The tenth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP 10) successfully concluded on October 21 after 12 days of deliberations. With 6,450 delegates and participants from 161 country Parties out of 194 member Parties, the UNCCD COP 10 marked the largest COP ever. High-profile individuals including Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, President of the 66th Session of the UN General Assembly, Mr. Sha Zukang, UN Under-Secretary General for Economic Social Affairs, Ahmed Djoghlaf, CBD Executive Secretary, and ministers and vice-ministers from 83 country Parties also attended the COP 10.



In terms of preparation, organization and logistics, this COP 10 is judged to be a great success. With the COP 10 Presidency for the next two years, the Republic of Korea shares a great responsibility of leading the implementation of the Convention in the international community.



One of the greatest achievements of the COP 10 lies in the fact that the Republic of Korea has improved its national standing. The country is taking a leadership role by successfully hosting a Conference of the Parties of one of the three Rio Conventions. The international community has also recognized Korea's successful forest restoration. Until 50 years ago, Korea suffered from severe forest degradation, but the country successfully transformed its barren mountains into lush green forests alongside achieving economic development in a very short period of time. This has set an example to the world, especially for the developing countries.



"Degraded lands are not dead lands. They are sick lands in need of stewardship." said Dr. Don Koo Lee, President of the UNCCD COP 10 and Minister of the Korea Forest Service (KFS). Minister Lee also emphasized the importance of capacity building and said that the Republic of Korea plans to further disseminate its experience to the international community and promote capacity building of developing countries.



According to the Korea Forest Service, more than 20 countries requested bilateral meetings during the two weeks, and it is notable that most of these countries have never had ties with the Republic of Korea in forest cooperation in the past. This significantly contributed to widening the scope of Korea's forest diplomacy. These countries are: Republic of Congo, Oman, Turkey, Benin, Algeria, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Iran, Tanzania, India, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Jordan, Lebanon, Eritrea, Vanuatu and Dominica.



The Changwon Initiative, the Greatest Outcome of the COP 10

The UNCCD COP 10 sent a strong signal to the world on the issues of land degradation, calling support for implementing a mechanism to provide international, interdisciplinary scientific advice to the UNCCD along with political support. The High-Level segment agreed on an important message to be conveyed to the Rio+20, United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.



In particular, the international community welcomed and supported the adoption of the Changwon Initiative proposed by the Republic of Korea. It was highly commended that the Changwon Initiative provided an action-oriented approach towards reversing and preventing desertification, land degradation and drought, further stimulating international action and cooperation.



Dr. Lee said, "The UNCCD COP 10 marks a landmark in the Convention process through promoting activities of all stakeholders based on forging a strong partnership, further capitalizing on the potential of the UNCCD implementation process." Lee also said that the Changwon Initiative intends to complement activities being undertaken in line with The Strategy (10-year strategic plan and framework to enhance the implementation of the Convention, 2008-2018) and in accordance with COP 10 decisions.



Main components of the Changwon Initiative include: 1) enhancing the scientific process of the UNCCD, 2) mobilizing additional resources and facilitating partnership arrangements and 3) supporting a global framework for the promotion of best practices: the Land for Life Award.



At the COP 9 in 2007, by its decision to initiate The Strategy, the Parties spelt out the strategic objectives formulated to guide the actions of all stakeholders and partners of the UNCCD for the next ten years. However, it lacks a global target towards building a land degradation neutral world. The UNFCCC has set the specific target of 2 degrees Celsius and the CBD has developed the 2010 Biodiversity Target, but the UNCCD has not set targets with regard to achieving global targets towards "zero net land degradation".

This has driven implementation of the Convention low. The current scientific process such as identification of baselines and measurements, however, is not robust enough to set certain targets. Thus, components of the Changwon Initiative prioritize long-term target setting and support for organizing scientific advice.



In fact, mitigation of desertification and land degradation requires a great deal of human and financial resources and technologies. These required resources are relatively limited under the UNCCD, compared to those of other Rio Conventions. In this context, the Changwon Initiative suggests forging a strong partnership for combating desertification, controlling dust and sandstorms, and promoting forest restoration activities.



While the Republic of Korea holds the presidency of the UNCCD COP10 for the next two years, we will exert every effort in promoting international cooperation on implementing decisions of the COP10. In line with the Changwon Initiative, the KFS had proposed a MOU on Northeast DLDD Network, and the MOU among China, Mongolia and Korea was signed on October 18. Furthermore, another MOU on Greening Drylands Partnership for Green Growth was concluded between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), UNCCD and KFS on the margin of the COP10. A pilot project will take off next year under this tripartite MOU. This Partnership will be in operation till 2015 with the aim of reducing desertification, land degradation and drought (DLDD) through plantation and forest restoration in drylands and thereby contributing to economic growth and national development.



It’s third component, "The Land for Life Award" and aims to emulate proactive sustainable land management (SLM) initiatives at all levels of the society. It acknowledges SLM-related actions of individuals, teams, institutions, businesses, research institutes, public offices, political leaders, decision makers, etc., that have brought visible change towards sustainable development in the affected ecosystems. This Award is expected to significantly contribute to the implementation of the Convention. Many renowned institutes including the Qatar National Food Security Programme, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Global Environmental Facility, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature showed their interests in sponsoring this Award. The Executive Secretary of the UNCCD, Mr. Luc Gnacadja expressed his wishes at the UNCCD COP10 that the Land for Life Award will be instrumental in encouraging more countries and other international organizations to join hands in prevention of desertification and land degradation, following the patch opened by the Republic of Korea.



Establishment of Asian Forest Cooperation Organization, a strong backing for the Changwon Initiative

Following Korea's proposal for the establishment of the Asian Forest Cooperation Organization (AFoCO), a process has led to conclusion of the Agreement. AFoCO will be established next year with a legal identify of regional organization for forestry cooperation in Asia. It is expected to fulfill the objectives of strengthening forest cooperation for climate change adaptation and pursuing green growth. Through implementation of the AFoCO, Korea can enhance its capacity and extend its efforts on forest cooperation. Further, the Korea Forest Service will carry out follow-ups of the Changwon Initiative, sharing its forest rehabilitation technologies and experiences under the AFoCO.



The AFoCO aims to foster capacity-building of member countries to address regional issues including climate change and desertification, and to undertake its practical projects and performance-based management. The agreement between the Republic of Korea and ASEAN Member States is set to be concluded this year. Cooperation projects for climate change adaptation and human resources development will soon be in process of implementation with the budget of 2 million USD.



The AFoCO presents a vision of becoming an influential organization which can build bridges of understanding between developed and developing countries. To that end, the AFoCO will encompass extended cooperation areas with other Asian countries including Mongolia and Nepal, and share Korea’s internationally recognized forest restoration technologies with more countries.



Mr. Lee Myung-bak, President of the Republic of Korea, proposed the establishment of the AFoCO at the ASEAN-ROK Commemorative Summit which took place in Jeju Island in June, 2009. In his statement at the opening of the 23 session of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, he further urged the need for sharing Korea's forest restoration technologies through establishing such an organization.



Launching of ‘The SLM Business Forum’ opens door to the private sectors

A number of various attempts were made at this first UNCCD COP held in Asia. ‘The SLM Business Forum’ was launched to gather opinions on the agenda of ‘Responsibility of businesses and establishment of public-private cooperation on sustainable land management'.



The Republic of Korea, in its capacity as the COP 10 President, led the Forum and encouraged to mobilize financial and technological resources from private sectors alongside inter-government efforts to support activities to reverse and prevent desertification and land degradation and mitigate the effects of drought. The Forum opens doors to the business community to make contributions with technological and financial support in affected areas. It is also expected to offer new investment opportunities in the related area.



The idea is that businesses can contribute to combating desertification and at the same time, they can also seek profit in a new market, further enhancing the national standing. The first session convened during the High-level segment (HLS) from October 17 to 18 due to its high significance.

As the Forum was suggested by the Republic of Korea, it saw active participation from many domestic corporations. Seventy-seven domestic corporations including Yuhan Kimberly, Ltd., Hyundai Motor Company, SK Forest as well as overseas firms such as Elion Resources Group from China, CSFD from France and Cargill Korea joined the Forum.





The Forum Chairman and president of New Paradigm Institute, Mr. Kook Hyun Moon, said that "the Business Forum will be permanently run from now on and the second session will be held at the Rio+20 Summit next year." He added that "the Forum will run permanently and consistently grow up to having 1,000 business participants until 2015."



UNCCD COP 10 goes digital with use of Tablet PC and introduces official tour courses

KFS distributed Tablet PCs to the delegates during the COP10 period with an effort to creating a paperless Conference. Korea’s Information Technologies converged with environment-friendly program and received positive responses from participants. Seeing this as a great success, the Secretariat of the UNCCD requested continued assistance.



In addition, the KFS has instituted the Carbon Neutrality Program from the beginning to mitigate emission of carbon dioxide released during the COP10 by 100%. In collaboration with Gyeongnam Province, co-organizer and host of the conference venue, tree-planting activity will be implemented until 2015 in China and Mongolia to reduce 340 tons of carbon dioxide which was emitted during the Conference. Furthermore, the Carbon-offsetting Fund Booth operated in the venue. It encouraged participants to estimate the amount of carbon dioxide which they emitted while traveling to participate in the Conference and guided them to contribute voluntarily. This fund will be used in activities to combat desertification and land degradation in the near future.



KFS ran official tour courses for the participants on Sunday, 15 October when no meetings or side events were scheduled. Total of 360 people joined 9 tour courses and had a chance to enjoy the nature and appreciated cultural legacies of Korea.



In particular, the Hadong course which featured visits to the Erosion Control Commemoration Park in Pohang city, where the successful work of reversing land degradation in Korea was exhibited, and Buddhist temples in Gyeongju city, was very popular among the participants. At the Erosion Control Commemoration Park, Minister Lee joined the tour and explained that the work of erosion control in Korea is a role model of public-private cooperation which converts degraded land into green forests by introducing Korea's greening technology. Many African delegates showed big interests in Korea's natural environment and traditional culture while looking around temples and mountain scenery with brilliant fall foliage of red and yellow.



Mr. Luc Gnacadja, the Executive Secretary of the UNCCD said, "It was very impressive to have the official tour courses organized for the first time". He also added, "I would like to suggest arranging similar tour courses for the future conferences to come after discussing the matter with the Secretariat."