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WORLDWIDE
BIODIVERSITY/FOREST CAMPAIGN NEWS
Possible
Forest Treaty to Undermine Biodiversity Treaty & CITES
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
1/19/95
OVERVIEW
& SOURCE
The
following item, posted by John Fitzgerald in econet's
rainfor.general
conference, details developments in the
international
arena to protect forests. It is alleged
that timber
exporters
are supporting a forest treaty which would not have to
include
biodiversity considerations; as is the case with the more
demanding
CITES and Biodiversity Treaty.
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/*
Written 7:44 PM Jan 19, 1995 by wafcdc in
igc:rainfor.genera
*/
/*
---------- "Biodiversity & CITES to be Undermin" ----------
*/
Timber
Exporters On Fast Track to Develop Forest Treaty To
Undercut
CITES, Biodiversity Convention and Log Export Limits
Recent
Developments in International Law indicate that an effort
to
develop a treaty on forest management is picking up steam with
the
support of timber exporting and importing countries. According
to a
Report in The Earth Times (Dec. 15, 1994, p. 4) former
Swedish
Prime Minister Ola Ullsten and Emil Salim, former
environment
minister of Indonesia will co- chair a "World
Commission
on Forests and Sustainable Development" to be announced
next
year. Ullsten claims to have the
support of the UN.
This
move alarms environmentalists who attended the November-
December
Conferences of the Parties to the two existing
general
treaties with jurisdiction over forestry.
Nations
participating
in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and
the
Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) met in
November
and December and considered forest species and their
conservation,
among other issues.
The
CITES Parties narrowly rejected efforts to list the American
bigleaf
mahogany on Appendix II to control trade at sustainable
levels,
(an App. I listing bans international commercial trade)
and
accepted some other listings, such as an App. II listing for
unprocessed
Himalayan Yew (now apparently used to make taxol).
North
American species that might warrant some form of listing in
the
future include the Port Orford cedar, the coastal redwood and
giant
sequoia. The CITES Parties decided,
however, to establish a
Timber
Working Group under the new Standing (Executive) Committee
to
review the problems associated with listing timber species
under
CITES. Further direction will be
provided at the Standing
Committee
meeting in March 14-17 1995 in Geneva.
The Standing
Committee
is now chaired by Japan and includes such other major
importers
and exporters as the Russian Federation, The United
States,
Thailand, and Mexico. Also underway is
a general review
of
CITES for consideration at the next Conference, headed by
Canada
and financed largely by Japan, which is expected to
recommend
trimming CITES coverage back away from all but the
rarest
(no longer commercially exploitable) species and focus as
well on
the role of Non-Government Groups which so far have
participated
in CITES so that conservation groups and commercial
traders
are on a relatively equal footing in the meetings, if not
outside
the meetings.
Several
days later, the Parties to the 1992 Rio Convention on
Biological
Diversity, including 104 nations, (signed but not yet
ratified
by the U.S.), met for the first time as a body. This
treaty
deals with most other aspects of the conservation and
sustainable
use of biodiversity that CITES did not reach when it
was
drafted to deal with international trade only in 1972. It
bases
all uses generally on a level that will not lead to a long
term
decline in biological diversity -- within and among species.
Forest
management principles under the CBD are the subject of a
drafting
effort that is underway by the International Union for
the
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Law Center in Bonn, Germany.
Many
expect the US to decide soon to endorse an effort to develop
an
independent forest treaty drafting effort not based on
biodiversity
that may be officially begun at a preparatory
committee
meeting of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development
in
February for the full CSD meeting in New York this spring.
Such a
treaty, combined with the GATT, could effectively prevent
efforts
to set conservation-based import and export limits for
forest
products.
Under
Secretary Tim Wirth and his Assistant Secretary, Rafe
Pomerance,
at the Department of State, will lead the effort to
decide. Please contact Under Secretary Worth, Dept.
of State,
2201 C
Street, Washington, D.C. 20520; 202/647- 6240, Fax:
202/647-0753
and urge him to oppose any Forestry Convention which
would
supersede CITES and the Convention on Biodiversity.
John
Fitzgerald
###RELAYED
TEXT ENDS###
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