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Regional Forestry Cooperation
DAFF collaborates with Australia's regional neighbours to shape and manage key forestry issues by participating in regional forums such as:
- Association of Southeast Asian Nations
- Asia Forest Partnership
- Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
- Asia Pacific Forestry Commission
- Forest Law Enforcement and Governance – East Asia and Pacific
Australia and Indonesia
Forestry was included as an area for cooperation at the June 2006 Australia-Indonesia Working Group on Agriculture and Food Cooperation (WGAFC) meeting.
The purpose of the working group is to maximise opportunities and increase and strengthen cooperation between Australia and Indonesia on trade and investment in food, agriculture and forestry.
The second meeting of the Forestry Taskforce was held on the 26 August 2008 in Surakarta, Central Java. Discussions were held on the role of the Forestry Taskforce in:
- forest conservation projects
- plantation management including fire management
- carbon investment opportunities
- combating illegal logging
- cooperation in international fora concerning sustainable forest management.
The next WGAFFC meeting will be held in Australia in 2009.
Australia and Malaysia
The Malaysia-Australia Agricultural Cooperation Working Group met in Putra Jaya in August 2007 and agreed to consider expanding the role of the Working Group to include forestry issues.
Australia and Korea
The Korea-Australia Forestry Cooperative Committee (KAFCC) meets approximately every two years. DAFF and the Korea Forest Service formed the Cooperative Committee in 1997.
KAFCC is an effective medium for developing closer cooperation between Korea and Australia on forestry issues such as research, investment and trade. Australia is particularly interested in working with Korea to establish stronger commercial links between our respective forest and wood products sectors.
Four meetings have been held to date. Australia and Korea have alternated in holding KAFCC meetings since the first meeting was held in September 1998 in Korea. The fourth meeting of the KAFCC was held in Canberra on 7 May 2007 and produced the following key outcomes:
- agreement to hold an investment workshop in Korea on investment opportunities in Australian plantations and export opportunities for Australian forest products to Korea
- agreement to hold a discussion on forest certification following the workshop
- agreement to arrange an exchange of forestry professionals between Korea and Australia.
The next KAFCC meeting will be held in May 2009 in Korea.
Australia and China
There are two separate agreements between Australia and China for agricultural cooperation, they are the ACACA and the ATC program. Both agreements have the mutual benefit of enhancing trade opportunities between the two countries.
ACACA was signed in 1984 to:
- enhance cooperation in a wide range of agricultural sectors
- develop agricultural trading relationships
- provide a forum for the exchange of scientific information.
ACACA funded projects have included:
- Cooperation between the NSW Rural Fire Service and the Chinese State Forestry Administration to investigate forest fire management arrangements in fire prone provinces of China (2000)
PDF [195kb] - Introduction of provenances and potted seed orchard techniques for Eucalyptus nitens (2001) PDF [2mb]
- Salt tolerant eucalypts for the dual role of landscape recovery and commercial forestry (2004) PDF [4mb]
- Building capacity between Australia and China on forest certification (2007) PDF [2mb]
In 2008 ACACA will fund a Chinese project to improve the productivity of Eucalyptus, especially cold tolerant eucalypts such as Eucalyptus nitens. As part of this project Australia will host a Chinese delegation from the International Forestry Cooperation Center of the Chinese State Forestry Administration for the Forestry Development of Fujian Province.
The ATC program was signed in December 2005 as a capacity building initiative to further technical exchange with China in sharing agricultural knowledge and skills in a mutually beneficial way.
A forestry project is currently funded by ATC for a Benchmarking Study between China’s draft forest certification scheme and the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes, including comparison to the Australian Forest Certification Scheme.
