on the industrial wood commodity trade, despite its destructiveness, has been emerging for some years. In 2014, the New York Declaration on Forests first clearly articulated this ‘stop deforestation—restore degraded landscapes —ignore protection of intact forests’ agenda. This refrain was then picked up by the Australia-led Asia-Pacific Rainforest Rescue Initiative adopted in the margins of the World Parks Report, ‘Tropical Forests—A Review’, indicate that emissions from tropical forest degradation, alone, are now more or less equal to emissions from deforestation—at about 1 gigatonne/year of carbon each. Remarkably, combined emissions from forest clearing and logging amount to an incredible 20% of total global emissions from all sources, including burning fossil fuels. It makes no sense to ignore such a big part of the problem. UNFCCC Paris COP Agreement, Articles 5 and 6 Article 5 1. Parties should take action to conserve and enhance, as appropriate, sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases as referred to in Article 4, paragraph 1(d), of the Convention, including forests. 2. Parties are encouraged to take action to implement and support, including through results-based payments, the existing framework as set out in related guidance and decisions already agreed under the Convention for: policy approaches and positive incentives for activities relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries; and alternative policy approaches, such as joint mitigation and adaptation approaches for the integral and sustainable management of forests, while reaffirming the importance of incentivizing, as appropriate, noncarbon benefits associated with such approaches. Article 6 (part only) 1. Parties recognize that some Parties choose to pursue voluntary cooperation in the implementation of their nationally determined contributions to allow for higher ambition in their mitigation and adaptation actions and to promote sustainable development and environmental integrity. 2. Parties shall, where engaging on a voluntary basis in cooperative approaches that involve the use of internationally transferred promote sustainable development and ensure environmental integrity and transparency, including in governance, and shall apply robust accounting to ensure, inter alia, the avoidance of double counting, consistent with guidance adopted by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement. 3. The use of internationally transferred mitigation outcomes to achievenationallydeterminedcontributionsunderthisAgreement shall be voluntary and authorized by participating Parties. 4. A mechanism to contribute to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and support sustainable development is hereby established under the authority and guidance of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement for use by Parties on a voluntary basis. It shall be supervised by a body designated by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement, and shall aim: a) To promote the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions while fostering sustainable development; b) To incentivize and facilitate participation in the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions by public and private entities authorized by a Party; c) To contribute to the reduction of emission levels in the host Party, which will benefit from mitigation activities resulting in emission reductions that can also be used by another Party to fulfil its nationally determined contribution; and d) To deliver an overall mitigation in global emissions. Alistair Graham and Peg Putt represent HSI at UNFCCC negotiations, focussing on the finalisation and implementation ofREDD. HSI has been involved in climate and forest talks before and including the UNFCCC Bali Road Map meeting. Our work includes the establishment of the global Ecosystem Climate Alliance and production of eight climate change and forest Special Bulletins tabled at various UNFCCC sessions, downloadable at: hsi.org.au/go/to/25/climate-change 3