Secretariat of Montreal Process Relocates to Forestry Agency of Japan in Jan. 2007

The Japanese Forestry Agency announced on January 12, 2007 that the Secretariat of the Montreal Process, an international framework for sustainable forest management, had been transferred to it from the Canadian Forest Service as of January 1, 2007. The Secretariat was originally set up at the Canadian Forest Service, under Natural Resources Canada, in 1994, but in June 2006 the government of Canada expressed its desire to hand over the secretariat functions to another member country. In response, the Forestry Agency of Japan expressed its willingness to take over the role.

The Montreal Process is an international framework that established and now promotes the implementation of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management. It consists of twelve non-European countries that have temperate forests, including Japan, the United States, Canada, Australia, China, Russia, and others. In Montreal in 1993, the twelve participating countries agreed to launch an initiative to develop criteria and indicators based on the Statement of Forest Principles adopted at the Earth Summit in 1992. As a result, seven criteria and 67 indicators of sustainable forest management were adopted in 1995, and the group is currently in a process of reviewing them .

It is hoped that the relocation of the secretariat will raise the Japanese presence in addressing international initiatives in the field of forestry, and also promote further "international partnership for setting rules and regulations of forest management and conservation," as stated in Basic Law for Forest and Forestry of Japan.

http://www.rinya.maff.go.jp/mpci/

Posted: 2007/05/21 09:03:27 AM
Japanese version