Mario Boccucci (LinkedIn), is Head of Programme Secretariat at the UN-REDD Programme. “The United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD) is the UN knowledge and advisory platform on the forest solutions to the climate crisis.”
We recorded on Wed 9 Mar, 2022.
You will hear that Mario has an unrivalled passion for unprecedented task of reversing forestation urgently, and for the work of dialogue and connecting that he sees as vital to discovering solutions and driving systems change.
Listen
Links
Paris Agreement on Cliamte Change — wikipedia.
Environmental Kuznets Curve (~10:00) explained on Wikiepdia.
Paul Ekins’ book – ‘Economic Growth and Environmental Sustainability: The Prospects for Green Growth’ – has a chapter challenging the Environmental Kuznets Curve, which is a separate journal paper here. (Paul will be the interviewee in episode 16.)
Timings
1:05 – Q1 What are you doing now? And how did you get there?
7:01 – BONUS QUESTION: How do you keep on having that kind of passion in the face of what seems like overwhelming odds on something which is so very important?
17:28 – Q2. What is the future you are trying to create, and why?
23:00 – Q3. What are your priorities for the next few years, and why?
28:58 – Q4. If someone was inspired to follow those priorities, what should they do next?
34:13 Q5. If your younger self was starting their career now, what advice would you give them?
36: 00 – Q6. Is there anything else important you feel you have to say?
Quotes
In the next 10 years something that humanity has never managed to do, which will stop and reverse deforestation have a such a short period of time
the reason why I highlighted from morning to evening because this is a pleasure from means it’s an honour, it’s, it’s a privilege to be able to do what I do. So I wake up early in the morning. And I keep going through the day with passion and energy and fire.
Forests (and nature) a unique technology for capturing and storing carbon that’s available to us and ready to be scaled up massively with 4.5 billion years worth of testing already done.
Why is this the time to be energised? We are moving from any era of good will of piloting and negotiations on climate, but specifically on forest. People work on forestry have the attention and commitment of Finance Ministers, and got into the DNA of development.
The next 10 years are really going to become the years where we massively have the opportunity to scale up massively actions and funds to restore, conserve and manage forests.
I am not directly an agent of change. I am a connector, a connector within the UN system and beyond the UN system. My role is to empower others to do what they are good at doing and what they are well-positioned to do.
I was never shy to say, look, I think I can help.
The next 10 years to succeed with something that has never happened in the history of humanity: reverse deforestation. To address climate change, and as a shield against emergence of pathogens.
Reforestation are an insurance. They are one contribution to the safety and security for humankind, the presence of which means other things can happen.
Yes, reforestation avoids hell but also creates heaven by creating millions and millions of of jobs created, sustained by conserving and restoring forest.
Why we think it is possible because we are at this tipping point. We see the potential for really shifting — unprecedented finance, unprecedented investment, unprecedented private sector engagement — that in turn, create the enabling conditions for scaling up actions that local communities indigenous people, agents of change are already doing.
From ‘why should we act’ to piloting in many pockets of action, and now needing scaling up by aligning mainstream finance, business and government policy.
There are multiple demands and multiple expectations on what forests are. Are they a source of timber, foods, a source of risk, or beautiful mother nature assets. Connecting is of key importance is to find solutions that concurrently meets the needs, therefore, we have to shift the conversation from what different people want different agents of change, want to what it is that they need. And when we start looking at the needs, then there’s always a solution.
So that’s where it’s connecting all of these points, all of the possible solution and finding one solution that is specific to a particular situation, country and environment is the work that we have. And this is why again, the capacity to network as we do in a system change of critical importance.
A dialogue is very important in this now. My advice is be prepared to curate dialogues, and therefore, always be open to listen, we’ve been using radical listening really to listen what everyone else has to say without hollering with your own interpretation.
It’s important to have those ambition but remain pure people can see through you. If you are pure, you are trusted. If you are trusted, you can be more influential.
One has to remain hungry and thirsty, do not accept the status quo.
Every event is an opportunity to send a message and to listen, get into every event with the same thirst and ambition and not just saying, “Oh, it’s another event”.
Everything you do gives you an opportunity to learn and to listen. So keep your ambitions always high, remain humble and pure. connect, connect, connect.
You are trustworthy because everyone understands that you’re not acting for one particular interest you’re acting for the interest of the whole. You are on the side of the future.
I believe that in the work we do in the future, we have ahead of us, those genuine pure motivations that all of us you know, having cider have to be cultivated and have to be safeguarded, because it is that light is that fire that will keep us you know, happy in what we do and get more and get more energy more positive energy out there. And the response will make all the difference.
Advice: invest in the space where I work, the experience in the field, with the people in difficult situations. That experience at the beginning, is even closer to the suffering of other people and and therefore closer to being unable to listen and to fight for development.
David Bent 