Forest Fires Rage, but Major Efforts on Ecology Lagging
10/1/97
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Headline: Forest Fires Rage, but Major Efforts on Ecology Lagging
Source: Earth Times News Service
Date: 10/1/97
Author: Pranay Gupte, editor and publisher of The Earth Times.
Copyright 1997: The Earth Times News Service
In the tropical forests of the developing world, the
burning season rarely ends. And while the fires
rage--consuming 30 million acres annually--the global and
local bureaucrats entrusted with protecting the earth's
biodiversity fiddle away opportunities to develop an
effective program to implement sustainable forest management.
Last week, in the wake of tragic fires in Indonesia, many of
them wailed that they lacked a meaningful forestry convention
to strengthen their hand in combatting environmental
disasters. Their complaint would have been more credible were
it not for the fact that 52 international agreements on the
environment, and scores more of national laws, already
exist--some dating back to the beginning of the century when
"environment" was simply a noun, not a movement with a
powerful hierarchy and special priorities.
Sustainable forest management has not been among those
priorities, notwithstanding all those flashy pop concerts in
support of Brazilian rainforests. It's far more fashionable
in the environmental community to rail against automobile
emissions and industrial pollution. Wildlife conservation is
an even sexier cause. The international environmental
movement is dominated by well-funded groups lodged in the
North where deforestation isn't exactly a pressing
issue--which may explain why the whole business of
sustainable forest management has received less than top
billing in the chancelleries of power where environmentalists
break bread with policy-makers.
Even at major United Nations conferences such as the 1992
Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, forestry has received short
shrift. Developing countries, anxious to accelerate their
economic growth and adamant about "national sovereignty,"
have resisted calls from the industrialized nations to
control their clear-cutting and logging practices; some 60
percent of the world's 8 billion acres of forests are in the
developing world. And so the world's diplomats have continued
doing what diplomats generally do most: they have agreed to
keep talking--at elaborate meetings hosted regularly by rich
countries. Next week, for example, diplomats will gather in
New York to rechristen the international effort to adopt a
forestry convention. What was, since 1995, the impotent
Intergovernmental Panel on Forests, is scheduled to become
the Intergovermental Forum on Forests. New identity,
identical prospects.
Does that mean that unlike, say, "climate change" (which will
be debated at an international conference in Kyoto, Japan, in
December), sustainable forest management is doomed to stay
off the global environmental agenda? Will the issue only grab
international attention when major fires flare? The sorry
record of the international community certainly suggests so,
but here are some points that both diplomats and
environmentalists might do well to consider:
* Deforestation isn't only an ecological issue. Some 70
percent of people living in the 127 countries of the
developing world rely on wood for fuel. That is because,
50 years after the rich countries started transferring
large amounts of cash and technology to promote
"development" in poor countries, energy is still in
short supply in developing nations. Unless the root
cause of underdevelopment--crippling poverty--is
addressed through wider education, better health-care
and accelerated job creation especially in rural areas,
environmental degradation will deepen. Deforestation
should a high priority for those engaged in sustainable
human development issues.
* Deforestation in developing countries will eventually
affect the global economy. The international trade in
forest products is currently around $115 billion
annually. Forests in countries such as Indonesia are
cleared by big corporations in order to plant pulpwood
and palm oil trees, but such clearing is rarely the
result of proper land-use policies. Tage Michaelsen, a
Dane who advises the U.N. on forestry, contends that
deforestation means "disinvestment in land, and lowering
of land values in the long run." In many parts of the
world, there's a shortage of timber that can be
attributed to the unsustainable rate of logging in the
last two decades. Reforestation, on the other hand,
promotes indigenous agriculture and employment in rural
regions. One Southeast Asian plywood entrepreneur, in a
questionable conversion-on-the Road-to-Damascus, has
even declared himself an environmentalist, funneling
large sums of money into prestigious American scientific
organizations possibly in the hope of buying into good
karma. Developing countries may realize large revenues
in the short run, but their deforestation practices are
clearly short-sighted. They need to develop thoughtful
land-use programs, and put in place adequate monitoring
and reporting procedures.
* International resolutions on the environment cannot be
effectively implemented unless the sustainable
development constituency is broadened. This means that
global organizations and local authorities must invite
more nongovernmental groups, indigenous people, and
scientists, to participate in the formulation of
environmental and developmental policies. Much too
often, warm fuzzy concepts such as "sustainable
development" which sound good in the chambers of
diplomacy don't resonate too well at the grassroots
because everyday people just don't understand their
relevance. "Good environmental protection should be
synonymous with people's economic well-being," says Dr.
Steve Howard of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
"We're not saying, 'Don't start plantations.' Just
regulate them so that we don't destroy nature's bounty.
You've got to get people to believe that environmental
protection is in their self-interest." Unfortunately,
world leaders mouth comforting words at international
parleys about global economic progress but seldom focus
on local environmental protection once they return home.
The inadequacies of world leaders and global bureaucracies on
forestry and related environmental questions have not,
happily, meant that no progress is being achieved in
sustainable forest management. The not-for profit WWF, for
example, has launched a program to establish a network of
protected areas covering at least 10 percent of the world's
forests in the next three years. Some 20 countries--but not
Indonesia or Brazil--have signed on to this program, with the
Sakha Republic committing itself to protecting an astonishing
70,000 square kilometers, or 25 percent of its forested area.
A few other groups such as the Rainforest Alliance and
Conservation International are also actively engaged in
forest preservation.
But these are organizations headquartered in the
industrialized countries of the West. Their good will,
enthusiasm and energy are often perceived in poor countries
as flowing from a modern-day equivalent of missionary zeal.
Some of these Western environmentalists are even dismissed by
their developing-country counterparts as "greentroopers." The
real effort on sustainable forest management must come from
developing countries themselves. They, after all, have the
biggest stake in ensuring that the burning season is
contained.