During a high-level summit (of heads of state, ministers, etc.) held in Gabon on 2 March, EFI Director Marc Palahí (Marc Palahí) spoke about developing a sustainable forest bioeconomy that works for both forests and people.
He focused primarily on analysing facts and explaining why an emerging forest bioeconomy offers unprecedented opportunities to decarbonise the economy, while simultaneously creating economic and social value to ensure the sustainability of forest ecosystems.
Forest resources, if managed sustainably, are renewable and inherently circular. Thanks to the latest scientific findings and technologies, wood can be transformed into new bio-based products or integrated into relevant solutions that can replace and ecologically outperform fossil-based products from industrial sectors that are difficult to decarbonise. Examples include engineered wood products that can replace concrete and steel, wood-based textiles, and advanced materials such as nanocellulose.
The European Union accounts for only 4% of the world's forests, yet the European forest sector is responsible for 40% of the value of global forest product exports. The African continent as a whole harvests 54% more wood than the EU, but the value of its forest product exports is 16 times lower – 90% of the harvested wood is used for low-efficiency energy production, such as cooking and heating, or exported as roundwood. This does not provide the right incentive to avoid forest degradation and deforestation. "By using half of the harvested wood for textile production, we could replace all of the polyester currently in use. This would bring great benefits to both the climate and the economy," explained Marc Palahí.
The "One Forest" (One forest) high-level summit in Libreville was announced by French President Emmanuel Macron and Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba during COP27 (in Sharm El Sheikh). Leaders and ministers from three continents gathered in Libreville to make progress on climate and biodiversity conservation, fostering solidarity between the world's three largest forest basins: the Amazon, the Congo Basin, and the tropical forests of Southeast Asia.