Global Forest Crisis Accelerating
4/12/98
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE
In a new report, the Worldwatch Institute details the scope of the
global forest crisis; largely caused by increased demand for paper and
other wood products, government corruption, illegal logging, and the
burning of forests.
g.b.
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Global Forest Crisis Accelerating
Source: InterPress Service
Status: Copyright 1998, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: April 7, 1998
/** ips.english: 505.0 **/
** Topic: ENVIRONMENT BULLETIN-UNITED STATES: Global Forest Crisis **
** Written 3:36 PM Apr 7, 1998 by newsdesk in cdp:ips.english **
Copyright 1998 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 04-Apr-98 ***
Title: ENVIRONMENT BULLETIN-UNITED STATES: Global Forest Crisis
Accelerating
By Danielle Knight
WASHINGTON, Apr. 4 (IPS) - The increasing demand for paper and other
wood products - combined with government corruption, illegal logging,
and the burning of thousands of hectares for quick profit - is turning
local forest destruction into a global catastrophe, warns a new
environmental study.
Forest fires presently raging in Indonesia and Brazil are symptoms of
the global trend of accelerating forest loss, says a report released
Saturday by the Washington-based World Watch Institute.
''Half the forests that once covered the earth are gone, and
deforestation has been accelerating the last 30 years,'' warns Janet
Abramovitz, a senior researcher with World Watch, and author of the
report.
Between 1980 and 1995 at least 200 million hectares of forests
vanished - an area larger than Mexico. When forests disappear, ''we
lose more than just timber,'' she explains in the report, 'Taking a
Stand: Cultivating a new Relationship with the World's Forests.'
As forests have been shrinking, the pressures on them have grown more
intense. In the last 35 years, wood consumption has doubled, paper use
has more than tripled and each year at least another 16 million
hectares of natural forest are cleared, she says - quoting data from
the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Abramovitz accuses logging corporations, encouraged and subsidised by
governments, as being the main cause of the large- scale forest
exploitation and infrastructure developments in forested areas.
''Subsidies for below-cost logging, processing road building, and
infrastructure are so large that governments are essentially paying
private interests to take the timber and convert the land to other
uses,'' says Abramovitz.
Taxpayers usually don't even know that they are footing the bill for
these revenue-losers. Indonesia's timber concessions cost the
government 2.5 billion dollars in lost revenues in 1990, according to
the report. In the United States, timber sales from national forests
lost over one billion dollars from 1992 to 1994, because of subsidies.
Even when a government has forest laws and policies on the statute
books, governments often lack the capacity or will to enforce them,
the study says.
Brazil, now the world's fourth largest timber producer, estimates that
80 percent of logging in the Amazon is illegal. Despite this,
Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, recently vetoed a law
that would boost enforcement of environmental regulations. In Russia,
the study estimates that as many as 12 million hectares are illegally
logged each year, compared to only two million hectares of legal
logging.
Government corruption and strong federal ties to logging and timber
corporations is another major contributor to forest destruction,
according to the report.
In Indonesia, President Suharto diverted money from the nation's
reforestation fund to build a paper factory for his personal friend
and ''timber king'' Bob Hasan - who was recently appointed as the
Minister of Industry and Trade.
A recent audit by the International Monetary Fund found no money in
the fund to fight the devastating forest fires because the money had
been diverted to prop up Suharto's son's failing car company. In
Cambodia, the prime ministers and military illegally control the
forests and timber trade. According to this study, profits bypass the
treasury and fund their factions in the civil war.
Abramovitz also blames the growing push behind economic globalisation
for the increase in forest destruction.
''The lowering of barriers to international trade and investment,
through mechanisms including the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, allow corporations to
roam the world seeking more profitable forest opportunities,'' says
the study.
Since 1970, the international legal trade in forest products has
tripled 142 billion dollars, and substantial amounts of illegal trade
go unreported, she says.
The rising demand for forest products, coming especially from
industrialised countries, is fueling this boom in legal and illegal
trade. Today, less that one-fifth of the world's population living in
Europe, the United States, and Japan consumes over half the world's
industrial timber and more than two thirds of its paper. Japan alone
consumes almost as much paper as the entire nation of China, a country
with nearly 10 times as many people, says the report.
Prior to the economic crisis, demand in Asia has been growing faster
than anywhere else with growth rates in the consumption of wood panels
more than three times the world average.
Having depleted their domestic forests, many Asian timber companies
are now moving elsewhere. The amount of Amazon forest under concession
to Asian companies quadrupled in 1996 to more than 12 million
hectares, according to Abramovitz. One Malaysian company controls over
60 percent of the timber concessions in Papua new Guinea
Despite the increased destruction of forests, Abramovitz is not
without hope. Governments, businesses and consumers have been
developing new relationships with forests, finding innovative ways to
meet demand for forest products while still preserving the long-term
values of intact forests.
''People are waking up to the need for change,'' she says. ''The next
challenge is to scale up these initiatives fast enough to prevent
irreversible damage to the world's forests.''
While paper recycling and reducing paper consumption are essential
steps, sustainable forestry management is the key, according to the
report.
Even though the definition of such forest management is still
evolving, the Mexico-based Forest Stewardship Council which has
developed a set of guiding principles for sustainable management.
The Council's principles includes not logging primary forests and
other sites of major environmental, social or cultural significance,
as well as conserving the biological diversity of the forest and also
respecting the ownership of forest by indigenous communities.
With consumers beginning to demand products from sustainably managed
forests, which are labeled with an eco-friendly sticker - the Council
has already certified more than 6.3 billion hectares in 20 countries.
Some governments are also beginning to change policies to better
protect their forests by eliminating subsidies, halting road building
in forests and strengthening the enforcement of domestic and
international laws.
The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Climate Change Convention as
it is negotiated further may also provide incentives to preserve
forests for their role in absorbing carbon dioxide.
''By scaling up the efforts already underway, we can begin to turn
away from today's destructive relationship,'' says Abramovitz, ''and
move towrds managing our forests so that all of their benefits and
services, from timber and jobs to flood control and climate
regulation, are available for generations to come.''
(END/IPS/dk/98)
Origin: Amsterdam/ENVIRONMENT BULLETIN-UNITED STATES/
----
[c] 1998, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
All rights reserved