Kristalina Georgieva, Country Director, World Bank, Russian Federation, and Valery Roshchupkin, Head, Federal Forestry Agency, Russian Federation

Kristalina Georgieva (left) referred to the current stage of negotiations as progress from identification of problems to implementing recommendations. She noted the ongoing dialogue between governments, the private sector and the NGO community, and emphasized the interest of the World Bank in resolving the issue of illegal logging.

Valery Roshchupkin (right) opened the Conference by welcoming the participants and noting the broad representation from governments, the UN system, and civil society. He stressed the Russian Federation's interest in the ENA-FLEG process, and described current national activities in the forest sector, including innovative use of aerospace and electro-magnetic monitoring of forests.

Jürgen Blaser and Jag Maini provided a summary of the ENA FLEG process

Jürgen Blaser (left), Co-facilitator of the ENA-FLEG, gave an overview of the ENA-FLEG process, highlighting its four elements, including the work of the preparatory committee, the drafting of elements for the MD and IAP, the Ministerial Conference, and the implementation phase.

Jag Maini, Co-facilitator of the ENA-FLEG (right), then summarized the elements of the MD and IAP, noting that both stress national sovereignty and implementation and are the result of extensive input from governments, civil society and the private sector.

Ragnar Friberg, Senior Vice-President, Sustainability, Stora Enso, Gary Dunning, Executive Director, Forests Dialogue, and Alexey Yaroshenko, Greenpeace

Ragnar Friberg, Stora Enso, presented industry's perspective on illegal logging, noting that law enforcement is a government function and that efforts to combat illegal logging and illegal forest activity should not burden legal operators. He also emphasized collaboration in developing cost effective tools.

Gary Dunning, The Forests Dialogue (center), described the activities of this forum of private industry and civil society leaders interested in dialogues on priority sustainable forest management issues, including ENA FLEG. He stressed that civil society should be regarded as partners in the FLEG process, and that governments are expected to take a lead role in addressing illegal logging.

Alexey Yaroshenko, Greenpeace, said illegal logging is a social phenomenon linked to poor governance, and that the new Russian Forest Code will result in both increased job loss and illegal logging. He also said that the pervasive attitude among civil servants is that forest laws are negotiable.

Co Facilitators Jag Maini, Canada, Jürgen Blaser, Switzerland, Viktor Teplyakov, Russia, and Elena Kulikova, Russia, during the afternoon intergovernmental negotiation session