International Development: Forestry

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Parminter]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the Department for International Development’s Economic Development Strategy, whether they plan to commit to supporting forest programmes across the globe to improve forest governance and reduce deforestation.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, stopping deforestation is an essential part of global efforts to promote sustainable economic development. DfID already supports programmes focused on governance, tackling illegal logging and related corruption, and working with companies to eliminate deforestation from supply chains for palm oil, cocoa and other commodities. This makes an important contribution to DfID’s economic development strategy.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the work of both this Government and previous Governments in the fight against global deforestation. Given that we are losing an area the size of a football pitch every two seconds, and that deforestation accounts for 10% of our global carbon emissions, will the Minister commit to the fact that the Government will not lose any further funding to take forward this important work?

[Lord Bates]

I am very happy to renew that commitment, particularly on the International Day of Forests. The commitment is there not only in a government statement on such matters, but also in our signing up to the sustainable development goals. Sustainable development goal 15 puts sustainable managed forests, combating deforestation and reversing land degradation at the heart of one of the key goals that need to be attained. The Government are committed to those goals, and through a number of different mechanisms seek to bring them about by 2030.