The Forest Trust – Expanding Our Forest Conservation Efforts
 
TFT does one thing better than any other organization in the world—it brings Forest Responsible Products to market. TFT works worldwide, and at every level of supply chains that go back to forests, to assure the availability and profitability of products that do not devastate forests, destroy biodiversity or harm indigenous peoples and local communities.

Our mission is urgent: Twenty percent of the world’s carbon emissions, the main contributor to global warming, are caused by tropical deforestation.

Our method is effective: We’ve bought Forest Responsible Products to market by pioneering the introduction of forest responsible management practices into some of the world’s most remote tropical forests. We developed unrivalled competence in tracing and verifying the provenance of wood and wood products and we created communications campaigns to reinforce responsible forest practices with public recognition.

           

For the past 10 years, while focused on tropical forests and wood products, we sharpened our specialized problem-solving skills, business sensibility and first-hand understanding of supply chains.Now we are ready and eager to apply this leadership, experience and knowledge to all types of forests and to the forest footprints of products in non-wood business sectors, such as agriculture, ranching and mining.

To reflect this broadened mission, TFT has changed its name to The Forest Trust from Tropical Forest Trust. Our mission will continue to be driven by three core beliefs:

·To preserve our planet, forests must be maintained as functioning ecosystems that moderate our climate and provide habitats for animals and plants that have a right to exist, and whose existence in their natural state enriches our lives.

·To preserve our humanity, the human rights of forest peoples must be respected as part of a fundamental belief in the worth and dignity of every human being regardless of race, religion, skin color, literacy, or way of life.

·Encouraging and rewarding forest responsible entrepreneurship is the fastest, most effective way to accomplish these objectives.

Here we explain how we intend to expand our efforts to shape a world where the products we create to improve our lives do not destroy our forests and degrade our climate. This is our passion. We welcome partners and donors who share it.

 The History of TFT

The Tropical Forest Trust was established in 1999 (re-named The Forest Trust 2009). At that time, retailers in Europe faced an intractable marketing problem. They were being vilified for selling garden furniture made out of wood from endangered forests. The charges were true, but the problem defied easy solution. TFT worked with retailers and companies at every link in the supply chain. We implemented tracking and traceability systems to assure that wood used for garden furniture was responsibly harvested. And we provided technical assistance to forest managers and forest products manufacturers throughout Southeast Asia. Within two years, 35 factories received traceability certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), and the garden furniture industry was transformed to one using predominantly FSC certified raw materials.The TFT intervention was a game-changing event for the marketing of forest products. It established that sourcing transparency in the supply chain begins not at the factory, but in the forest. It revealed that if consumers demand Forest Responsible Products, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers will find a profitable way to provide them.

Most important, the relentless entrepreneurial quest for profit, which had been the greatest threat to endangered forests, became a powerful agent for improved forestry practices and forest conservation.

TFT has proved that forests are best conserved when the flow of Forest Responsible Products to markets creates wealth for entrepreneurs at all points in the supply chain. We achieve this end by working in collaboration with business, industry, NGOs, local communities, indigenous peoples, governments, and individual experts.Since our founding, TFT has helped bring billions of dollars worth of Forest Responsible Products to market, while protecting more than four million hectares of tropical forest. The original seven-member organization has grown to more than 100 members and donors who support Forest Responsible Product initiatives in 10 countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Our history has prepared us to broaden our mission and our proven approach—good wood, good business—to all types of forests and to any business sector with a forest footprint.


                 

 Why Now?

For two reasons: First, the clock is ticking. The problems of global deforestation and climate change are urgent and the timeframe for fixing them is limited.

Second, a comprehensive regulatory framework is emerging, but not quickly enough. We are rapidly approaching the point of no return. Every year we humans cut down 13 million hectares of tropical forests, an area about 6 times the size of Wales. Extreme deforestation releases billions of tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and disrupts the natural absorption of carbon dioxide that trees provide during photosynthesis. The excessive gas traps heat in the atmosphere, contributing to the greenhouse effect and causing climate change.Since the advent of industrialization, in the mid-1700s, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere has increased by about 30 percent. It continues to increase by about 5 percent annually. Without remediation, climate change could become irreversible in only two decades. Saving forests is the key to solving this problem. Improving forestry and agricultural practices in developing countries offers the greatest opportunity for lowering carbon dioxide emissions and slowing climate change.

 The Regulatory Framework

There is general agreement that approaches for mitigating global greenhouse gas emissions need to be negotiated into a new Kyoto Protocol. However, there is much disagreement about the specifics, especially around forests. In the absence of a global accord on global warming, individual citizens and families are seeking solutions, private organizations are taking action and governments are acting unilaterally. These forces are making retailers and others in supply chains that lead back to forests more inclined to source and sell only Forest Responsible Products. That’s good news. Markets are a much more rapid way to make conservation progress— forest-by-forest, market-by-market, supply chain-by-supply chain. But progress is slow. And even when a global regulatory framework is in place, an organization will need to be out in the bush putting policy into practice

              
 Why TFT?

We have worked in the bush for the past 10 years. We’ve seen the illegal industry up close and we know what motivates entrepreneurs to break laws; there are enormous profits to be made from forest destruction. We know that attempts to save forests through policies and laws struggle to have any impact whatsoever and generally fail to silence the chain saws and bulldozers. Machines are only the instruments of forest destruction.The real killer is demand. Laws and policies to regulate cutting are well-intended, but slow, inefficient and poorly enforced. Endangered forests will continue to disappear as long as their disappearance is a source of profit.The most effective solution is to reorganize markets that impact endangered forests. Profits should be made for managing these forests responsibly, not for destroying them. Step one is to choke off demand for products from destroyed forests. Lack of demand will lead to lack of supply. Step two is to increase demand for Forest Responsible Products by end-users and at every link in the supply chain. Step three is to get out in the bush—in forests, on farms, at the frontier where forests are impacted—to help land managers to be forest responsible in their practices.This market-driven model is what TFT does and it works. It works faster and more effectively than regulations. We’ve proven that. Along with transforming the Vietnamese garden furniture industry, TFT’s significant achievements include:

· Qualifying the first forests in Peninsula Malaysia, Laos, and the Republic of Congo for FSC certification, which we believe is a Forest Responsible Product prerequisite.

· Implementing innovations to help communities more effectively and profitably manage the forests upon which they depend including qualifying the first community teak operation in Indonesia for FSC certification.

· Establishing control systems that exclude illegal wood from the factories of TFT members in Indonesia, Vietnam, and China.

· Involving indigenous peoples in forest management decision-making in Peninsula Malaysia, Indonesia and the Republic of Congo.

· Establishing a framework for sustainable natural tropical forest management in Southeast Asia.

 Making the Leap

We intend to increase our impact on sustainable forest management from four million hectares to 100 million hectares over the next five years. To achieve this ambitious goal, we will broaden our focus beyond wood to specific products that have a forest footprint. While logging is a major cause of deforestation, it’s not the primary cause. That distinction belongs to agriculture. Large swaths of forest are cleared to cultivate soy used as feed for the chickens and pigs raised for human consumption. Similarly, forests are cleared and converted to palm plantations to supply the palm oil found in 10 percent of supermarket products. Endangered forests also are destroyed to provide pasture land for cattle grazing. In addition to the impact of industrialized agriculture, the roads and facilities built by other industries, such as mining, threaten forests and negatively impact climate.

              
 Implementation

Implementing this strategy of addressing all products with a forest footprint will require expanding some current activities and introducing new ones:

1. Assume greater forest management control. We will continue to build our portfolio of clients that trade in wood products. And we will continue to offer them technical advice. At the same time, we will more often take an active forest management role. While the advisory approach has the advantage of putting in place local forest responsible management, it can be too slow and inefficient, especially when the local workforce lacks basic business skills. Time is the highest imperative.

2. Create new frameworks for forest responsibility. As we accept clients from non-wood businesses with a forest footprint, we will create the necessary definitions and structures required to bring Forest Responsible Products to market.We will determine what constitutes a Forest Responsible Product in those businesses. This process, for example, means agreeing to a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification equivalent for palm and soy production. And we will work out the supply chain details to bring newly certified Forest Responsible Products to market.

3. Raise consumer awareness. We will communicate with consumers to make the case for Forest Responsible Products and to increase demand at retail so that it reverberates throughout the supply chain all the way back to the forest. A well-conceived and implemented communication program can convince consumers to take responsibility for the impact their purchase decisions have on the earth’s forests and climate.“Is this product Forest Responsible?” is a powerful question for a consumer to ask. Ensuring the answer is “Yes” will force retailers to bring transparency to existing supply chains. Based on what transparency reveals, retailers will need to take rapid action to transform their business model and the supply chains that feed it.Creating and executing a consumer campaign is a large and expensive undertaking. It will require significant additional resources as well as the cooperation of leading NGOs and our business clients.

4. Expand The Climate Tree initiative. The Climate Tree gives individuals, organizations and people within organizations the opportunity to choose, support and engage with their own bespoke forest conservation program through TFT projects that work with communities and land managers around the world. The Climate Tree initiative enables all businesses, and any individual, to take an active role in protecting the earth’s forests even if their own forest footprint is indirect or even negligible.


 

The Climate Tree is different from carbon offset programs in a fundamental way. In carbon offset programs, businesses in effect pay a tax on their carbon emissions. That tax may fund green power projects or other environmentally-positive efforts, but the businesses do not necessarily reduce their own carbon footprint.

In contrast, The Climate Tree partners do reduce their own carbon footprint. Carbon offset schemes may assuage consciences; The Climate Tree project abates carbon emissions.

The Climate Tree expands the reach of TFT, enabling the organization to promote forest responsibility in all business sectors and to increase the number of potential donors who support the organization’s programs.

Virgin Balloons are our newest organization, joining Virgin Media amoung our Climate Tree partners.

We will continue to work in the forests that we know best, the major tropical forest regions, such as the Amazon, Southeast Asia, and the Congo Basin where we already are working. We will expand into new tropical regions where we’re currently not working, such as Papua New Guinea and Central America.We also believe that a large proportion of those 100 million hectares will come from forests in Russia and China, where there is an increasing demand for TFT’s services. Currently, a lot of timber from Russia’s eastern forests is being harvested poorly or illegally and transported to China for manufacturing into products destined for the United States and Europe.At the same time, we will extend our existing program in the US where we’re helping family forest owners, often with large forest holdings, to achieve FSC certification.