ACTION ALERT!

World Bank to Resume Financing of Rainforest Destruction

July 18, 2002, By Forests.org, Inc.

TAKE ACTION: http://forests.org/emailaction/bank.htm

The World Bank has released its long awaited draft policy on

forests.  The proposed policy threatens most of the world’s

remaining forests with environmentally damaging industrial

forest management financed by taxpayers through the World

Bank.  It severely weakens the existing Operational (OP)

Policy on Forests of 1993.  Environmental group pressure led

to the current policy that bans Bank funding of logging in

primary moist tropical forests.  Over the past several years,

the World Bank has aggressively sought to resume financing of

"sustainable forest management" activities in the World's

dwindling primary forests, particularly in the tropics.  This

would require revision of the Bank's existing forest policy. 

The proposed new policy opens the door to financing of large

scale timber export and carbon sequestration projects,

emphasizing market forces and marketing arrangements to

address deforestation.  However, there is no evidence that

commercial scaled sustainable forest management can be

effective in promoting environmentally sound and socially

equitable development.  The Bank’s new proposed policy fails

to address the powerful forces of globalization and economic

liberalization, as well as poor governance, the main causes

of deforestation according to the World Bank itself.

The Bank has spearheaded failed tropical timber industry

reform efforts for over a decade; failing miserably to reform

commercial logging in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Kenya,

Cameroon and elsewhere.  The Bank’s forest conservation

policy approach continues to be based upon the false premise

that commercial logging in primary forests is ecologically

sustainable.  This is patently false.  Turning the Bank loose

to "integrate forests into sustainable economic development"

will guarantee the demise of the World's remaining large

natural primary and old-growth forests.  The Bank seeks to

sustain foreign exchange revenues and timber yields rather

than natural ecological processes and patterns. 

The proposed policy allows extractive investments by the Bank

in all types of forests except those Bank bureaucrats deem to

be "critical forests".  Participatory mechanisms to define

such forests are not part of the plan.  Instead of proposing

clear and strong new safeguards to protect the world's

forests, the proposed policy refers to seven other existing

World Bank 'Safeguard Policies' as a means to protect

ecosystems and livelihoods of forest-dependent peoples. 

The draft policy was developed through years of consultation

with others.  Yet the result flies in the face of demands of

civil society and ignores most of the advice given to the

Bank by its own Technical Advisory Group.  It appears the

Bank carried out a very costly and time-consuming exercise to

justify the adoption of a policy that had already been

decided upon beforehand. 

The proposed policy shows little potential to promote forest

conservation.  Any revision of the Bank’s current forest

policy must not allow any financing of commercial scale

logging or forest management in any of the World's remaining

primary forests.  The Bank needs binding policy for each

sector (i.e. roads, agricultural plantations, mining, etc.)

in regards to forest conservation.  The Bank's structural

adjustment lending must be reformed to eliminate massive

negative impacts upon forests and other ecosystems.  Please

edit and send the following letter at:

http://forests.org/emailaction/bank.htm

Dear Mr. Wolfensohn and World Bank Board members,

I am writing to strongly condemn the World Bank’s current

draft operational policy (OP) on Forests.  The policy

mistakenly emphasizes large-scale commercial development of

primary and other forests as a means to achieve forest

conservation and poverty alleviation.  The Bank President and

Board have been poorly served by their advisors: at this

critical juncture in global forest conservation, there is no

justification for Bank subsidies for rainforest destruction.

The draft OP is a non-policy in that it relies on other

existing or future World Bank policies to address the most

critical issues pertaining to the world’s forests and their

peoples.  It fails to represent a safeguard policy in any

meaningful sense.  The draft OP ignores the findings of the

Bank’s Operations Evaluation Department (OED) as well as

inputs received during the lengthy public consultation

process.  The current policy is seriously flawed for the

following reasons:

1) Industrial Logging - the draft OP lifts the ban on direct

investment in large-scale industrial logging which is a

central feature of the 1993 Forest Policy. According to the

draft OP, Bank investments in industrial forestry will halt

destructive practices. There is no evidence that large-scale

logging – particularly in primary forests - can be conducted

in an environmentally sustainable and socially beneficial

manner.  Little emphasis is given to community-based and

other smaller-scale eco-forestry management initiatives,

which would not require a change of the 1993 Forest Policy.

2) Structural Adjustment – the policy fails to address the

critical issue of how such lending impacts forests.  Causes

of deforestation that lie outside the forest sector such as

poorly conceived economic policies, Bank sectoral lending and

poor governance practices are ignored by the draft OP.

3) Protection of Forest Ecosystems - the draft OP does not

protect forests, relying instead on the Bank’s Operational

Policy on Natural Habitats (OP 4.04) whose effectiveness has

never been evaluated.  Global ecological sustainability

requires that most of the World’s remaining primary forests

are strictly protected or managed by local peoples using

certified eco-forestry practices.

4) Forest-Dependent People - the draft OP does not secure

land tenure for indigenous peoples or other forest dependent

communities, though problems in this area are a leading cause

of forest degradation and deforestation.

5) Applicability of OP to the World Bank Group - one of the

central recommendations emerging out of the consultation

process was that the Bank’s new Forest Policy should also be

applicable to IFC and MIGA operations.

The proposed policy will not promote forest conservation. 

Given serious flaws in the Bank’s proposed Forest Policy, I

ask that a new draft safeguard policy on forests be prepared

in line with recommendations already made by the public and

by the Bank’s own technical advisors.  Resumption of

financing of commercial scale logging in any of the World's

remaining primary forests must not be allowed.  The Bank

needs binding policy for each sector in regards to forestry. 

The Bank's structural adjustment lending must be reformed to

eliminate its massive negative impacts upon forests and other

ecosystems.

The perception of significant improvements in the Bank’s

environmental record is threatened by this seriously flawed

proposal.  It would be a serious error for the Bank to

subsidize global forest diminishment and deforestation.  I

insist that any new Bank policy in regard to forest

conservation be limited to forest protection and small-scale

eco-forestry, or else leave the current policy in effect.  I

and others will not tolerate this proposed policy, and will

loudly protest its further development and implementation. 

Sincerely,

This alert is largely based on the Statement released by the

World Rainforest Movement, the Forest Peoples Programme and

Environmental Defense at:

http://www.wrm.org.uy/statements/WB.html