Rainforest International Report on the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests
4/14/97
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Rainforest International Report on the Intergovernmental Panel
on Forests
Source: George Marshall
Rainforest Foundation International
270 Lafayette Street, Suite 1107
New York, NY 10012 USA
Tel. (212) 431-9098
Fax. (212) 431-9197
e-mail georgem@rffny.org
Date: 4/14/97
Copyright: Rainforest Foundation International
Dear friends,
please find following a report on the Intergovernmental
Panel on Forests (IPF).
The report argues that the IPF is developed from false
premises, has failed to address the main causes of
tropical deforestation, and argues erroneously that
forests can be saved through the liberalisation of trade
and private sector investment.
The report places the IPF in the tradition of previous
failed initiatives such as the TFAP which sought to impose
top down national planning on forests.
The report notes some small improvements for the status of
indigenous people in the IPF discussions, but finds no
reason to suppose that they will gain recognition for
their rights through this process.
The report concludes with broad recommendations for the
NGO community for further work on the IPF.
This report is the copyright of the Rainforest Foundation
International. Please feel free to use or distribute it,
but we would appreciate being referenced if it is quoted
and asked before it is published.
Yours sincerely,
George Marshall
RAINFOREST FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL REPORT ON THE
INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON FORESTS
George Marshall
Campaigns Coordinator
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This paper analyses the origins, discussions and final
report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF)
which completed a two year intergovernmental process in
February 1997.
This paper makes five main arguments:
1. That the IPF made no progress on the 1992 Forest
Principles and Agenda 21 and did not compensate for their
limitations.
2. That the IPF did not recognize the rights or importance
of indigenous and forest dependent communities or advance
their agenda.
3. That, the IPF did not recognize the international and
transnational causes of deforestation, and thus wasted the
most valuable opportunities offered by such
intergovernmental discussions.
4. That the IPF consistently and uncritically promoted the
deregulation of trade, investment and markets ahead of
environmental and social issues. In particular, the IPF
refused to address trade issues and delegated all
responsibility on trade to the World Trade Organization
(WTO).
5. That the IPF is promoting the same flawed "solutions"
to deforestation as the Tropical Forestry Action Plan
without analyzing the reasons for their previous failure.
This paper concludes that NGOs and governments need to
accept that the IPF is innefective and confirm their
committment to the key issues and intergovernmental action
through other means.
HISTORY AND PROGRESS
The Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) was
established in 1995 to "pursue consensus and formulate
options for further actions in order to combat
deforestation and forest degradation and promote
management, conservation and sustainable development of
all types of forest" drawing on the positions reached at
UNCED (Rio 92) in particular the Forest Principles and
Agenda 21.
The failure of the Rio conference to deal with the
political complexity of forest issues and the powerful
economic and political interests behind land ownership and
deforestation is reflected in the wording of the text of
the Forest Principles and Agenda 21. They are highly
deferential to national sovereignty and the state's
"sovereign and inalienable rights to manage and
develop...their forests" (Forest Principle 2a). There is
no recognition of community rights or traditional land
ownership, and they encourage the centralization of
control in national land management plans.
Neither Forest Principles nor Agenda 21 contain any
discussion of the underlying causes of deforestation. The
Forest Principles sidestep discussion of causes
altogether. Agenda 21 talks of deforestation as "a
weakness of policy" and outlines solutions based almost
entirely on further research and strengthening
institutions.
Note - throughout the following I use the word
"deforestation" as a short hand for all forms of
degradation, and loss in the quality of forests. There
were some positive aspects to the UNCED positions; a
recognition of the importance of involving and supporting
NGOs, indigenous groups and women; the need to recognize
and value the full range of goods and services provided by
forests; and the need to deal with all areas of policy on
forests.
FROM RIO TO IPF
The IPF claimed to have incorporated the "progress since
UNCED including the results of several .....initiatives
that have contributed significantly to international
dialogue on forests." Yet the final report never explained
what these were, and, as European NGOs argued strongly,
did not mention the failure of many initiatives since Rio,
including the Tropical Forestry Action Plan (TFAP) and the
International Tropical Timbers Organization's (ITTO)
target of sustainable forestry by the year 2000, not to
mention the ineffectiveness of many regional and national
level policy reforms.
The refusal to involve NGOs and local communities as
equal participants, and to devolve power and
responsibility to them, was a major factor in the failure
of many of these governmental initiatives. The IPF has not
learnt from this experience and though there was limited
participation during the IPF itself, it still recommended
a centralized top-down planning process.
In other respects, the IPF showed three major changes from
the forest proposals at Rio:
Firstly, governments have lost any real commitment to
dealing with deforestation as a global problem. Unlike all
previous intergovernmental positions, there is no comment
in the final report expressing concern over deforestation
as a problem with significance to all humanity. Proposals
for action are based mainly on national activities (albeit
with international funding) and the IPF goes to great
lengths to exclude any action on the transnational causes
of deforestation, requiring international cooperation.
These are basically of three types: investment in
activities with a high impact on forests (such as crop and
livestock production for export, logging, mining, dams);
international market demand for products arising from
those activities; and international trade supplying that
demand.
Even the impact of misdirected overseas development aid
was ignored, despite its direct relevance to an
intergovernmental meeting. There is continuing evidence of
the disastrous impacts of misdirected aid, but there was
no recognition of its role in deforestation, and no
proposal for the regulation of aid or intergovernmental
aid agencies such as the World Bank.
Secondly, the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the creation of
the World Trade Organization have greatly advanced the
libertarian model of free trade and unrestricted markets.
Not only does the IPF refuse to deal with trade issues,
but it actively promotes uncontrolled trade and markets as
a means to forest conservation.
Finally, and of greatest concern, has been the decline in
political commitment since Rio. Ten years ago Mustapha
Tolba of UNEP was referring to tropical deforestation as
an environmental catastrophe as serious as nuclear war.
Heads of first world governments pledged action,
dramatically increased forestry ODA and those in the G7
committed themselves to an ambitious program to "save the
Amazon."
Since then, government and public interest has fallen, and
with it media attention. The IPF press conferences had low
turn out and even lower coverage. Most of the government
statements indicated that deforestation is little more
than a management challenge. The G77 spoke of the need for
"rational, holistic...and sustainable development of
forests." The EU alone made passing reference to the
"daunting task of halting deforestation."
Without any outside pressure demanding results the
delegates fell back onto damage limitation diplomacy,
gutting the IPF report, which was non-binding in any case,
of any words that might have a future impact on their
national commercial interests or commit them to
expenditure. The USA maintained a debate for three hours
for changing "ensure" in one paragraph to the less
committal "secure." Venezuela tried to remove all
reference to indigenous people. Brazil rejected a proposal
for an independent investigation of the illegal timber
trade. The self interested tone was best displayed by
Canada's Natural Resources Minister, Ann McLellan, who
boasted the week before the IPF meeting that the main
reason Canada was committed to pursuing a global forest
convention was "to ensure we're not held hostage to
environmental terrorism."
CAUSES OF DEFORESTATION
The IPF ignored the previous decade of debate and analysis
of the causes of deforestation and noted "the critical
need to understand the underlying causes of deforestation"
as though this was a new topic. It concluded lamely that
there should be more research and a global workshop to
discuss the issue. No country indicated an interest in
funding or hosting this workshop, and the idea may well
die.
The discussion of causes in the meeting and final report
was grossly inadequate, and gave no consideration to most
of the true causes of deforestation. The conversion of
forested land to agriculture, the leading cause of
deforestation, received no mention beyond two lines in the
section on causes. Plantation forestry, which has been
heavily criticized for its ecological and social impacts,
was wholeheartedly praised for taking the pressure off
natural forests.
The IPF claimed that the main causes of deforestation are
poverty and underdevelopment. This was a repetition of the
same flawed arguments of previous initiatives that
recommended giving forests an economic value by logging
them. It regarded economic activities as essentially
benign, and only a cause of deforestation if they operate
outside the parameters of the national planning and legal
framework.
Thus it condoned forest clearance within a national plan,
arguing that "there may be rational reasons for many
changes in forest structure" and that changes in forest
cover may be "beneficial." It argued that the main causes
of deforestation lie with "illegal logging....illegal land
occupation and illegal cultivation" and with "mining and
oil exploration ...not conducted in accordance with
appropriate national legislation" (authors emphasis).
In both cases the IPF has made legality the key definition
of deforestation, even in activities with a high impact on
forests, and without regard to the quality of the
legislation.
IPF AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
To its credit, the IPF supported an intercessional
workshop on indigenous issues in Leticia, Colombia. It was
organized by the International Alliance of Indigenous-
Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests and sponsored by
the governments of Colombia and Denmark. The preparedness
to allow indigenous issues into the official program was
one of the few signs that there had been progress since
Rio.
Despite this, the Leticia meeting had a low status and
only a handful of governments attended. It was held too
late to be worked into the draft negotiating text and had
to be submitted piece by piece as amendments in the main
negotiations. The Colombian delegation was grounded in
Bogota for much of the first week by a national strike,
and the Danish delegation showed little preparedness or
interest in promoting the meeting. Most of the other
national delegations were dominated by forestry interests
and had little interest in indigenous issues or awareness
of how they were dealt with in Agenda 21, the Forest
Principles, or the Convention on Biological Diversity.
The Alliance representatives had no status to propose
amendments without government endorsement, but managed to
find support for some changes, such as requirements for
full, informed, and prior consent on forest development.
This was despite a lack in support and, at times, strong
hostility from governments.
The Venezuelan delegation sought to remove most reference
to indigenous people in the text, or else to weaken such
commitments through the insertion of "weasel" phrases,
such as "within the legal framework of each country." As
the Alliance pointed out, the delegation was often acting
in breach of its country's obligations as a party to ILO
Convention 107.
The sole mention of indigenous land rights was the request
in the section on causes of deforestation that
"countries...formulate policies aiming at securing land
tenure for local communities and indigenous people,
including policies as appropriate aimed at the fair and
equitable sharing of the benefits of forests." The
weakening language of "aiming at" and "as appropriate"
were added at the final meeting.
However, those same rights had been undermined in the
previous section by demands for national forest planning
under the sovereign control of the state. Indigenous and
local communities' role in these plans would be one of
participants rather than owners of the resource, and,
following the demands of Venezuela, only "where
appropriate" and "within the context of national laws." In
this context their land rights obtain "recognition and
respect" only if this is "consistent with the
constitutional and legal frameworks of the country."
The tendency of the IPF to regard indigenous peoples as a
resource rather than a constituency was best shown in
section 1.111 of the IPF final report on Traditional
Forest Related Knowledge (TFRK). This section discussed
methods to conserve, protect and exploit indigenous
knowledge rather than the cultures that held and owned it.
In the draft text an attempt was made to recognize that
indigenous knowledge was just one part of a whole cultural
matrix. Section 24 read:
"TFRK should include not only knowledge of forest
resources themselves but also institutional, authority and
governance structures, cultural belief and value systems,
customary law, indigenous legal systems, and traditional
and property rights, land and resource use systems and
conflict resolution and mediation processes, all of which
are an integral part of sustainable forest management"
In the final approved text this entire section was cut on
demand from Venezuela and replaced with the meaningless
sentence:
"TFRK should include not only knowledge of forest
resources themselves but also other relevant issues that
are considered as such by countries according to their own
circumstances"
Venezuela also attempted to restrict the meaning of
"indigenous people", and replace it altogether in some
parts of the text with the phrase "major groups." This
would have been a significant regression from the explicit
mention of indigenous people in the Forest Principles and
was rejected. In the section on TFRK, the phrase
"indigenous people, forest dwellers, forest owners, and
local communities" was changed to the more restrictive
"indigenous people and other forest dependent people
embodying traditional lifestyles."
THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL FOREST PROGRAMS AND THE GHOST
OF THE TROPICAL FORESTRY ACTION PLAN
The IPF strongly recommends using National Forest Programs
as the basis for forest management and for international
organizations to use "as a framework for the support and
coordination of forest related activities."
The emphasis on National Forest Programs is a development
of Agenda 21, 11.12(b) which called for countries "to
prepare or implement national forestry action
programs...integrated with other land uses." It went on to
say that "in this context, plans under the Tropical
Forestry Action Program (TFAP) are currently being
implemented in more than 80 countries."
The TFAP, like the IPF, spoke of the need to use
integrated national planning as the basis for forest
management and the framework for international aid. By the
time of UNCED, this top down approach was already under
strong criticism from NGOs and indigenous groups. Making
governments the key decision makers in forest management
weakened the idea of international action within a
consistent and coordinated framework. Despite assurances
of a transparent and participatory approach, some
governments excluded NGOs and indigenous groups
altogether. Even in those countries that encouraged
participation, the centralized approach inevitably
marginalized community interests, even when they were
legally recognized as major stakeholders.
The logging industry, by comparison, was always highly
influential in the TFAPs. In countries where it had the
strongest political access and power, the TFAP often
recommended direct funding to the industry or an increase
in the area of forest brought under commercial
exploitation. The TFAP later collapsed in the face of NGO
and donor criticism and the refusal of its coordinating
body the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to
implement wide sweeping changes.
The IPF never evaluated the history of such previous
initiatives, and it is clear from its language and
proposals that nothing has been learnt from this
experience. I spoke at length to David Harcharik,
Assistant Director General of the FAO forestry department.
He claimed that the TFAP had failed because it had never
been given sufficient resources or trust. He confirmed
that the IPF was proposing the same approach as the TFAP
and said that he was "very pleased" to see the
international funding for integrated national forest
planning resurrected in the IPF.
Clearly the FAO and the IPF ignored the main lesson from
the TFAP; that the centralized, national based, top-down
planning process is bound to marginalize NGOs, and
indigenous and local communities and favor the most
powerful economic and political interests with access to
the government.
THE TRIUMPH OF THE FREE MARKET
The creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was
felt strongly in the IPF, and throughout the discussions
on "Section IV: Trade and Environment in Relation to
Forest Products and Services", delegates cut or weakened
the text in deference to the WTO.
However, the IPF went far beyond recognizing the authority
of the WTO in trade matters, or the call in section 13 of
the Forest Principles for an open and free trade in forest
products, and made it plain that environmental and social
concerns were secondary to the interests of free trade.
The final report urged that "environmental concerns do not
lead to disguised barriers to trade" and that
"international efforts should focus on ensuring that
existing and new certification and labeling schemes ..are
not in conflict with international obligations [on
trade]." There were similar demands that any criteria and
indicators for "sustainable forest management" should not
be used to restrict trade of be used as a condition for
overseas aid.
The IPF even went so far as to actively promote free trade
as a solution for deforestation, singling out
"discriminatory international trade....trade distorting
practices and market distortions" as among the main causes
of deforestation. It "acknowledged the potential positive
relationship between trade in forest products and services
and sustainable forest management"
The promotion of free trade was presented as an a priori
principle that required neither debate or justification.
In the draft report the IPF had admitted that "in special
circumstances trade measures may be necessary to achieve
environmental objectives." Even this premise, which is
central to much international environmental law, including
the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species, was
removed from the final text. CITES, which is currently
considering listing commercial timber species, is under
attack from the WTO and free market theorists.
The G77 (which included Indonesia and Malaysia) tried to
extend the condemnation of national bans and boycotts to
"those imposed by subnational jurisdictions", meaning they
hundreds of town, city, and regional councils who adopted
environmental criteria for purchasing timber. This matter
was not settled and several versions of this proposal
remained undecided in the text.
The IPF also uncritically advocated uncontrolled private
sector investment in forests. It noted that "private
capital flows are growing and increasingly greater than
public funding" and said that countries must "promote
policies and regulations aimed at creating a favorable
environment to attract domestic and foreign sector private
investment" including in developed countries "loan and
investment guarantees, to encourage their private sector
to invest in sustainable forest management."
There was a brief mention of supporting commercial
development of forests by local community enterprise, but
this was clearly a marginal proposal and Venezuela
insisted on adding "within their respective legal
frameworks, subject to national legislation."
These developments should cause grave concern. The IPF
ignored all the evidence of the role of international
markets in forest exploitation and the role of the private
sector in overruling local community autonomy and
circumventing national law to profit from trade in those
markets. It weakly asked that countries "endeavor to
ensure that external trade policies take into account
community rights , where appropriate." It allowed no
recognition of the near universal failure of governments
to enforce existing corporate legislation, however
limited, and provided no recommendations for helping
governments to strengthen legislation. It recommended only
voluntary codes of conduct for industry, which further
underlines the transfer of power and responsibility from
government to industry.
Rather than challenging the very limited definition of
forest values that makes commercial exploitation so
damaging, it proposed promoting lesser known species and
extending economic valuation to non-commercial goods and
services. It provided no argument for how such non-
tradable values could ever compete in a free commercial
market and there was no indication of any political will
to recognize them or add a comparable value to them.
During the IPF, the Environmental Investigations Agency
released a report that listed the illegal activities of
just a few of the transnational logging companies.
Privately the delegates expressed concern to me over the
behavior of transnationals. The director of forest policy
for Papua New Guinea provided graphic descriptions of the
corruption from logging companies. The ambassador for the
Solomon Islands said that logging companies had bought the
country and the government. At the time of the IPF public
concern had led both the Brazilian senate and the European
Union to form committees to investigate the illegal
activities and forest management records of Asian logging
companies.
However the IPF would not admit to the problem and could
not agree to even request an independent study of the
illegal trade. The proposal was reduced by Brazil to
inviting "countries to provide an assessment and share
relevant information on the nature and extent of illegal
trade in forest products and consider measures to counter
such trade."
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? MOVEMENTS TO A CONVENTION
Although required to develop means to implement the Forest
Principles, most recommendations simply rewrote the
original principles in more convoluted form; asking
countries to support or make improvements to existing
processes, to consider or "explore" developing others, or
to promote general principles, such as participation. Very
few of the "proposals for action" were expressed in a form
for which progress could be assessed on monitored.
One concrete proposal was for the creation of an
international fund to support forest conservation and
management. The IPF could not agree whether to urge its
establishment or "invite the international community to
discuss the proposal." Both options appear unresolved in
the final text awaiting later discussion.
Most tangible proposals for action concerned further
studies or workshops: "a global workshop on international
underlying causes of deforestation and forest
degradation"; a study of how to share the benefits of TFRK
and protect it against trafficking; FAO to prepare a
detailed plan for the implementation of international
forest assessment.
The IPF was never likely to provide concrete proposals
given the consensus structure and the limited time. Thus
the greatest importance lay with program element 5.2 "to
consider and advise on the need, or otherwise, for other
instruments or arrangements in further implementation of
the Forest Principles, including appropriate legal
arrangements and mechanisms covering all types of forest."
The IPF co-chairs divided options into three types for the
final meeting.
Intergovernmental:
to create a new "high level" forum on forest policy (under
the CSD); to continue the IPF; to pass responsibility to
the FAO;
Interagency:
to continue, or strengthen the existing interagency task
force on forests; to create a new institution combining
the forest functions of existing organizations;
Legal Mechanisms:
to implement existing legal instruments; to set up
discussions on whether to move to a convention;
to begin negotiations for a convention; to develop
voluntary codes of conduct.
Many NGOs had argued at Rio for a forest convention out of
a concern that the conference was failing to deal in any
substantive way with deforestation and that a convention
was the best way to seek tangible commitments. Five years
later, most NGOs felt that the level of political
commitment was so poor and the issues being considered so
inadequate, that a convention would be too weak if not
positively dangerous.
Most NGOs, and many people involved in the IPF, including
the co-chair, Sir Martin Holdgate, believed that there was
a strong momentum forming for a convention, and that the
IPF meeting would recommend the beginning of negotiations.
For this reason three NGO position papers opposed, in
varying language, a convention at this stage. Only one
NGO, the Environmental Investigations Agency, actively
supported a convention, maintaining the arguments used at
Rio and the belief that as a convention was coming, NGOs
should be ahead of the governments and setting the agenda
for its contents. There was also a speech in favor from
the "Forest Alliance of British Columbia" which called
itself a "citizens group" despite having a board composed
largely of loggers. The appearance of industry front
groups posing as NGOs is a worrying development for future
NGO participation.
There was powerful support for a convention. Canada,
Malaysia and Indonesia supported it, clearly seeing
opportunities for improving investment and market access
for their timber industries. The EU supported a
convention, in part, apparently, for the ironic reason
that the Netherlands, after years of NGO pressure, wished
to show the public that it was doing something. Argentina,
with one of the highest deforestation rates in the world,
and Poland also supported a convention.
In the event, though, and despite the pressure from
Holdgate for consensus, there was stronger opposition than
expected. The G77 did not have a consensus position and
was split on the issue. Brazil, India, Ghana, Colombia,
Gabon, Uganda, New Zealand and Australia opposed a
convention. All of these have significant timber
industries presumably, feared that a convention might give
a market advantage to Canada, Indonesia and Malaysia.
The most significant opposition came from the USA which
argued that most of the elements being discussed by the
IPF did not require a convention; that trade and access to
markets was best handled by the WTO; that overseas aid
does not require a convention; and that, in any case,
development investment would increasingly come through the
private sector which would be hampered by a convention. In
the course of the IPF there was no clearer statement of
the degree to which governments were delegating their
responsibilities to an unregulated market.
The reasons for the opposition of many countries, though,
was more likely to lie in the distribution of power within
the forest service and political system within the states.
Many of the countries opposing a convention have federal
systems that permit states "concurrent powers" on
forestry, that is to say allow states to develop forest
legislation independently.
The Malaysian delegation said to me that this was one of
the main reasons why they supported a convention as they
saw this as a means to strengthen the hand of the national
authorities in controlling forestry in Sarawak and Sabah.
The Papua New Guinean position also supported a convention
to support a centralization of forest policy in the
increasingly corrupt National Forests Authority.
Those countries that did not openly support or oppose a
convention,, most significantly Japan and Russia, still
wished to see further discussions before moving towards
one.
The meeting therefore proposed four options for continuing
the process:
a) to continue a policy dialogue
b) to continue the IPF under the CSD to:
i) make recommendations on new mechanisms,
ii) build consensus for beginning negotiations on a
convention before 1999.
c) to begin negotiations for a forest convention.
So, although, there is opposition to a convention, it is
still very much on an agenda that will be passed from
forum to forum, at each stage being debated again by new
delegates with progressively less understanding of the
arguments. The options will now be taken to the CSD5
meeting in April. The CSD gives little priority to the IPF
and has not yet allocated sufficient time to discuss it,
so the decision will probably be left to the special UN
general assembly in June. In the mean time the governments
with the clearest agenda, especially those supporting a
convention, will be lobbying strongly behind the scenes
for a consensus.
The IPF meeting decided to maintain the Interagency Task
Force on Forests (ITFF), under the chair of the FAO, to
administer further discussions. Haime Hutubia, the
secretary of the IPF, told me that this does not mean that
the IPF secretariat will continue in its present form or
staffing. So far the IPF secretariat has been subsidized
by the member agencies of the ITFF which leant staff on
secondment. Any continuation will have to be paid for, and
those with the greatest interest in funding the
administration will be those favoring a convention.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The danger of drawn out processes such as the IPF is that
governments and NGOs tend to become obsessed with a fight
over the details and main substance and lose sight of the
long term vision.
Thus the inadequacies of the IPF should not blind us to
the reasons for coordinated international action on
forests, or even a convention. Stepping back from the IPF
we can see that deforestation is a global issue, directly
related to other issues with global ramifications such as
food and timber supply, climate change and biodiversity
loss. The causes of deforestation can be divided into two
interconnected types;
National causes
Those causes primarily arising inside the country
requiring national level policy change. Examples include:
overpopulation; clearing for subsistence or domestic
agriculture; unequal distribution of land and wealth and
the denial of landrights to indigenous and forest
communities; exploitation of timber, charcoal, etc. for
domestic markets; infrastructure projects, especially
roads, and dam projects for domestic power demand.
International and transnational causes
Those causes arising between countries or regions.
Examples include:
clearing for export crops and livestock; the impact of oil
and mineral development for export; the international
demand for timber, and the illegal trade; international
private and multilateral investment in activities that
destroy forest, especially dams, logging and minerals; the
pressure from international creditors and agencies such as
the IMF to exploit or clear forests; bilateral aid
directed into forest clearance; the illegal activities of
transnational corporations and their interference in
national politics and forest policy.
The first category largely lies beyond international
influence. There is, though, a value in mobilizing
international funding, advice and pressure on domestic
issues, especially indigenous peoples' political and
resource rights.
Items in the the second category, however, would very
clearly benefit from international cooperation and it is
hard to imagine making headway on some issues, such as
national debt and the illegal timber trade, without such
cooperation. The IPF ignored most of these transnational
causes and actively encouraged measures to reduce national
and international regulation. By doing so it undermined
the entire justification for international cooperation.
For all its talk about national sovereignty, the IPF
marked a further stage in the privatization of the worlds
forests, and the transfer of power from public and
governmental institutions, such as the United Nations,
national ODA, and the World Bank, to a deregulated private
sector with no such public accountability. This
significantly undermined the work by campaign groups over
the past 10 years to force public institutions to be
accountable and adopt environmental and social criteria
and seriously throws in doubt the value of continuing NGO
work in these fora.
This report makes the following recommendations for
further action by NGOs and concerned governments on
international policy following the IPF:
1. To recognize and actively promote the need for
international agreement and cooperation on the issues
outlined above. They should demand that the IPF process
does not continue further, and should certainly not
continue into a convention until it takes the key issues
on board. The argument is therefore based around issues
rather than being against a convention per se.
2. To recognize that the IPF and the UN may never be an
effective forum for obtaining action on these issues.
These discussions are taking place a long way from the
public attention, debated by low level diplomats, in an
institution with a low status and little power. What is
more, the UN process requires a minimum level of consensus
and common concern to motivate real action, and this is
lacking in the case of forests. UNCED failed to deal with
forests. The IPF has nothing of substance to show for two
years work and the expenditure of millions of dollars.
NGOs in particular should carefully consider how far their
involvement and presence has given, and may continue to
give, credibility to a process that is fundamentally
flawed, and whether their investment is justified.
3. To look at other options and fora for intergovernmental
agreement and cooperation. There are a wide range of
options for bilateral and multilateral agreements
especially with the consolidation of countries into
distinct economic blocks. Whilst there little can be
expected from private sector "voluntary codes of conduct"
there is certainly a potential for codes of conduct and
complementary of corporation legislation to be drawn up
between countries.
4. To recognize the threat posed to forests by the World
Trade Organization and free trade agreements. There has
been relatively little NGO campaign work on the WTO, but
on the evidence of the IPF this could be far more
significant for forests and forest peoples than the UN.
The danger for NGOs is that they concentrate their efforts
in the places of greatest accessibility (such as the UN)
rather than the greatest power or importance.
5. To recognize that a lack of political commitment (to
addressing the real issues) is the key underlying cause of
the IPF's failure. It is essential that NGOs continue to
ensure that preventing deforestation is a priority in the
eyes of the public, media and government. Whilst public
awareness campaigns on national forest issues have grown
in the past two years, they have fallen on international
forest issues. Many times I found myself wondering whether
NGOs could have achieved more for the IPF by channeling
their investment into public awareness campaigns designed
to catalyze political movement.