Enabling Landscapes: INTERHOLCO's Sustainability Report 2017

Working Across Landscapes
‘Conservation and sustainable management of forests in
Central Africa contribute to the majority of the 17
Sustainable Development Goals. There is a clear coherence
between them.’
ANdRé vAN HEEmStRA
Chairman of UN Global Compact Network, Netherlands
Working in the Congo Basin means, first and foremost, working with the Congo Basin.
It involves, embracing the diversity in needs, expectations and priorities as well as local
conditions. Responses need to be multi-dimensional. To find, develop and implement
solutions, we need to look at the wider landscape and, we need to connect all people
involved. Effectively we are not working only within a bio-geographic landscape, but in a
social landscape with all its complexities, in an environmental landscape with its
intricate biodiversity linkages and in an economic landscape with its interactive
linkages to local, regional and global markets.
On 25 September 2015, the United Nations adopted a set of 17 Sustainable
Development Goals.
The Sustainable Development Goals are truly global goals, addressing the North and
the South, involving all sectors of industry and business, and calling on all groups of
societies from indigenous peoples and local communities to international
organizations and NGOs.
Obviously, the solutions to the challenges tropical forests are facing cannot be found
within the forestry sector alone. Each of the landscapes we work with extends far
beyond the business unit we manage. The social, environmental and economic
landscapes neither exist in parallel nor overlap completely, but are highly dynamic and
intricately intertwined.
Our team as well as customers and stakeholders help us understand issues beyond
our business and inspire our management approach towards Intact Forest
Landscapes in which people enjoy social well-being, environmental resources are
safeguarded and economic business is viable and sustainable.
25 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2017 INTERHOLCO