The Case against a Global Forest Convention
3/20/97
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Headline: The Case against a Global Forest Convention
Source: Taiga-News
Date: 3/20/97
Author: ROGER OLSSON
TAIGA NEWS EDITOR
It is premature to call for a global forest convention.
Instead the intergovernmental process should focus on the
implementation of existing agreements and regulations,
like the Draft UN Declaration on the rights of the
Indigenous Peoples, the Climate Change Convention and the
Biodiversity Convention. This message was brought to the
4th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forestry,
held in New York this February, by a group of European and
International enviromental NGO's, including WWF and
Friends of the Earth. The declaration calls for programmes
to address overconsumption and inequitable distribution of
consumption of forest products, recognition of landrights
and reform of land tenure, illegal trade in forest
products and activities of international timber companies.
The NGO declaration gives a number of reasons for not
developing a forest convention or any other international,
legally binding agreement in this field. One such reason
is, that other 'global' attempts to address the forest
crisis, like the Tropical Forest Action Plan (TFAP) and
the International Timber Trade Organisation (ITTO), have
failed. The international process should focus on properly
implementing and evaluating existing instruments before
commencing a new global process.
The real causes of forest destruction are overconsumption
of wood and wood products, especially in the North, and
lack of landrights and landsecurity especially in the
South. this far, there has been inadequate coverage of
these issues and no consensus on how to tackle them.
Furthermore, the problem is essentially national in
nature. While it is recognized that there is a global
forest crisis, the main issues that need tackling could be
better addressed by effective regional, national or local
action. Sovereignty arguments mean that a Convention would
not be able to "impose" binding solutions to national
problems.
Climate change and loss of biodiversity are global issues,
linked to the forest crisis, that have already been
addressed in the Climate Change and Biodiversity
Conventions.
The declaration also stresses, that international
decision-making processes presently give exclusive
authority to governments. Despite the rhetoric of
Rio, 'Major Groups' such as indigenous peoples and NGOs
have no direct voice in decision-making. Any international
decision making proces is hampered from the start unless
this issue is properly addressed.
Even on issues that have been addressed such as Criteria
and Indicators for sustainable management for example,
there is no agreement on convergence of the various
regional processes underway, and any convention would
almost certainly enshrine the lowest common denominator.
The undersigned NGO's conclude, that a global forest
onvention is likely to be drawn up principally to promote
the financial and commercial interests of its proponents.
A premature forest instrument focused on technical
forestry considerations to the exclusion of other values
of forests could do more harm than good.