New Publication: “Jurisdictional Sustainability: Primer for Practitioners” Embargoed until 12 noon CET, February 14th The loss of tropical forests is one of the greatest challenges faced by humanity today. How do we solve it in a way that will also increase food security and improve the livelihoods of rural communities? A new publication sheds light on this question.

There is no silver bullet for solving tropical deforestation and other challenges of sustainable development. The jurisdictional approach recognizes that when local governments, farm sectors and civil society come together to solve deforestation, progress can be very rapid,

states Dr. Daniel Nepstad, Executive Director of Earth Innovation Institute, which led the publication. Global awareness of the importance of tropical forests has grown in recent years and powerful new approaches for maintaining and restoring them have emerged. Tropical states and nations have put innovative new public policies and programs in place to slow tropical deforestation. The international community has designed a mechanism called “REDD+” for compensating the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that states and nations achieve. And more recently, dozens of companies have formally committed to do their part by eliminating tropical deforestation from their supply chains of soy, palm oil, beef and other commodities.

It is one thing to announce a pledge to tackle deforestation and illegality. It is another to do this in practice on the ground.

Dr. Ruth Nussbaum, Director, ProForest Part of the problem is that, so far, these three approaches are usually being pursued independently of one another. “Jurisdictional sustainability” has emerged as a strategy for weaving them together synergistically. Jan-Kees Vis, Unilever’s Global Director of Sustainable Sourcing Development describes it:

Jurisdictional sustainability has the potential to become “durable” by locking enabling conditions for maintaining it into public policies, business models and formal land designations. This explicit link to public policies is missing from many other approaches to sustainability, and it is thanks to years of work by EII that this is now brought to fruition in Mato Grosso.

With the goal of building a common understanding of jurisdictional sustainability—how to define it, why it is important, and how to put it into practice at scale—Earth Innovation Institute brought together a group of experts and practitioners in January of 2015 and June of 2016 to share perspectives and experiences.

The jurisdictional approach brings regional governments, farmers and supply chains to the table as partners in addressing systemic issues and therefore hastening the journey towards sustainable development,

explains Datuk Darrel Webber, Secretary General of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. The embargo on media coverage of the publication will be lifted at 12 noon CET, February 14, when it will become publicly available. If you are interested in doing a piece on the publication and would like to access it now, please contact Tathiana Bezerra (tbezerra@earthinnovation.org) Juliana Lopes, Director of Sustainability and Communication at Grupo Amaggi writes:

Being assertive when it comes to deforestation is complicated. The elimination of deforestation in a region or country will only be achieved when productive sectors from various chains, all governmental spheres, and civil society organizations work together for the same purpose. For a company, it is important to work both directly in its supply chain and with various stakeholders in a region, because its activities are in some way all interconnected. Working with stakeholders is critical to achieving a global impact, and jurisdictional sustainability is the best approach to meeting this challenge.