Happy New Year from the International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation
Last weekend, I attended the China Council for International Cooperation for Environment and Development (CCICED) as delegate and international Member. This is a first for INBAR, and the first time that I attended the Council as a full member.
I have been at CCICED meetings before; the first time many years ago when UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner attended as then IUCN Director-General, and I was a member of the support team from the IUCN Asia Regional Office. Last year, I attended as a special guest, but this time I was fully engaged. I spoke at several sessions and moderated the discussion about green investments along the Belt and Road.
This is an auspicious time for the Council. With the change of tone in Washington DC after the election of US President Donald Trump, and the direction provided by China President Xi Jinping during the 19th Party Congress, China is reaching out to the wider world. The Belt and Road Initiative that was launched earlier this year, is a clear example of the new role that China intends to play as world leader for sustainable development. CCICED is looking at ways and means to “green the Belt and Road”, and the discussion that I moderated was part of this.
I have attended the Belt and Road launch earlier this year, and was struck at that time by the fact that President Xi stressed the point that all developments along the Belt and Road should be green, and that sustainable development was more important than pure economic development. He has embellished on this during his speech at the Party Congress, and the concept of Eco-Civilisation is now embedded in China’s domestic and international policy.
I first learned about Eco-Civilisation during the Eco-Forum Global(EFG) in Guiyang in 2015, and again in 2016. INBAR was present at the EFG to talk about our experiences in South-South Cooperation, and to explain how bamboo and rattan play a role in sustainable development. Eco-Civilisation is sustainable development with a Chinese flavor, adding cultural and political considerations to the common three components of sustainable development. Eco-Civilization is a balance between economic development, social considerations, nature conservation, cultural heritage and the political framework.
The over-arching message is to work with nature in order to deal with the big challenge of society, and this is a message that INBAR has been sharing for years. We have published a report about our experience together with the UN Office for South-South Cooperation. During the recent South-South Development Expo in Antalya, Turkey, I was very proud to launch this publication, together with UN Special Envoy for South-South Cooperation Jorge Chediek.
Jorge Chediek and Hans Friederich
The report is an amazing record of some of the successes that INBAR achieved during the past decades, which are all about working between our Members. Currently, there are 43 governments that have ratified the INBAR Establishment Agreement, with Brazil the latest. We raised the Brazil flag during the 20th Anniversary celebrations on 6 November 2017 – just over one month ago. Cambodia and Timor Leste have formally announced that they want to become Members, and Fiji has indicated that it is very interested as well, so we may have 46 Members by the end of 2018. What we are still lacking is members in Europe, and I continue to talk with friends and colleagues in European Capitals and Embassies of European nations in Beijing about the relevance of what INBAR stands for.
This brings me back to the CCICED, and China’s role in the international sustainable development arena. When I was in Kew Royal Botanical Gardens earlier this year in June to launch the Global Checklist of Bamboo and Rattan, the representative from the Embassy of PR China to the UK made the point that the historical Silk Road started in Beijing and ended in London. This logic is currently also applied to the new Belt and Road Initiative, and it was repeated by Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond yesterday during his visit to China. It would therefore make sense for Europe to join INBAR as well.
The role of China in the wider world was stressed again during the keynote speech at CCICED by Minister for Environmental Protection Li Ganjie, who made the point that China will assume its international environmental responsibilities. This followed similar statements during the 23rd Conference of Parties of the Climate Change Convention in Bonn last November, where China stressed that it will continue to fulfill its obligations under the Paris Agreement, and that it will play a strong role in global climate change mitigation and adaptation discussions. I had the pleasure of meeting the former China Climate Change negotiator Xie Zhenhua during COP23, and we discussed bamboo benefits for climate change.
China Climate Negotiator Xie Zhenhua
When the international role of China is discussed, I always make the point that the nation also leads in the development of a global bamboo community, both for environmental and climate action objectives as well as the manufacturing of low-carbon products. I realise it is a niche-market, but it is an important niche that is worth USD 30 Billion in China alone, and which could grow rapidly around the tropics with political will, financial support and targeted capacity building. We have just been informed that INBAR is now recognised as Observer to the United Nations General Assembly, and this will provide me with a platform from where I can raise awareness at the highest political level of the benefits that bamboo and rattan can bring to help countries reach their Sustainable Development Goals.
2017 was a good year for INBAR, and 2018 promises to be an equally important year, as we will host the global Bamboo and Rattan Congress from 25 to 27 June 2018 (BARC2018). That will be an opportunity to highlight some of the recent innovations and developments and we hope to agree on several new partnerships and launch a few new joint programmes of work.
Let me take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year
Happy New Year from the INBAR Headquarters
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