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mid the high-profile forest fires, Indonesia is slated to host a two-day dialogue with members of US-based Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 (TFA 2020) to reduce tropical deforestation associated with key global commodities such as palm oil, pulp and paper.

The dialogue, which is expected to result in series of recommendations and public-private partnership to curb deforestation, will be opened by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Thursday and will conclude on Friday.

Kit Batten of the US Agency for International Development Global Climate Change Coordinator said the dialogue would not only be about Indonesia because deforestation was a global problem.

Batten said that being the world largest palm oil producer and a major supplier of pulp and paper '€” commodities long associated with deforestation '€” the government was a very important partner in the effort.

'€œWe hope [the dialogue] will lead to concrete actions around the world. We see this workshop as an opportunity to bring private sectors, civil society and governments together,'€ she said.

TFA 2020 is a voluntary public-private partnership to reduce tropical deforestation associated with the sourcing of four key commodities; palm oil, soy, beef and pulp and paper; which accounts for the majority of global deforestation and represents roughly 15 percent of the world'€™s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the TFA 2020 Fact Sheet.

The alliance was born out of discussions between the US government and the Consumer Goods Forum, a network of over 400 companies with annual sales exceed US$3 trillion or 4 percent of the global economy. Current TFA 2020 membership includes the Consumer Goods Forum and the governments of the United States, Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom.

Companies to attend Thursday'€™s workshop include Asia Pulp & Paper, APRIL, Golden Agri-Resources, Unilever, Nestle, Kraft, Mondelez, J&J, Lion, Aeon and Kimberly-Clark.

Gavin Neath, senior vice president of sustainability for Unilever, one of the prominent members of the forum, said he hoped the forum would help identify new ways in which public funding could be used to assist all the actors in the value chain to eliminate deforestation from their activities.

'€œThere are a lot of positive things happening in Indonesia,'€ Neath said citing the extension of the two-year forest moratorium for new concession permits that expired in May.

The forum coincides with the government'€™s efforts to put out forest fires in Riau '€” which have led to neighboring countries suffering from the hazardous smoky haze and record-high pollution levels '€” and to identify perpetrators behind the blazes allegedly ignited to clear the land for oil palm plantations and forest concessions.