WTO Controversy Over Forest Tariffs, and Other Concerns

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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11/30/99

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

A truly diverse group of people; the vast majority of whom are deeply

committed, rightfully concerned, and non-violent, are this week

delivering a simple message to the World Trade Organization (WTO)

during their meetings in Seattle: WTO sponsored "trade

liberalization is lowering standards for environmental protection,

public health and food safety." To many, this is not about trade

being bad. It is more about determining when expanded trade should,

or should not, be pursued, and at what cost. There is nothing

magical or sacrosanct about trade. It is one of many values that may

lead to policy that enriches a community. But not at the expense of

living wages, genetically polluted "Frankenfoods", and decimation of

the World's ecological systems--including forests.

The WTO is pursuing a "Global Free Logging Agreement," which would

reduce tariffs on forest products, lead to increased forest product

consumption, and greater forest loss. It could also jeopardize bans

on the use of endangered tropical timbers, safeguards to prevent the

importation of invasive species, and certification of timbers that

have been harvested in an ecologically sustainable manner.

Uncontrolled free trade, pursued as an unquestioned mantra by

faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats, threatens the health and well

being of the Planet and all its occupants. Our hearts go out to the

brave, non-violent protestors in Seattle.

g.b.

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ITEM #1

Title: FOREST Tariffs Controversial at WTO Talks

Source: Environment News Service, http://www.ens.lycos.com/

Date: November 30, 1999

SEATTLE, Washington, November 30, 1999 (ENS) - Ministerial delegates

from 134 World Trade Organization member countries and 34 observer

nations enter the Seattle Conference Center today to open four days

of negotiations that could start a new round of trade talks. Forest

products are on the agenda along with seven other sectors: chemicals,

medical equipment and scientific instruments, environmental goods,

energy, fish, gems and jewelry, and toys.

The downtown area of Seattle is the scene of a giant protest rally of

labor and environmental proponents lobbying for inclusion of their

concerns by official negotiators.

Environmentalists from across the country met Monday to demand that

forest products be removed from the trade talks. "Treat forests not

like commodities to be traded but rather as natural resources to be

conserved," said Rory Cox of the Oakland, California-based Pacific

Environment and Resources Center.

Cox said the group called on the governments represented at the WTO

to halt negotiations on Accelerated Tariff Liberalization on forest

products, to stop discussions on Non-Tariff Measures that threaten

forest protection measures, and to increase protections against

invasive species.

Environmentalists believe that liberalization of forest products

trade should be halted until the U.S. government has complied with

its own laws by involving the public in the negotiations. Without

careful consideration, they fear the trade talks could override

existing U.S. environmental and forest protection laws.

A study by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the Council for

Environmental Quality (CEQ) acknowledged that the Accelerated Tariff

Liberalization could lead to environmental impacts through increased

logging rates in such countries as Chile, Indonesia, and Malaysia and

to conversion of primary forests to plantations. Although the study

claims that these impacts will be minimal, several separate,

independent studies dispute this claim and suggest that the ATL will

have larger impacts on primary forests, environmentalists said.

"Chile is home to one of the world's last two large tracts of

temperate rainforest," said Miguel Fredes, a staff attorney for FIMA,

a public interest environmental law firm in Chile. "The growth of the

wood chip industry and the conversion of forests into exotic-species

tree plantations constitute the main causes of Chilean native

deforestation. WTO agreements to liberalize tree trade will increase

the loss of Chile's globally unique biodiversity," he said.

But American Forest & Paper Association president and CEO W. Henson

Moore said the USTR/CEQ study "confirms the U.S. forest products

industry's long-held belief that global tariff liberalization will

have little or no adverse impact on the U.S. forest environment, and

that value-added production, an area in which the United States is a

leader, will increase."

In Moore's view the study means that the United States will be able

to supply a larger share of rising world demand for wood and paper

products with "virtually no increase in timber harvests."

The study is "a recognition that U.S. forests -- public and private

-- are sustainably managed through some of the toughest environmental

laws, regulations, and voluntary standards in the world," Moore said

November 2.

The study's finding that the tariff liberalization is not likely to

alter the proportion of world timber harvest in developing countries,

Moore said dispels the contention of environmental groups that tariff

liberalization leads to forest degradation in environmentally-

sensitive countries.

Tariff elimination will reduce the incentive for other countries to

build production capacity beyond the needs of the market, and that

should help keep high-paying manufacturing jobs here in the United

States, the forest industry association president said.

Labor organizations from across the United States are in Seattle

protesting the WTO trade talks, fearing that lowered tariffs will

send their jobs to developing countries where workers are paid far

less.

The entire USTR/CEQ report "Accelerated Tariff Liberalization in the

Forest Products Sector: A Study of the Economic and Environmental

Effects" is available online at:

http://www.ustr.gov/reports/forest.html

ITEM #2

Title: WTO pushes environmental buttons

Activists rally around charge that standards are weakened

Source: MSNBC,

Date: November 30, 1999

Byline: Francesca Lyman

SEATTLE, Nov. 30 - Thousands of protesters clad as sea turtles, ears

of corn, bears and walking forests have filled the streets of

downtown Seattle, clamoring for attention at the World Trade

Organization talks convening here Tuesday. And despite the diversity

of protests, there is a common charge: that WTO-directed trade

liberalization is lowering standards for environmental protection,

public health and food safety.

THE SIERRA CLUB on Monday held a mock Boston Tea Party proclaiming

"No globalization without representation." Activists dressed as

colonial rebels threw overboard "tainted" objects like cans marked

"WTO-dirty gasoline," hormone-treated beef, and shrimp caught in

traps that also kill endangered sea turtles.

Across town, a thousand protesters gathered around Jose Bove, a

French farmer who rose to fame for opposing genetically engineered

foods and trade sanctions against French Roquefort cheese.

Standing in front of a McDonald's in Seattle's busiest shopping

district, Bove blasted the fast-food culture and broke French bread

with farmers who had traveled from as far as Brazil and Eastern

Europe, as they offered wine and other foods in exchange. "Let

farmers raise the good food people want to eat and love to grow,"

Bove said.

CRITICS SEE LOWER STANDARDS

Despite the diversity of protests, there was a common charge: trade

liberalization, carried out by WTO, is lowering standards for

environmental protection, public health and food safety.

In a recent letter to the Clinton administration, a dozen groups,

including the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, National Wildlife

Federation and the Center for International Environmental Law,

chastised the WTO for eroding hard-won laws. "WTO rules and

procedures have been used repeatedly to attack environmental laws

that our organizations have worked for decades to create, strengthen

and protect," they charged.

After a day of environmental protests, however, U.S. Trade

Representative Charlene Barshevsky reiterated earlier pledges by the

Clinton administration that the WTO would not stand in the way of

countries' powers to set their own laws.

Those pledges center around a stand taken by President Bill Clinton

last year in which he stated that "international trade rules must

permit sovereign nations to exercise their rights to set protective

standards for health and safety, the environment, and biodiversity.

"Nations have a right to pursue those protections," he added, "even

when they are stronger than international norms."

When the WTO was created in 1995, it promised to protect the

environment and even created a Committee on Trade and the Environment

at the request of the United States. Free trade, in theory, was

supposed to be an engine of growth propelling the world toward

greater wealth - and, with it, the possibility of even strengthening

environmental standards stronger.

"How does a country maintain its role in a trade organization as part

of an international agreement and also maintain its standards for

environmental protection?" That, says John Audley, a White House

spokesman on trade and the environment, is "precisely what we're

wrestling with at the moment."

Where conflicts have arisen, the WTO has final authority in resolving

conflicts. But environmentalists charge that the WTO has always

"resolved" conflicts in a way that favors trade over environmental

protection. In more than half a dozen cases, WTO decisions have

served to weaken existing health and environmental protections, they

say.

"Whoever has the tougher standard gets challenged," contends Brent

Blackwelder, director of Friends of the Earth. "What's to stop

virtually any law that is construed as a trade barrier?"

CONTROVERSIAL RULINGS

Several recent WTO rulings are cited by environmentalists as evidence

of their claims:

* Endangered species. The WTO found that U.S. laws intended to

prevent dolphins from drowning in tuna nets were a barrier to free

trade. As a result, Congress weakened the criteria under which

dolphin safe tuna can be labeled under the Marine Mammal Protection

Act. Likewise, the WTO ruled in favor of a challenge to a U.S. ban on

shrimp caught without the use of devices to let sea turtles escape.

* Clean air. The WTO two years ago ruled in favor of Venezuela when

it challenged the United States for trying to impose its higher

standard on gasoline quality. The United States even weakened its own

Clean Air Act to go along with free trade rules. "I can't speak for

the actual chemistry of the fuel, but our EPA Office of Air (and

Radiation) felt it didn't weaken our air standards," says Audley of

the White House. In general, he adds, "the government feels that the

rules are now written in a way that enables countries to liberalize

trade and safeguard the environment at the same time."

OTHER CONTROVERSIES

Given those precedents and the WTO's nearly autonomous power,

environmentalists fear the trade pact will fuel controversies in

other areas, among them:

* Forests. A WTO proposal to lower tariffs on wood products would

make them cheaper and easier to buy, but it would tend to promote

clearcutting and consumption of these products. The White House

insists that this could be done with no harm to forests. "On

aggregate, the global consumption of forest products wouldn't go up

by more than one percent," says Audley. "Compare that to the fact

that 85 percent of the world's forests are threatened by people's

demand for home heating and fuelwood."

Some environmentalists counter that this would make it much harder to

limit unsustainable logging and could erode other protections, like

export bans on raw logs and safeguards to protect against invasive

species being introduced via wood imports.

* Food safety. Largely because of new trade agreements, food imports

to the United States have doubled since the 1980s. But freer trade

has allowed food to move more freely across borders, with fewer and

more relaxed inspections.

After a U.S. complaint, a WTO panel ruled against a ban on hormone-

treated beef by the European Union, which argued such beef poses

cancer risks.

The next challenge could very well be over genetically modified

crops, which many European and Asian countries have sought to ban.

And polls have shown that most Americans would like to see

genetically modified foods labeled.

* Hazardous waste. Two challenges of national hazardous waste laws

are being made citing the North American Free Trade Agreement. A

California company is seeking compensation because of local

opposition to its building of a hazardous waste facility in Mexico

next to a wildlife refuge. And an Ohio company wants $10 million in

damages it claims it suffered because of Canada's temporary ban on

exports of the chemical PCB.

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