As Africa enters the 21st century, many developmental challenges are encountered across the continent. Among them, the goal of achieving sustainable use of natural resources – especially forests - must remain in sharp focus and be addressed in a multi-prong approach. To better capture the role of forestry education and training on the continent, four key elements must be underpinned. First, the current status and future developments of the forestry profession must be placed in a historical context, traced back to early colonial influences, which, out of necessity, learnt and draw heavily on experiences from temperate region forestry. The consequence of a temperate region orientation of forestry training in Africa was a rather “narrow-scope” view of forestry adopted by colleges and universities. Arising from historical factors, the second aspect is that, with time, a largely public sector job market for which forestry education was targeted, shrunk and hence caused panic and “a diminished regard” of forestry as a profession among young potential foresters. The diminished job market in the forest sector has engendered an urgent need to re-engineer innovative means to make forestry attractive. This has called for many possible options: some forward-looking and others rather drastic. In some cases, forestry schools within countries or regions have used curriculum reforms to diversify or refocus their training programmes and, in other cases, funding to forestry education institutions has suffered major cut-backs which have seriously affected student enrolments. The dynamism between the apparent low public investment in forest education and declining numbers of students due to poor job markets creates a rather complex web making it difficult to pin-point the precise factors responsible for and/or driving actual status and future direction of forestry education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Thirdly, the past two decades saw a fundamental global paradigm shift in which empowerment of local populations in relation to management of natural resources – including forests – emerged as a dominant theme. Forests are seen in terms of broad multiple values and contributing directly to rural livelihood systems, and also seen as an integral component of land use and tenure regimes. It is this socio-economic mix of land resources that characterises the unique features of forestry in Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, impacts of globalisation and trade liberalisation, the existence or lack of local and international markets for forest products, poverty and impacts of the devastating HIV/AIDS pandemic, all affect management of forests and other natural resources in the African landscape. Therefore, current forestry education and training must respond sufficiently to these emerging issues – not merely in a narrow sectoral manner, but rather through an integrated training approach of natural resources management disciplines. This calls for well fashioned and innovative approaches to forestry training curricula vis-à-vis that for other land use disciplines. We must seek to ensure that training approaches used lead to adoption of technologies in the larger agricultural sector that have beneficial impacts on Africa’s rural populations – it is imperative that tertiary training institutions produce agents of this change. Until recently, forestry training has remained largely traditional but there is now evidence of change taking place within institutions. This trend would need to be advanced and aggressively pursued so that forestry education on the continent is strategically placed in terms of producing adequately trained manpower for increasingly challenging tasks towards sustainable forest management. The primary goal is having a breed of foresters with skills and positive attitudes to transform livelihoods at the farmer level. We need to move beyond impacts derived only from those associated with logging and industrial forestry (thought this is not to say we abandon this function of forestry) to enhancing positive impacts at farm level. It also means ensuring that technology transfer to farmers is made affordable and practical, hence better and closer interaction between training, research and implementation.

A recent assessment by the African Forest Forum on the participation of African negotiators in international multilateral processes on forests and related issues revealed that a great majority of the African forest experts have not participated in any international negotiations, have never experienced agenda item writing and discussion, nor had experience in searching for funds for travel and participation in negotiations. However, a majority expressed the desire to have experiences in negotiations, especially in the acquisition of negotiation skills and to overcome the kind of challenges that are seen as hindering the right acquisition of skills in negotiations and the paucity of successful negotiators from Africa. Based on these indications a draft training manual has been designed. It is presented in 3 parts. The first part summarises the theory of negotiation considering the essential elements of negotiations, the kinds of skills needed in negotiations, how to build these skills, basic steps and characteristic attributes of a good negotiator. The second part considers in-depth processes involved in negotiations in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and other agreements which also look at the basics of MEA negotiations including issues such as governance, national and group negotiation positions, the plenaries, working groups and High Level Segment. The final part considers the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) membership and their roles and contributions to promote forest issues, among others. It is established from these analyses that for successful negotiations, various roles are required to be performed by countries and their representatives. Country Parties and members together with their member representatives have obligations to make adequate preparations, select participants carefully based on merit using their own criteria but usually basing the selection of participants on their ability and readiness to negotiate. Parties and members are required to guarantee funding through appropriate budgetary allocations. The participants have obligation to properly and fully represent these Parties, institutions and organizations. The negotiations and the negotiators are governed by a code of conduct which is enshrined in the agreed rules of procedure that are usually part of the negotiation documents. The expectations are that all participants will negotiate in an atmosphere of peace, understanding and cordiality with the ultimate aim of generating win-win outcomes that are based on compromises and mutual respect which promote the prevalence of consensus building.

MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY It is with great pleasure that the African Forest Forum brings you this special edition of our October 2015 newsletter. This newsletter has a strong focus on the XIV World Forestry Congress, held for the first time on the African continent, from 7-11 September 2015 in Durban, South Africa. It also gives some highlights from a Pre-XIV World Forestry Congress workshop on the theme “Forests, people and environment: Some perspectives from Africa” that was organized by AFF, in collaboration with African Union Commission, the Network for Natural Gums and Resins in Africa, the Centre for Sustainable Development- University of Ibadan and the Forest Research Network of Sub-Saharan Africa. The Congress, whose theme was “Forests and People: Investing in a Sustainable Future”, was attended by nearly 4000 delegates from 142 countries, offered a good platform to discuss better ways for managing and protecting the world’s forests for the sake of humanity and the environment we all live in. With an ambitious agenda to among other things, explore the niche of forests and forestry in the 2030 Agenda on sustainable development, delegates at the Congress offered a vision for forests and forestry as a way of contributing to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for a sustainable future to 2050 and beyond. The Congress outcome, the ‘Durban Declaration’, offers a set of four key recommendations that see forests playing a decisive role in food and livelihood security as well as the fight against climate change. It calls for ways for improving policies and practices that promote integrated approaches to land use and addressing the causes of deforestation. The declaration also highlights the need for further investment in forest education, communication, research and the creation of jobs - especially for the youth. New partnerships among the forest, agriculture, finance, energy, water and other sectors, as well as strong engagement with indigenous peoples  and local communities are equally stressed in the declaration. As we look ahead to the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Paris, we are encouraged by the outcome of the Congress as well as the maturity of the dialogue. It is clear from the collective ideas and experience of the global forestry community that the next six years will hold promising pathways towards unlocking the true potential of forests in sustainable development. Our challenge is to now ensure that these strategies are turned into concrete actions. This newsletter highlights some of the key messages and insights from participants to the Pre-XIV World Forestry Congress workshop, organized by AFF and partners, in support of the Durban Declaration and of whom were honored to share, network and participate in this unique experience. We wish to thank the Government and people of South Africa for hosting and various forms of support to the pre- XIV WFC workshop in Durban. In the same vein, we wish to thank the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). We also gratefully acknowledge the generous assistance accorded unto us by the Conference Secretariat in making our pre-event a success. Godwin Kowero - Executive Secretary, African Forest Forum

Internationally supported initiatives to mitigate climate change began in the early 1980s. Local people across Africa are also adapting to the changes they are experiencing directly. The vital role of forests and trees in regulating the world’s climate system and contributing to sustainable adaptation solutions makes their inclusion in these activities essential.

Carbon sequestration has become a crucial service forests provide for regulation and mitigation of climate change through reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. In Kenya, Cupressus lusitanica, Pinus patula and Eucalyptus saligna are common exotic plantation species grown in high potential areas. They are characteristerised by fast growth resulting to removal of more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, little has been done in estimating aboveground and belowground carbon of these species. Therefore, this study sought to: estimate carbon sequestered by these species across ages and sites; and determine relationship between tree growth parameters and carbon biomass. The study was carried at Kiambu and Nyeri Counties in Central Kenya. A total of 99 plots measuring 20 by 50 m were established in government managed forest plantations of selected species stratified according to age and species in different forest compartments. Diameters at breast height, total height, crown diameter and crown depth were measured. CO2FIX V3.1 modelling framework was used in estimating carbon sequestered and linear mixed model used in the analysis of the data. There were significant differences (p=0.006) in the amount of carbon sequestered among species across sites. Eucalyptus saligna had the highest amount of carbon (247.9 ± 44.4 MgC ha-1 ) sequestered in Nyeri South followed by Pinus patula (145.6 ± 44.4 MgC ha-1 ) in Nyeri North and Cupressus lusitanica (98.4 ± 44.4 MgC ha-1 ) in Kiambu. Significant differences (p

Carbon trading is promoted to encourage the planting of forests in Africa. But the continent still lags far behind other regions in using its large wealth in land and potential carbon stocks to the best advantage. Why is this, and how can more rapid progress be made?

The introduction of carbon finance as an incentive in forestry farming has a potential of increasing the amount of carbon sequestered. However, this has created a daunting task among investors in forestry to optimise the joint production of wood and carbon sequestration. For instance, investors might find it profitable to give up some timber returns in exchange for carbon credits. This study evaluated expected income from growing Cupressus lusitanica Mill., Pinus patula Schiede ex Schltdl. & Cham., Eucalyptus saligna Sm. and Juniperus procera Hochst. ex Endl. for wood and/or the carbon market in central Kenya. The global average unit price of carbon and stumpage royalty were used to estimate expected returns from sale of carbon credits and wood, respectively. There were significant differences (p < 0.01) in the expected amount of income from sale of carbon and wood among the four species. Specifically, at economic rotation of 30 years with stand density of 532 trees ha