Forest Protection Blog

Over the past several years Forests.org has been instrumental in highlighting the threat posed to the World?s remaining ancient forests by the Bank?s then proposed, and subsequently adopted, change in lending criteria - which once again allowed funding of industrial forestry in ancient rainforests. Just as predicted, World Bank forestry programs meant to "promote sustainable development" are threatening rainforests and harming their inhabitants. A new report detailed below found that "The World Bank has reverted to the bad old ways of the 1980s when forest destruction and the trampling of local communities was considered the price of development".

The World Bank remains a dangerous organization that threatens global ecological sustainability like no other. This is simply unacceptable, and must not be left unanswered. Having once worked as a consultant in the belly of the beast, I have come to the conclusion that the Bank is probably irredeemable and may need to be smashed and dismantled.

A press release from the coalition that released the report:

Title: World Bank is contributing to destruction of world?s forests
Source: The Rainforest Foundation, Global Witness, CDM Watch, Down to Earth, Sinkswatch, Forest Peoples Programme, Environmental Defense, World Rainforest Movement
Date: April 11, 2005

A new independent report published today finds that programmes funded by the World Bank Group are causing destruction of the world?s remaining forests and harming poor people dependent on forests for their survival. The report - entitled "Broken Promises" [1] - says that the Bank has failed to implement its own Forest "Safeguard" Policy, adopted in 2002, and that not one of the conditions the Bank promised to fulfil has been met [2].

The report finds that:

§ The World Bank's private sector and insurance arms known as the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) have not adopted the new Forest Policy;

§ The IFC has pushed ahead a raft of dubious projects, all of which threaten forests and forest peoples, notably in the Brazilian Amazon and Indonesia;

§ There are no mechanisms to address forests and forest peoples under programmatic loans, such as "Structural Adjustment Credits";

§ There is a serious lack of transparency in the Bank's External Advisory Group which is meant to provide independent advice on the application of the Bank's Forest Policy;

§ So-called "Community Forest Management" projects in India, meant to alleviate poverty, have ignored World Bank safeguard policies and trampled the rights of indigenous peoples;

§ Policy changes to promote industrial logging in the Congo Basin have been pushed through with the assistance of the World Bank without required public consultation and without measures to secure local community rights;

§ High profile initiatives in Cambodia to stamp out forestry corruption have floundered for lack of Bank commitment;

§ Projects to promote carbon markets have despoiled landscapes and ruined livelihoods;

§ Conservation projects funded through the Global Environment Facility and implemented by the World Bank have imperiled traditional livelihoods and marginalised communities.

"In spite of all its past promises, the World Bank continues to be a major actor in the destruction of forests, and is pushing forest peoples into dispossession and poverty", said Ricardo Carrere from the World Rainforest Movement. "The Bank has blatantly breached its own policies regarding forest conservation and forest peoples' rights".

Broken Promises also exposes how the Bank's involvement in forestry violates its stated mission to "fight poverty" and promote sustainable development.

Simon Counsell, Director of the Rainforest Foundation UK said "The Bank appears to have learned nothing from its disastrous forays into the forests of countries such as Cameroon and Gabon, and is now on course to facilitate the destruction of the world's second largest rainforest, that of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Bank's plans for DRC?s forests are likely to damage or destroy the livelihoods of tens of millions of the world's poorest people, trample on the rights of indigenous forest people, and promote conflict and corruption along the way. The Bank?s management must closely investigate how its staff could have made such appalling mistakes".

ends

Notes:

[1] "Broken Promises: How World Bank Group policies and practice fail to protect forests and forest peoples' rights" will be issued in Washington, DC, on the 14th of April 2005, and will be available thereafter on the websites listed below. Advance copies are available to bona fide journalists.

[2] In 2002, the World Bank?s new "Forests Strategy" and Operational Policy on Forests were adopted, under a volley of criticism from civil society and indigenous peoples, who found that their key demands were far from met. In response to this criticism, the Bank's Board of Directors only approved the controversial new Forests Policy with a number of conditions to be met by the Bank.

For more information, please contact

Jon Buckrell
Global Witness
jbuckrell@globalwitness.org
+44 (0) 207 272 6731
www.globalwitness.org

Ricardo Carrere
World Rainforest Movement
rcarrere@wrm.org.uy
+598 2 413 2989
www.wrm.org.uy

Marcus Colchester
Forest Peoples Programme
marcus@forestpeoples.org
+44 (0) 1608 652 893
www.forestpeoples.org

Simon Counsell
Rainforest Foundation-UK
simonc@rainforestuk.com
+44 (0) 207 251 6345
www.rainforestfoundationuk.org

Liz Chidley
Down to Earth
dtecampaign@gn.apc.org
www.dte.org

Korinna Horta
Environmental Defense
khorta@environmentaldefense.org
+1 201 387 3500
www.environmentaldefense.org

Jutta Kill
Sinkswatch
jutta@fern.org
+44 (0) 1608 652 895
www.sinkswatch.org

Ben Pearson
CDMWatch
cdmwatch@ozemail.com.au
www.cdmwatch.org