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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Increasing
Transnational Investment Devastating Tropical Forests
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org
http://forests.org/ -- Forest
Conservation Archives
http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest
Conservation
06/13/00
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY
The
long anticipated, slightly sanitized expose of rampant rainforest
timber
"mining" by transnational timber companies has been released
and is
available on line. The trend of highly
aggressive, largely
Asian,
timber companies failing to manage forests that they are
industrially
harvesting, violating indigenous rights, and sometimes
practicing
large-scale corruption has been evident and growing for
some
years, but many large environmental groups and governments have
been
loath to address the issue for fear of retribution. It is
gratifying
to see a large, mainstream environmental group such as WWF
acknowledge
"the dramatic expansion of transnational investments in
timber
extraction from tropical forests is an increasing cause of
deforestation
worldwide." They are not the first
to have hesitated to
address
the issue--I know of other unreleased reports from Greenpeace
and
others. There doesn't seem to be much
point in forest advocacy,
and
working on issues such as forest certification, if most large
forests
that drive global ecological systems are being pillaged and
plundered. As a movement, we must stop nibbling away at
the edges and
speak
truth to power--a handful of companies threaten nearly all of
the
World's large, contiguous rainforests--and demand governments take
action
to stop the destruction. This report
takes an important first
step--download
it at:
http://panda.org/news/download/tnc_report.pdf
g.b.
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RELAYED
TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Increasing transnational investment
devastating tropical
forests, new WWF report says
Source: WWF Press Release,
http://panda.org/news/newsroom.cfm
Status: Copyright 2000, contact source for
permission to reprint
Date: June 9, 2000
Photo
caption: Old growth tropical forests too often mined rather than
managed.
In a
new report available today, WWF, the conservation organization
warned
that the dramatic expansion of transnational investments in
timber
extraction from tropical forests is an increasing cause of
deforestation
worldwide.
Compiled
by WWF and the World Resource Institute (WRI), with funding
from
the European Commission, the report documents the role played by
multinational
logging companies in the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP)
countries.
It shows how investment, formerly led by companies from
Japan,
Europe and North America, has shifted to Asian firms, mainly
from
Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea and Hong Kong (China). According to
the
study, this new trend has resulted in an expansion of destructive
logging
operations, violation of indigenous rights, and sometimes
large-scale
corruption.
"Most
of the new investment focuses on short term activities, and the
economic
benefits to the exporting country are usually very low," said
Jean-Paul
Jeanrenaud, Head of WWF Forests for Life Programme. "In
addition,
the forests are often mined rather than managed, resulting
in high
levels of damage and increased access to previously untouched
areas."
The
report warns that urgent and concrete measures must be taken if
the
rapid disappearance of most of the remaining old-growth forests in
the ACP
countries is to be avoided. For example, it calls for the ACP
governments
to freeze all new foreign investment for the expansion of
logging
operations until land use planning has been completed and the
traditional
rights of local people have been defined. It also urges
the
World Bank and the European Commission to support only activities
related
to the achievement of sustainable forest management.
"Governments
and investors who commit to sound forest management and
independent
certification recognized by the Forest Stewardship Council
should
receive special assistance from donors to help the shift from
non-management
to sustainability," added Xavier Ortegat, Chief
Executive
Officer of WWF-Belgium.
The new
report follows up on a previous WWF study published in 1995 -
"Bad
Harvest", which examined the impacts of the global timber trade.
At that
time, it was already foreseeable that Asian logging companies
were
rapidly increasing their impact on forests outside Asia.
For
further information:
Jean-Paul
Jeanrenaud, +41 22 364 9011 ; mobile: +41 79 653 20 71 ; e-
mail:
jjeanrenaud@wwfint.org
NOTE TO
EDITORS
Hard
copies of the report "Increased investment and trade by
transnational
logging companies in Africa, the Caribbean and the
Pacific:
Implications for the Sustainable Management and Conservation
of
Tropical Forests" are available from Geert Lejeune, WWF-Belgium,
tel.:
+32 2 340 09 58 ; fax: +32 2 340 09 38 ; e-mail:
tropicalforest@wwf.be
The
electronic version (pdf file) can be downloaded from the following
address:
http://panda.org/news/download/tnc_report.pdf
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