Third Session of the INC-Forests 3

Thursday, February 14 , 2013 7194

The UEF Vice President Piotr Grygier participated in the Third Session
The UEF Vice President Piotr Grygier participated in the Third Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Legally Binding Agreement on Forests in Europe (INC-Forests 3) - 28 January – 1 February 2013 in Antalya, Turkey. The five-day session was attended by 150 participants, including delegates from 35 governments and the European Union (EU), and observers from the government of Japan and 18 regional and international organizations, producer associations and non-governmental organizations. INC-Forests3: continued to revise draft negotiating text for a legally binding agreement (LBA) as revised by INC-Forests2 in September 2012. Two working groups were established and convened on Wednesday to focus on compliance and whether to bring the LBA under the UN umbrella. On Friday afternoon, 1 February, INC-Forests3 was suspended. This followed a decision to reconvene INC-Forests3 from 3-5 April 2013 in Saint Petersburg, the Russian Federation, in order to have additional time to complete key tasks before the convening of the last INC-Forests session, allowed under its mandate, to be held in June in Warsaw, Poland. These key tasks include: the decision on whether to bring the LBA under the UN umbrella; initiating legal scrutiny of the final clauses; negotiating financial and compliance provisions; and deciding on the roadmap for negotiations from Saint Petersburg to the FOREST EUROPE Extraordinary Ministerial Conference slated for late 2013 in Madrid, Spain, where the results of the negotiations will be presented to ministers for possible adoption and opening for signature.