Expert Interview with Jack Hurd

Expert Interview with Jack Hurd
Jack Hurd is the Director of The Nature Conservancy’s Regional Forest Program in Asia-Pacific. In this capacity he leads TNC’s regional forest-carbon /REDD+ efforts as well as the USAID-funded Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade (RAFT) Program, a 5-year effort designed to influence the public policies and corporate practices that drive the global trade in forest products. Previously he was the Director of TNC’s Forest Trade Program which addressed the U.S. dimension of this work, and the Conservation Director with TNC's Washington Chapter, overseeing forests, freshwater, grasslands and marine work across the state.

Prior to joining TNC Jack worked in a number of capacities with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in both Asia and Europe: in Washington, DC with Pact, an international development organization and in Bangkok with Thailand's Population and Community Development Association (PDA). Jack holds a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from the University of Washington and a Bachelors of Arts (BA) in Economics from the University of Vermont.

Q: Please describe TNC/RAFT’s approach to promote sustainable forestry and legal timber trade, and its recent development in China and the region:
TNC’s broad approach in Asia Pacific is to advance innovative and sustainable forest management solutions for the benefit of both people and nature. We work with governments, communities, corporations and landowners to protect core forest reserves and to ensure the responsible management of “working forests” that give us timber, jobs, sustainable economies, wildlife habitat, fresh water and a stable climate.

The Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade Program, or RAFT, is a regional program, managed by TNC and implemented together with 6 partner organizations, working in 8 countries including China, with the specific objective of reducing deforestation and forest degradation and thereby CO2 emissions by targeting forest management and trade.

To achieve this objective, the RAFT program does 2 central things:

• We inform the development of policy and market requirements for legal and sustainable forest products; and
• We demonstrate practical responses to these emerging drivers for responsible forest management and trade.

The approach we use to do this effectively includes the following key elements:

• We work as a partnership – We capitalize on existing networks, expertise and resources by strategically bringing together partners working toward a common goal.
• We work across the supply chain - We support and align efforts all along the supply chain that are needed to encourage and put into practice responsible management and trade.
• We connect policy and practice – We inform regulators and market players with practical findings and help turn positive drivers into improvements on the ground.

In China specifically, our focus under RAFT has been 3-fold:

• Working to facilitate cooperation between the Chinese State Forestry Administration (SFA) and the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry (MoF) and various United States Government (USG) agencies under a series bilateral MoUs concerning cooperation in combating illegal trade of forest products.
• Building industry awareness of and capacity to comply with policy and market requirements for legal and sustainable products, through trainings, providing support to achieve independent chain of custody certification and events such as the upcoming Forests, Markets, Policy & Practice – China 2010 conference Sept 7&8 in Beijing.
• Working with the Beijing-based Asia Pacific Network for Sustainable Forest Management and Rehabilitation (APFNet) in the development of a long-term strategy to strengthen human resources and institutional capacity in forest management and the governance of the forest products industry throughout Asia-Pacific

Q: What are the opportunities and roadblocks you see in this process?
There are 2 major opportunities right now that are increasing the demand for the kind practical solutions TNC and the RAFT partnership provide:

• Emerging policy and market requirements for legal and sustainable forest products
• Recognition of the importance of improved forest management in REDD+ negotiations and national program planning

It should be noted, however, that there are strong economic and political incentives that continue to support deforestation and forest degradation activities. Until the net benefits of legal and sustainable forest management are greater than those for illegal or unsustainable forest management the former will remain the exception rather than the standard business practices in the forest sector in Asia.

Q: What efforts TNC/RAFT and its members have taken to address these opportunities and challenges?
We are doing a lot of different things, but I will highlight a couple specific efforts that are very closely linked to the opportunities and challenges mentioned above:

• Lacey Act – TNC along with RAFT partners and others worked very hard to bring about the 2008 amendments to the US Lacey Act which make have made it illegal in the US to import, sell or trade in illegally harvested wood and wood products for the first time. Now that the amendments are law, we are working with the US government and both governments and the private sector in producing and processing countries in Asia, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, to raise awareness of what US buyers require. RAFT has developed materials and a training series to provide producers and processors with the information they need to protect their market access by maintaining compliance with domestic laws. We are also working with the partners in the EU and Australia to keep the industry in this region up to speed on emerging legality requirements in these 2 major markets and to strengthen the message that this trend of more stringent requirements for legal and sustainable wood products really is global.
• Quantifying CO2 emissions reductions achievable through improved forest management – We know from our research with concessions in Indonesia that large unnecessary emissions are occurring directly as a result of poor management practices on the ground. The emission reduction potential from improved management practices, such as Reduced Impact Logging and High Conservation Value Forest set-asides is significant, on the order of 30-50%. Research to quantify specific reductions achieved in the concessions we are working with is ongoing. This will help strengthen the case that improving forest management practices is a necessary and viable component of a comprehensive REDD+ strategy. At the same time we are supporting experimentation with low carbon technologies in the forest by working with concessionaires in Indonesia to test a monocable winch system which is one example of a RIL technique which reduces emissions and operating costs, creates jobs and enables timber extraction with minimal damage to the surrounding environment.

There are 2 of a whole suite of activities that you can get more information about from our staff and website (www.responsibleasia.org), as well as from our partners.

Q: What are the impacts of these efforts on the forest products industry (in China and internationally)?
The development of policies (e.g. Lacey Amendments, SVLK or Indonesia’s TLAS) – TNC and RAFT partners have been directly involved in encouraging and informing the development of several of the policies introduced to promote trade in legal and sustainable forest products. We can see from a recent study conducted by Chatham House (http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/16979_0710bp_illegallogging.pdf) that policies introduced in consumer countries have been effective at reducing illegal logging and trade. These efforts have combined with efforts in producer and processor countries, and followed by the private sector, to protect up to 17 million hectares (42 million acres) of forest from degradation and to avoid at least 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide in recent years.

Hectares of tropical forest in Asia certified – By the end of 2011, RAFT will have supported FSC certification of 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) of tropical forest in Asia, with another 2 million hectares (4.94 million acres) in a stepwise approach working toward independent certification. This supports producers in Asia to maintain and expand their access to major international markets. At the same time, this creates the supply that international buyers need to comply with their laws and meet growing demand.

The overall trend we are seeing of countries all along the supply chain putting in place more stringent and enforceable requirements for legal and sustainable products is an impact that all of the organizations working in this area have helped bring about. This has created significant opportunities and incentives for regulators and market players that reinforce and better enable us to advance our work on the ground. I look forward to seeing impacts of this new enabling environment over the next decade.

Q: What are your strategic recommendations and thoughts for moving forward?
Work to support improved forest management and trade practices is a necessary and effective part of the solution to deforestation and forest degradation in Asia. And, it presents one of the most straightforward and cost-effective ways to reduce global CO2 emissions, with potential reductions of 30-50% when compared with conventional logging, which is still the norm in many places. Globally, we cannot ignore this possibility. If our goals are to preserve the multiple functions of healthy tropical forests in Asia and to harness the contribution of forests to global efforts to maintain a healthy global atmosphere and climate, focusing on improved forest management presents the most strategic way forward.

Policy and market requirements are an effective way to bring about changes on the ground when they are well informed and supported with feasible practical responses for business. It will be important for producing, processing and consuming countries to follow the lead of the EU member states and the US, specifically, Australia, China, Japan and Vietnam.