New Plan to Save World's Forests

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives

http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation

4/28/99

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE

There is some good and some bad news in the following report. The

good news is that a new international policy initiative has been put

forth by the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development

to "halt the destruction of the world's rapidly disappearing forests."

The bad news is that there is a new international policy initiative

put forth by the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable

Development to "halt the destruction of the world's rapidly

disappearing forests." Following are two media accounts regarding the

Commission's release of ''Our Forests, Our Future.''

While most of the observations and recommended actions seem reasonable

enough, one can't help but wonder why this round of hand ringing will

be any more successful than those international proclamations that

have come previously. Bottom line: without binding national

commitments to conserve remaining old growth, and sustainably manage

second growth; and the resource transfer to compensate developing

countries for doing so; I am hard pressed to believe that a "Forests

Security Council", as is proposed, would make any difference in

building political will for forest conservation.

And the initiative relies too much upon proposing massive new

organizations in areas that are already being covered by more modest

efforts, but that do have a track record and legitimacy. This

includes proposals for a "Forest Management Council" which would

coordinate efforts to certify and label wood products that are

harvested in an environmentally sustainable manner (apparently no one

told them of the Forest Stewardship Council); and also wants to

establish "ForestWatch" as obviously there are no local groups or NGOs

monitoring forest practices, and this can be much better done in a

top-down fashion from Washington DC rather than coordinating and

complimenting existing networks.

Very disappointing actually, as big corporate NGOs displace real

community organizing. While big NGOs, government and industry blather

on saying all the right things, the forest and biodiversity crisis

intensifies. We'll have a lot better results if each of us pick a

forest and organize locally to conserve and manage it.

g.b.

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ITEM #1

Title: New Plan to Save World's Forests

Source: InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)

Date: April 16, 1999

Byline: By Danielle Knight

WASHINGTON, Apr 19 (IPS) - A international group of leading

scientists, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and policy makers

have put forward a new political initiative to halt the destruction of

the world's rapidly disappearing forests.

In a report released Monday, the World Commission on Forests and

Sustainable Development suggests several new global political systems

to measure the economic value of unexploited forests. It also

recommends new mechanisms to help monitor the global threat to

forests.

''The world's forests are being cut and burnt at such a rapid rate

that if action is not taken soon, we risk undermining their vital

function in maintaining a habitable planet,'' says the report,

compiled after the Commission conducted a series of public hearings

around the world.

Since the Commission was formed following the Earth Summit in Rio de

Janeiro in 1992, more than 90 million hectares of forest have

disappeared.

The report says that governments have been weak when it comes to

protecting forests against commercial interests and proposes a number

new inter- governmental bodies to change wasteful production and

consumption patterns that harm forests.

''Fixing the forest crisis is basically a matter of politics,'' says

Ola Ullsten, co-chair of the Commission and the former prime minister

of Sweden.

''It is about governments assuming their mandate to protect their

natural resources - including forests - for the long term benefit of

their citizens.''

From Thailand to Haiti, forest loss is contributing to the extinction

of plants and animals, increased flooding and the disruption of

climate patterns, says the report, entitled ''Our Forests, Our

Future.''

While there are varying causes of deforestation - ranging from logging

and mining to clearing land for agriculture - the loss of forests is

clearly a global problem, says the Commission, also co- chaired by

Emil Salim, a former Indonesian minister of environment and

population.

Nearly three-quarters of the original tropical rain forests in West

Africa have been lost during the past 50 years.

Several African countries - including Nigeria, Kenya, Burundi, Cote

D'Ivoire and Madagascar - lost more than 90 percent of their original

forest cover as demand for agricultural land and wood products soared.

Under pressures of agriculture, plantations and timber harvesting in

Asia, about 32 percent of the region's potentially forested area

remained forest in the mid- 1990s.

''Latin America and the Caribbean region suffer from some of the

highest current day-rates of forest decline,'' says the report. The

region as a whole lost 9.7 of its forest area between 1980 and 1995.

In order to address what the Commission calls ''a lack of political

will'' to address the complex causes of the forest crisis, the report

challenges governments to form a Forests Security Council which would

provide ''leadership to the search for real and effective solutions.''

''The core of the Forests Security Council would be made up of

countries whose forest circumstances make them indispensable in any

effort to alter the trend of forest decline and to get to the roots of

the crisis,'' says the report.

Countries with prominent forest cover, such as the Russian Federation

and Indonesia would be included - as would countries that are major

importers and exporters of wood products - including the United

States, Brazil, Japan, and India.

The Commission also suggests that countries be rewarded for not

exploiting forests through the development of a concept called the

Forest Capital Index. Designed after the UN Human Development Index,

the forest index would provide a uniform numerical indicator of the

state of a country's forest.

The only economic value currently assigned to forests is in timber.

The new index would take into account the economic benefits from the

ecological functions of forests.

For example, consideration would be given to the role of forests in

maintaining supplies of clean water or preventing soil erosion. The

contribution of forests to agricultural production and helping to

regulate climate also would be taken into account under the index.

A dollar value to the services provided by the forests could be added

and then used to spark dialogue on why current prices on wood products

do not reflect the ecological benefits of forests lost when trees are

logged.

''We have to correct the prices on wood products so as to reflect the

real costs of extracting timber and fibre from the world's forests,''

says the report. ''We have to develop financial methods of capturing

the value of the services that forests provide.''

The idea of forest capital, according to the report, would create the

basis for market mechanisms that would compensate countries for

ecological services from forests.

''The forests have a role in supplying the world with timber and

fibre,'' says George Woodwell, of the Woods Hole Research Center, who

is a member of the Commission. '' But while those products can be

partly substituted, the forests' ecological services for a functioning

world cannot.''

The Commission wants to set up a Forest Management Council which would

coordinate efforts to certify and label wood products that are

harvested in an environmentally sustainable manner.

The report recommends the formation of another body called Forestrust

International, which would act as a ''citizens force'' in ''defense of

the public interest in forests.''

Forestrust would include an international Forest Ombudsman to act as

an independent watchdog on issues of related to corruption and

environmental abuses associated with forest operations. The Ombudsman

could be considered either as a UN body or as a creation of

international NGOs active in forest conservation, says the report.

The report suggests the Ombudsman work closely with Global Forest

Watch, a new international network currently sponsored by Washington-

based World Resources Institute (WRI), that aims to change the way

forests are monitored by local organisations and scientists.

''Global Forest Watch would gather, analyze and disseminate

information on logging, mining, and other development activities

within and around forests as, or before, it happens,'' according to

according to Dirk Bryant, director of Global Forest Watch at WRI.

Existing forest monitoring systems track changes in land cover - such

as conversion of wooded areas to crop land, pasture and urban areas.

But, they only tell us what has happened to the world's forests

''after-the-fact,'' says Bryant.

''Such "post-mortem" deforestation data are often of limited value

because by the time an area has been cleared or degraded, it is

usually too late to do anything about it,'' he says.

Non-governmental organizations and indigenous peoples could use Forest

Watch information to monitor existing and planned development

activities which have an impact on their communities. And scientists

would be able to monitor threats to carbon storage, bio-diversity and

ecosystem health.

Eventually, Forest Watch would be become an independent, non-

governmental organization as monitoring centers are established

throughout the world, says Bryant.

Steve Schwartzman, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense

Fund, says it is important to strengthen the ability of local

communities to protect and monitor forests.

''If the power of local communities to propose their own alternatives

and voice their needs isn't strengthened, nothing much is going to

change,'' he warns. (END/IPS/dk/mk/99)

Origin: ROMAWAS/ENVIRONMENT/

ITEM #2

Title: Top Level Commission: Forest Crisis Can Be Reversed

Source: Environmental News Network

Date: April 20, 1999

WASHINGTON, DC, April 20, 1999 - The forests of the world have been

exploited to the point of crisis and major changes are needed in

global forest management strategies if the devastation is to be

halted. This is the conclusion of the World Commission on Forests and

Sustainable Development, a group made up of top world leaders, which

Monday released its report "Our Forests...Our Future."

The report suggests that at this point a change in direction is still

economically and politically possible. But the costs will become

overwhelming, the longer we delay taking action. To facilitate this

change, the Commission advocates radical reform of policies, calls for

a new political agenda, greater civil society involvement and more

science in policy-making.

After conducting public hearings on all five continents, the

Commission found that from Siberia to Haiti, the world's forests are

being destroyed far beyond their ability to reproduce. Nearly 75

percent of West Africa's tropical forests have been lost since

1950. Thailand lost a third of its forests in just 10 years, during

the 1980s. Forests face an even shakier future with the global

population expected to grow 50 percent in the next 50 years.

"Fixing the forest crisis is basically a matter of politics," said Ola

Ullsten, former Swedish Prime Minister who co-chaired the Commission

with Dr. Emil Salim, former Indonesian Minister of Population and

Environment. "It is about governments assuming their mandate to

protect their natural resources - including forests - for the long

term benefit of their citizens."

The Commission's Report challenges the handful of countries with some

85 percent of the world's forests to exercise leadership through a

Forest Security Council, modeled partly on the G8 summits but also

involving the science, business and NGO communities.

The Commission sought out the opinions of those whose lives are

directly connected with forests through five public hearings held in

Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and North

America.

The co-chairs described their work. "We met with forest dwelling and

other local communities in developing countries who are directly

dependent on forests for their economic, social, cultural and

spiritual well-being. We listened to farmers from countries in the

North and South who rely on forests for agricultural productivity and

sustenance. We heard executives from forest industries in different

parts of the world and their employees who supply wood products to

society. We took careful note of what scientists, economists,

foresters, government officials and other specialists involved in

national and international forest policy had to say."

The Commission concluded that people can "satisfy the world's material

needs from forests without jeopardizing their ecological services."

The key is "a set of global, national and local level arrangements to

involve people in all decisions concerning their forests" called

ForesTrust with four components:

1. Forest Watch - A network connecting ordinary citizens

with decision makers. Forest Watch would also gather,

analyze and disseminate information on forests.

2. Forest Management Council - An institution to

standardize sustainable practices including

eco-labeling of forest products and certification.

3. Forest Ombudsman - A network of officials to identify

and pass objective non advocacy judgements on

corruption, inequity and abuse in forest operations.

4. Forest Award - A way to recognize and reward good

performance in sustainable forest management.

"There is clear link between degraded forests and poverty," said Dr.

Salim. "We estimate that one billion of the world's poorest people in

about 30 heavily deforested countries would be alleviated from poverty

if given government support for managing neighboring public forest

land and sharing the benefits within their communities."

Today, virtually the only economic value officially assigned to

forests is in timber. The report suggests the introduction of a Forest

Capital Index. This measure would take into account forests as the

largest reservoir for plants and animals on land, their role in

maintaining supplies of clean water, in creating and retaining soil,

in contributing to the productivity of fisheries and agriculture, and

helping to regulate climate.

To accommodate a growing population's need of more land for food

production the report recommends making better use of the millions of

hectares of degraded land left behind both by poor agriculture

practices and mismanaged forests through an "Evergreen Revolution."

"Despite unintended environmental consequences of the Green

Revolution, it not only saved millions of people from starvation but

also millions of hectares of forests from encroachment by

agriculture," said Dr. M.S Swaminathan, of India, a Commission member

and one of the architects behind the agricultural Green Revolution of

the sixties. "Now it is critically important for the world to take the

best of that era's accomplishments and merge them with a new

generation of ideas through an Evergreen Revolution."

"The Forests have a role in supplying the world with timber and

fiber," said Commission member Dr. George Woodwell of the Woods Hole

Research Center, USA. "But while those products can be partly

substituted, the forests' ecological services for a functioning world

cannot. That is what the forest crisis is all about."

Klaus Toepfer, World Commission member and executive director of the

United Nations Environment Programme said through its public hearings

the Commission has "given a voice to people who live in the forests,

who make a living from the forests, and to every other group of people

who have a stake in the future of the forests."

"The report is leaving nobody in any doubt that there is a forest

crisis. The loss of millions of hectares of forest cover every year is

serious because of the ecological services forests provide: for the

hydrological cycle, for soil conservation, for biological diversity

and for its control of weather patterns," said Toepfer.

"Most importantly, the report offers a way out of this crisis. It

specifies reforms needed from abandoning subsidies and tax incentives

that provoke forest destruction to more openness in timber allocation

procedures and landscape planning," Toepfer said.

THE COMMISSION'S TEN RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Stop the destruction of the earth's forests: their

material products and ecological services are

severely threatened.

2. Use the world's rich forest resources to improve life

for poor people and for the benefit of

forest-dependent communities.

3. Put the public interest first and involve people in

decisions about forest use.

4. Get the price of forests right, to reflect their full

ecological and social values, and to stop harmful

subsidies.

5. Apply sustainable forest management approaches so we

may use forests without abusing them.

6. Develop new measures of forest capital so we know

whether the situation is improving or worsening.

7. Plan for the use and protection of whole landscapes,

not the forest in isolation.

8. Make better use of knowledge about forests, and

greatly expand this information base.

9. Accelerate research and training so sustainable

forest management can become a reality quickly.

10. Take bold political decisions and develop new civil

society institutions to improve governance and

accountability regarding forest use.

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