{"id":1012,"date":"2025-05-05T16:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T14:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/forumpalmoel.local\/fonap-mitgliederversammlung-2025\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T10:23:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T08:23:39","slug":"fonap-general-assembly-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumpalmoel.org\/en\/fonap-general-assembly-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"FONAP General Assembly 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This year\u2019s General Assembly took place in Berlin on 29 April. With speakers from Malaysia, Indonesia, the USA and Europe, it was particularly international this time.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n <\/div>\n\n\n

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Call for a paradigm shift<\/h2>\n \n
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On the premises of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paul Garaycochea, Head of Sub-Directorate for sustainable supply chains, agricultural and food systems, took a look at the current challenges and opportunities in sustainable palm oil production. Dr. Eckard Heuer, Head of Sub-Directorate for forest and hunting policy, sustainability at the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, focused in particular on current developments in deforestation-free supply chains and FONAP\u2019s valuable contribution to promoting the achievement of these objectives.<\/p>\n

In his keynote speech, Professor Dr. Alain Rival from the Centre de coop\u00e9ration internationale en recherche agronomique pour le d\u00e9veloppement<\/em> (CIRAD) called for a paradigm shift for palm oil production systems. Cultivation must adapt to climate change and focus much more on biodiversity. In this context, Professor Rival favours concerted action in landscape contexts and advocates more complex agroforestry systems with a diverse plant community. As evidence, he brought along results and findings from field research projects in numerous countries. Women and local communities should also benefit more.<\/p>\n

On an exciting panel, Alain Rival discussed with Reza Azmi (Wild Asia), Charlotte Opal (Earthworm Foundation) and Jutta Stute (BASF) how such a paradigm shift can succeed in practice. It became clear that dialogue and cooperation remain indispensable for this. Lessons learnt in particular should be shared more widely and taken into account. It is also important to emphasise the added economic value \u2013 the business case \u2013 for innovations.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n <\/div>\n\n\n

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Insights from Malaysia and Indonesia<\/h2>\n \n
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A special highlight was a presentation by Sabarudin, Chairman of the Indonesian smallholder organisation Serikat Petani Kelapa Sawit (SPKS). It is becoming increasingly difficult for certified cooperatives to profit from their certification through the sale of Independent Smallholder Credits<\/a>. The certificate market, which was previously so central to smallholder organisations, has basically collapsed. There is also currently a discussion within RSPO about not allowing any more smallholder communities and cooperatives to apply for new and initial certifications until successful buyers have been found for the existing certified volumes from smallholder structures. (Technically, there is probably talk of a moratorium.) Long supply chains remain a challenge overall.<\/p>\n

Board members Sascha Tischer and Reza Azmi reported on FONAP projects on the ground.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n <\/div>\n\n\n

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Honorary awards for the tenth anniversary<\/h2>\n \n
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On 11 November 2015, FONAP e.V. became an association after two years of informal cooperation. In this anniversary year, the board thanked personalities who have helped shape FONAP from the very beginning \u2013 and thus even before the association was founded: Ilka Petersen from WWF, Stefanie Sch\u00f6nherr from dm and the brothers Daniel and Markus N\u00f6lken from N\u00f6lken Hygiene Products.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n <\/div>\n\n\n

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\"FONAP
FONAP General Assembly 2025: honorary awards<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Setting the course for FONAP<\/h2>\n \n
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As every year, the General Assembly discussed and made decisions on a whole range of motions, draft resolutions and relevant topics for the continued successful organisation and management of the association. This year, in addition to budget planning, two special topics were on the agenda: an adjustment to the self-commitment to promote organic palm oil and a reorganisation of the FONAP Secretariat. The latter will be taken over by the Global Nature Fund (GNF) in future. Managing Director Stefan H\u00f6rmann and colleague Gudrun Schl\u00f6pker were on site and introduced themselves to the members before the upcoming vote. All topics, motions and draft resolutions were adopted with the required majority.<\/p>\n

Almut Feller emphasised once again that FONAP will continue to expand national and international partnerships and networks and maintain every important exchange. It is about inclusion, good approaches \u2013 which have a long-term effect \u2013 and efficient knowledge transfer with the support of science. Which formats and collaborations are suitable for this will be developed by FONAP in the coming months. \u2013 The Chair summarised the day succinctly and thanked all the speakers for their valuable input, Professor Christian Thorun for moderating, the participants for their active engagement and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development for providing the premises.<\/p>\n

More information will follow!<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n <\/div>\n\n\n

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\"FONAP<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 29 April our annual general assembly took place in Berlin. With speakers from Malaysia, Indonesia, the USA and Europe, it was a particularly international gathering this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-unkategorisiert"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumpalmoel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumpalmoel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumpalmoel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumpalmoel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumpalmoel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumpalmoel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumpalmoel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumpalmoel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumpalmoel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumpalmoel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}