Closing Statement by Ikuo Kuroki
Deputy Director-General
Forestry Agency of Japan

on the occasion of
the Fourth Meeting for the Promotion of Asia Forest Partnership

10 December 2004
Yoyogi, Japan

Excellencies,
Distinguished participants,
Ladies and gentlemen,

It is my great pleasure to extend a statement at the closing of this Fourth Meeting for the Promotion of Asia Forest Partnership (AFP) on behalf of the Forestry Agency of Japan, one of the co-hosts of this meeting.

First of all, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to everyone who attended this Meeting for the active participation in the discussions during the past three days. I would also like to extend my sincere gratitude to those who served as meeting officials such as co-chairpersons, rapporteurs, and working-group facilitators, as well as those who made presentations on their respective initiatives and activities, all of whom contributed significantly to making this meeting a meaningful one.

In spite of a very short period of three days, you have discussed a wide range of issues concerning sustainable forest management in Asian region, and tried hard to identify possible courses of action to address them.

Particularly in the area of combating illegal logging, which is one of the major themes of AFP, various activities were discussed including the development of guidelines for the verification of legality of timber, establishment of the means of independent verification for legal origin of timber, and cooperation among customs agencies in major timber trading countries in Asia.

Also, animated discussions were held in working group sessions in the respective areas of forest fire prevention, rehabilitation of degraded lands, establishing good governance, and building capacity.

As a result, a number of new work plans were newly proposed and were agreed on to implement under the collaboration of interested partners. These work plans are the materialization of willingness of AFP partners to voluntarily cooperate in order to promote sustainable forest management in Asia, with the mutual respect among a wide range of countries and organizations. I sincerely hope that these work plans will be steadily put into practice.

Ladies and gentlemen,

In this meeting, we also tried to share with you how Japanese society is endeavoring to contribute to promoting sustainable forest management in Asia.

Particularly as Japan is a country relying heavily on imported timber, there is a keen interest on the part of various segments of the society, not only the government but also the private sector, civil society, and even at the political level, on the sustainability of forest management especially in timber-producing countries. For this reason, Japan is committed to cooperating with concerned countries and organizations, such as in combating illegal logging. For instance, Japan has been making efforts to tackling the issue of illegal logging through various multilateral and bilateral fora including G8 and Japan-Indonesia bilateral framework.

AFP is one of the most important fora for Japan in advancing such efforts, and therefore we would continue our efforts to contribute to the promotion of AFP activities. Also, I shall kindly request your continued support of all AFP partners.

In this respect, I would like to warmly welcome the adoption of the “Announcement on Strengthening the Asia Forest Partnership” which clearly specified the expected role of partners and other matters, as well as the announcement of several new partners to join AFP.

Since AFP was launched at the occasion of WSSD in 2002, the number of partners has been steadily increasing. This fact demonstrates not only that the name of AFP has become popular internationally, but also that AFP has been making progress in tangible terms.

Next year in 2005, four years will be past since AFP’s inception. I sincerely hope that the close and trustful relationship among partners will be strengthened further, and will materialize in the form of concrete outcomes.

Distinguished participants,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Before concluding my remarks, I would like to thank you all again for your active participation in this meeting, and wish you a very pleasant stay in Japan for the remaining period, and your safe trip home. I look forward to seeing you again in the near future.

Thank you very much for your kind attention.

[Top] [Closing Session] [Agenda of AFP4]