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FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY

World Blank to Fund Rainforest Destruction

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.

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

http://www.EnvironmentalSustainability.info/ -- Eco-Portal

http://www.ClimateArk.org/ -- Climate Change Portal

November 1, 2002

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org

The World Blank has announced it will resume funding of commercial

logging in primary rainforests; disregarding the Planet's dire need

to maintain these areas in an intact condition, and against the

advice of many of their own technical advisors and the majority of

solicited public comments. The Planet's ecological future - both

species existence and the integrity of the biosphere itself - will

now be further threatened by global tax-payer subsidized intensive

commercial logging. Such intensive and extensive logging of the

World's remaining ecological core areas threatens to further unravel

the ecological fabric of being. The plan does not even require

meaningful environmental certification, and at best is warmed over

"best forest management practices" that have been razing and

simplifying forests for decades. This is a dark day for the

prospects of global ecological sustainability.

We must not waiver in our commitment to protect the World's remaining

large primary forests from commercial development, while supporting

large protected areas and community based eco-forestry. Shame on the

World Bank - your organization is environmentally depauperate - and

your new forest policy is a sham. The World Bank's funding of

industrial logging of the World's life giving ecosystems is not a

biodiversity conservation strategy, nor will it alleviate poverty.

The policy is a resource grab by the World's growth machine that is

morally and ecologically outrageous; totally bereft, _blank_ and

meaningless in terms of forest conservation, community development

and scientific credibility.

It is clear that the World Bank remains a predatory environmental and

economic criminal organization - helping the rich get richer as the

poor get poorer - while pushing the human family and our Earth

towards ecological overshoot and global collapse. The World Blank

will be held responsible for this ecological violence, and this

ghastly forest policy mistake overturned.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: World Bank Approves Controversial Forest Plan

Source: Copyright 2002 Reuters

Date: October 31, 2002

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The World Bank (news - web sites) approved a

new forestry policy on Thursday, paving the way for the lender to

provide funds to forestry projects around the world in a move that

infuriated some environmental groups.

Since 1991, the bank has refrained from getting involved in forestry

projects because of environmental concerns. The new policy is

designed to reduce poverty and at the same time protect the world's

forests.

"The old approach of Bank disengagement from forestry clearly has not

worked," said World Bank President James Wolfensohn.

"The new course of action is centered on improving the protection of

the environment and biodiversity while increasing the livelihoods of

the poor."

Critics said the new plan would open the door to logging, extractive

investments and plantations in forest areas that all eventually have

a negative impact on the environment.

"It is very disappointing," said Korinna Horta, of the

nongovernmental organization, Environmental Defense.

"The plan is seriously flawed and represents a dangerous set-back for

the world's forest ecosystems and the people whose livelihoods depend

on them."

A bank study found that its 1991 policy on forests, which included a

ban on providing financing for logging projects in tropical moist

forests, had failed to slow deforestation as destructive and illegal

logging practices had expanded in many developing countries.

The bank estimates that each year, forest areas equal to the size of

Greece are lost.

The bank said it is the world's largest financier of protected

forest areas and parks. The new policy will seek to expand the

average of 8 percent forest areas under protection in developing

countries, and to maintain a ban on logging in "critical forests."

The policy was unanimously approved by the bank's decision-making

board of directors.

Several members of the U.S. Congress had also raised concerns about

the plan to the bank, a bank source said. The United States is the

World Bank's largest shareholder.

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