Nigel Sizer
A new international policy and institutional framework is needed to support national efforts at sustainable forest management and conservation. Given the overriding importance of policy decisions and actions at the national and local levels in determining the fate of forests, international accords, processes and compacts are of limited use in the context of efforts to promote sustainable development of forests. A review of past experiences and six case studies of local initiatives does suggest, however, some promising avenues for international action, some of the most important of which are being stimulated, nurtured, and implemented by non-governmental institutions, including private business interests. Possible actions, elaborated later in this paper, include:
The 1991 report on temperate forests released by the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) and the European Community did not provide a conclusive estimate of the change in forest cover, largely because data were incomplete--there was no information, for instance, from such key countries as Russia and Canada. Apparently, overall woodlands increased slightly during the 1980s, though data for the United States and Japan reflect a net loss of forest. The calculations of deforestation rates did not include forest area that may be considered degraded--for example, by pollution--or fragmented; such information is scarce and there is no global or regional monitoring effort to collect information on old-growth forests.5 Most likely, then, the figures presented in the reports underestimate forest loss. The report also gives some indication of forest degradation in Europe. Defoliation of Europe's trees, for instance, increased by as much as 22.2 percent, probably due to air pollution, pests, drought, and nutrient loss.6
The FAO study classified tropical forests into six categories -- rainforest, moist deciduous, dry deciduous, very dry, desert, and hill and montane forest. This system allows analysts to estimate how deforestation affects biodiversity. The deforestation of rainforests and moist deciduous forests is expected to have the most significant impact on biodiversity. FAO estimates that 4.6 million hectares of rainforest and 6.1 million hectares of moist deciduous forest were converted to other land uses each year during the 1980s. (See Table 2.) Rainforest loss was highest in Asia at 2.2 million hectares per year, followed closely by Latin America and the Caribbean at 1.9 million hectares per year. The loss in Africa was considerably less -- 470,000 hectares per year. Brazil and Indonesia, each losing an estimated 1 million hectares of rainforests per year, accounted for 45 percent of the global total. Annual percentage loss rates for the two were low, however, at 1.0 percent for Indonesia and 0.6 percent for Brazil. Latin America and the Caribbean lost moist deciduous forests at a rate of 3.2 million hectares per year over the period. Brazil and Bolivia accounted for 35 percent of the total annual loss of moist deciduous forests.
Besides outright deforestation, the remaining tropical forest resources were under great pressure during the last decade. (See Table 3.) Logging activities increased in all tropical regions between 1980 and 1990. Of the 5.9 million hectares of tropical forests logged annually, 4.9 million hectares were primary forests.7 Although approximately 30 percent of tropical forests are managed, all but a small percentage are managed for logging only. In Asia, 49 percent of forest areas are dedicated to wood production, compared to 14 percent to the protection of soil and hydrologic functions.8
Tree planting in the tropics has not kept pace with deforestation. In the 1980s, an average of six hectares were deforested for each one planted. In addition, most of the new plantations are single species stands, a poor substitute for heterogeneous tropical forests.9
The World Conservation Monitoring Center considers habitat loss the biggest current threat to biodiversity.10 Due to current uncertainties about planetary species richness, no one can say exactly how many species deforestation claims. Recent estimates suggest, however, that since tropical forests are home to 50 to 90 percent of the world's species, annual forest loss in the tropics may doom 13 percent of the world's species to extinction by the year 2015--some 8,000 to 28,000 species per year.11
Forest degradation and fragmentation also diminish biological diversity. The removal of certain species, for instance, can affect the lifecycle of others. Indeed, many plant and animal populations can't live indefinitely in fragmented habitat.12 A sophisticated study of satellite images of the Brazilian Amazon found that while only about 6 percent of closed canopy forest had been cleared as of 1988, approximately 15 percent appeared changed by habitat destruction, habitat isolation, and the edge effect (changes in the ecology of the forest due to discontinuities between forest and other land uses as a result of deforestation).13
Tropical deforestation is behind the annual loss of 2.5 gigatons of above-ground biomass.14 In other words, approximately 4.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. This amount is equivalent to over 93 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from energy and cement production in 1991, or 20% of global emmissions from fossil fuel use,15 though estimates for the latter range from 10-30%.
In 1985, international concern with the rate of deforestation in the tropics lead to the formation of the Tropical Forestry Action Program (TFAP), the largest ad hoc forest initiative to date. The TFAP, initially called the Tropical Forestry Action Plan, was launched by four international organizations -- FAO (also responsible for TFAP coordination), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the World Bank, and the World Resources Institute. The original plan had five components: forestry and land use, forestry-based industrial development, fuelwood and energy, conservation of tropical forest ecosystems, and institutions. The TFAP aimed to promote international donor coordination in the development of National Forestry Action Plans (NFAPs).
The TFAP has helped stimulate donor coordination and financing, but far less than developing countries hoped. Exact figures are not available, but FAO reported that donor spending dedicated to forests in developing countries had grown from $400 million per year in 1985 to $1.3 billion per year in 1990.16 The TFAP has also promoted collaboration between the National Forestry Action Programs (NFAPs) of several countries at the regional level with particular success in Central America.
Its many critics claim that the TFAP has stimulated too little institutional and policy reform at the national level and has generated little new information on the status of tropical forests. Further participation by various sectors of society has been severely limited. No cross-sectoral linkages (such as with agriculture) were made, and, above all, the plan hasn't reduced deforestation rates.17
TFAP's problems can be traced partly to the program's inception and launch: implemented as a sectoral planning exercise, it did not take adequate account of deforestation's root causes. The divergent perspectives of governments posed other obstacles. In general, the South emphasized national sovereignty and development while the North pushed for global environmental management. Donors also invested too little in the national exercises. In addition, TFAP was heralded as the "magic bullet" which would halt tropical deforestation, a target which it could clearly never achieve.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the TFAP was evaluated in major reports prepared by FAO, WRI, and others,18 and the evaluations inspired proposals for revamping the program. FAO was responsive about the need to give greater emphasis to developing in-country institutional capacity to implement the program. Another major recommendation was to create an independent consultative mechanism for the program with broad participation and sponsorship. FAO refused to expand the governance of the program against the recommendations of other major players in the debate. Instead, a consultative group was created within FAO, similar in name only to the original proposal. This move further reduced the credibility of FAO as an effective TFAP coordinator and alienated the other three original co-sponsors. Without a dramatic shift in FAO policy such as expanding TFAP's governance, TFAP will probably become increasingly unimportant. NFAPs now continue at the national level in many tropical countries, but the additional international funds invested in tropical forest conservation and sustainable use since 1990 have been spent mainly on other initiatives. Striking examples are the projects supported by The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) and the G7 Pilot Program for the Conservation of the Brazilian Amazon.
The International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA), a binding commodity agreement between consumers and producers of tropical timber, was signed in 1983 at the United Nations Conference on Tropical Timber and recently renegotiated. It was the first commodity agreement to include a conservation mandate. The governing body of the agreement is the International Tropical Timber Council (ITTC) while ITTO acts as secretariat. Producers and consumers each hold 50 percent of the votes. Voting power for consumer countries is proportional to their trade share of timber imports. Voting share for the producer countries is proportional to their export share with amount of forest cover factored in.
Initiatives coordinated by ITTO include the development of the first internationally adopted guidelines for sustainable management of natural tropical forests, guidelines for plantation management and guidelines for conserving biodiversity in tropical production forests. ITTO also supports pilot projects in producer countries. (Approximately 70 percent of these projects focus on forest management.) In 1993, cumulative pledges by consumer countries to ITTO's voluntary project account totaled more than $91 million, with two thirds of the funds from Japan.
A key issue in ITTO has been the Year 2000 Objective--the goal of sustainable production of all tropical timbers exported by ITTA's members by the year 2000. The Council adopted the objective during ITTC's 1990 annual meeting in Bali. The question of whether sustainable management of tropical forests designated for industrial use is widely viable is, however, still being debated by scientists and policy-makers.19 20 21 Some NGOs that initially supported the institution have voiced very strong concerns about ITTO stating that it is too much under the influence of timber trade interests and politically compromised.22 Recent evidence of ITTO's reluctance to embrace new initiatives and ideas was their resistance to support studies and efforts to promote timber certification following pressure from various governments. With the wave of attention to certification ITTO recently reversed its earlier stance.
The 1983 ITTA was due to expire in March 1994. By January 1994, a new agreement had been negotiated, though the old one will remain in force until the new one is ratified. Renegotiations encountered several difficulties. It was the first international negotiation of a forest accord since UNCED in 1992 so discussion was colored by the tensions that accompanied that meeting in Rio. Fearing discrimination--past and future--against tropical producers, some key producing countries proposed broadening the agreement to include temperate and boreal timbers. As a result, members were asked to commit to no new trade restrictions, and producers called for additional funds to be made available through ITTO to finance projects.
The consumers refused to accept the broadened agreement, would not commit additional financial resources, and could not agree to a statement precluding trade restrictions. Also controversial was the incorporation of the Year 2000 Objective into the text of the agreement. The text presents the Year 2000 Objective as a non-binding objective, which led some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to conclude that the new agreement is no better than the old one. On the other hand, others considered the incorporation of the expression "from sustainable sources" in reference to the expansion and diversification of international trade and the inclusion of the statement that timber prices should "reflect the costs of sustainable forest management" significant improvements upon the previous agreement.
The consumer countries succeeded in keeping the ITTA limited in scope. The "Consumer Statement" in the new agreement contains a commitment to promote parallel, but separate, efforts for the sustainable management of temperate and boreal forests. This statement has drawn accusations of "double standards" from the tropical countries and some major NGOs, who view the North's intransigence as hypocrisy. In any event, the scope of the new agreement will be reviewed four years after it enters into force.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was negotiated in Washington, D.C. in 1973 and adopted by 114 countries. This binding international treaty began to have potentially significant implications for forest management and conservation in the early 1990s when some signatories moved to include major timber species on CITES appendices. The CITES has two appendices: Appendix I lists species threatened with extinction, and Appendix II lists species on the verge of becoming so if exploitation and trade are not regulated. Species listed in Appendix I are banned from international trade (except for scientific conservation). Trade in species listed in Appendix II is permitted insofar as it does not threaten their continued survival. A small number of timber species are included in the appendices.23 Due to pressure from both tropical timber importers such as Great Britain and exporters such as Brazil, some commercially very important tropical timbers, such as big-leaf American mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) that have been widely exported and are now considered by some conservation groups to be threatened, have not been listed in the CITES.24
A significant development in 1990 was the agreement among the Group of Seven nations (G7) to work with Brazil to develop a Pilot Program for Conservation of the Brazilian Rain Forest. Approximately $250 million was earmarked to create a model for multi-donor cooperation and partnership between donors and the recipient country. The World Bank was chosen to implement the initiative in partnership with Brazilian government agencies. Four years later, no funds have yet been disbursed (though some components have been fully negotiated) and funding is slated to begin in early 1995. The program has been beset by obstacles, including tie- ups in World Bank bureaucracy, divergence in the views of donors and recipients on how funds should be spent, political and institutional instability in Brazil, and slowness of the donors to commit pledged funds.
The G7 initiative yields useful lessons on cooperation among donors and between donors and recipients. In particular, years are required to move from program blueprint to operationalization, continuity (especially at the technical level) is critical and the early involvement of local government (municipal and state in the case of Brazil) is necessary. (In Brazil this did not happen because the donors set tight dealines.)
There has been less international policy activity in the temperate zone than in the tropics. Following UNCED, however, new processes have been set in motion to promote more sustainable temperate forest management, stimulated in part by the UNCED agreements, by accusations of double standards from the tropical countries, and by growing international concern that the response of the boreal zone to global warming could exaggerate and amplify the warming itself. (See Box 2.)
The most ambitious efforts to date toward promoting international agreement on forest issues were those leading up to and during UNCED. (See Box 1.)
1. The Forest Principles,25 is the first global consensus on forest policy. Representing the degree to which consensus was possible in 1992, this non-binding document recognizes the importance of all types of forests for the conservation of all forms of life, as well as the multiple and complementary functions and uses of forests. It also emphasizes the need for national action and accords special attention to the countries' sovereign rights over their forest resources. The document also stresses the importance of international cooperation to implement national policy and calls for additional technical and financial support for developing countries to promote sustainable forest use. 2. Agend
a 21 is an action plan presenting 115 program areas and specific objectives. Several chapters of Agenda 21 are related to forestry issues,26 the most important being Chapter 11, "Combating Deforestation."
3. The binding Convention on Biological Diversity, now fully ratified by more than 80 countries and in force internationally, commits signatories to cooperate to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. The expert consensus is that most of the world's biodiversity is in primary tropical forests.27 Enforcing the convention would thus require reversing current trends of forest loss and degradation.
4. The Framework Convention on Climate Change bears on forest issues because forests "lock up" carbon that can be released to the atmosphere through deforestation. The Convention includes a component known as Joint Implementation (JI), a mechanism for cooperation between industrialized countries and developing countries. JI allows the former to partially meet commitments to greenhouse gas reduction targets with measures outside their territories. Possible measures include the promotion of reforestation activities and the prevention of deforestation worldwide.
5. The Convention to Combat Desertification in Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa, was discussed during UNCED, and negotiations were recently completed. This convention recognizes the role of forests in reducing desert spread. This new treaty was signed in Paris in October 1994.
Two international funding mechanisms are in place to implement Agenda 21 and the two conventions signed at UNCED: the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Capacity 21 of the UNDP. The latter includes a component for forests called Country Capacity for National Forest Programs (CCNFP). GEF is a multi-billion dollar program jointly managed by the UNDP, the World Bank, and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to support projects in developing countries that will help improve the global environment.
The CCNFP will be based upon three principles: participatory planning and implementation; a multi-disciplinary and sectoral approach; and building upon existing mechanisms and efforts. It draws from the experience of many previous programs and will be implemented at the national level, and it will help governments establish a national steering committee of key stakeholder groups to monitor program progress in each country. The proposed funding for the program is US$500,000 per year to each of 40 participating countries. As of late 1994, donors have pledged only US$3 million to establish the initiative. Nonetheless, UNDP is exploring ways to strengthen CCNFP through pilot initiatives and building upon the work of various bilateral programs.
It is still early to evaluate UNCED's impact on the world's forests. This task will fall to the CSD, which evaluates the implementation of Agenda 21. While recognizing the value of the UNCED process in promoting international accord and in generating publicity for environmental issues, many observers and participants complain that more concrete agreements on forest conservation and use were not achieved. That said, the CSD will open up space for further discussion and negotiation, and such major issues as public participation, national policy reform, financial and technology transfer, and cross-sectoral planning have become firmly embedded in the intergovernmental forest debate thanks partly to UNCED.
Prior to adoption of the Forest Principles, many negotiators and observers had been working toward a fully binding Global Forest Convention. This proposal, however, was dropped during key preparatory meetings because some governments feared it might impinge on national sovereignty. Some viewed its demise as a major failure of governments and of UNCED itself.
Since UNCED, a number of new intergovernmental initiatives have developed. These initiatives are stimulated by dissatisfaction in many quarters that international policy continually fails to support local efforts at sustainable forest use and by the agenda of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), which in April 1995 will debate progress on forest issues since UNCED. Global initiatives include the Malaysia-Canada Sponsored Intergovernmental Working Group on Global Forests, and the Indo-British Initiative. European governments established the Helsinki Process to focus attention on protection of European forests. Other temperate and boreal countries created the Working Group on Criteria and Indicators for the Conservation and Sustainable Management of Temperate and Boreal Forests, also known as the Montreal Process. Two non-governmental processes have also begun; the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), and the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development. (See Box 2.)
The FSC, composed of representatives from the scientific community, indigenous peoples, business, and NGOs, proposes to be an international institution for accrediting national and local certification systems. Principles and criteria established by FSC in early 1994 cover not only forest-management practices, but also the social and legal aspects of forest use, compliance with national laws and international agreements, legal land tenure, indigenous peoples' rights to the forest resources on their lands, the well-being of workers, and the social impact of forestry activities in the community. The FSC secretariat has released guidelines for certifiers and a description of the process that it will adopt to accredit them. Independence from interest groups and open, accountable process are among the prerequisites for accreditation.
Indonesia's recent proposal to establish a government-led national certification program is a tribute to FSC's impact. The government of Indonesia is consulting closely with FSC on this process and has indicated interest in seeking future FSC accreditation. Participation in the certification program will be mandatory for all concessionaires by the year 2000 as a move to meet the ITTO Year 2000 Objective.
The Geneva-based Commission plans to begin activities in early 1995 with the preparation of a "scoping document" prior to the next CSD session and to prepare a final report for the United Nations General Assembly in 1996.
In summary, five directions in current international forest policy can be identified:
While the discussions at UNCED primarily concerned international policy, it was widely recognized that national policies and institutions must be revamped and that international policies must be well-rooted in national needs and priorities. By all informed accounts, national policy reform is critical in the implementation of sustainable forest management. Experience teaches us that the entrenched political power of wealthy private interests in many countries blocks reforms that boost more broad-based social returns from the use of forest resources. Many of the most promising community, indigenous, and progressive private sector efforts to implement more sustainable forest management come up against poorly defined property rights, a lack of political support, and financial disincentives that often further enrich a small economic and political elite33.
International conventions, treaties, and accords that relate to forests all rest on an apparent paradox: mechanisms for enforcing implementation are, with the exceptions of trade agreements and international financial institution policy, extremely weak and ultimately depend upon political will at the national level among the signatories. In this context, then, "What can international agreements contribute?"
Lack of enforcement of international accords does not render them useless. The debate and negotiation that leads to the agreements often significantly elevates attention to the issues at hand. Such heightened interest helps to generate further discussion and strengthens constituencies for policy reform. The much criticized UNCED accords, though of limited legal value, and the process that led to them, drew the topic of "sustainable development" into mainstream political debate at the highest levels and created an opportunity for advocates of reform to push debate upward and outward to an unprecedented extent. Even though a forest convention was not signed at UNCED and--had it been--may have had very limited direct impact on resource, discussion about a convention occupied senior policy-makers through several rounds of international meetings and prompted informed discussion back home in the capitals.
International policy-making efforts also have a cost, seen most clearly in developing countries where expertise is scarce and expensive. Meetings, briefings, and negotiations in far-flung corners of the world consume the time of the technical experts, government officials, and the non-governmental groups that lobby their governments throughout negotiations. These resources might be better employed debating policy, legal, and institutional reform at the national and local levels. Worse still, the highly publicized and lauded international agreements and processes may provide some interests with "international--unenforceable rhetoric that draws attention away from the needed national changes. Given the costs and dangers associated with international policy-making, a careful distinction must be made between the real opportunities to support change at the national level through intergovernmental accords and policy distractions.
Three areas of opportunity for promoting the sustainable management of forest resources can be delimited:
The international financial institutions (IFIs), led by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are also bound by internal policies set by their international boards. These institutions lead efforts to restructure the ailing economies of the world's poorest countries. In such countries are some of the most serious obstacles to implementing sustainable forest management, such as large poor rural populations, ill-defined property rights, little or no foreign exchange reserves, rapid population growth, and weak institutions.34 Often, root causes of forest loss have been exacerbated by structural adjustment programs implemented by the IFIs. International and local interest in maximizing the environmental and social benefits that could accompany economy-wide reforms can therefore be channeled target IFIs and their governance structures.
The forces for change within a country range from grassroots rural workers' associations struggling for recognition of their property rights and for access to financial credit facilities, to technical staff within government ministries who realize that reforms are needed but do not have the power to implement change. Such interest groups often lack good access to information about the causes and degree of unsustainable forest exploitation, and their participation in national and international decision-making is limited at best.35 Although opportunities for "empowering" local interests by enhancing their capacity to engage policy-makers and present alternatives are quite limited at the international level, collecting more and more accurate information about the resource base and sharing it more widely, can along with including non-governmental representatives in international policy dialogues, help.
The context of international political opportunities to promote initiatives that may lead to national progress shifts so often that institutions charged by governments or private interests with promoting sustainable forest management, should seek agreements, forums, dialogues, and other processes or instruments through which they can develop leadership and express vision. These mechanisms may include high-level task forces, regional accords between neighboring countries, and new global conventions.
In this report, the cases presented in Box 3 illustrate a range of experiences with forest management from different parts of the world--temperate and tropical, east and west. This case material together with the review and analysis above suggest that opportunities can be classified under economic and trade policy, regional integration, information sharing, human rights, participation and transparency, and international leadership--five linchpins of support for national efforts.
Options are presented in full knowledge of the obstacles to international and national policy reform. That said, the international debate on forest issues may be at a watershed thanks to recent changes at the head of FAO and UNDP, the concentrated interest generated by the 1995 CSD review of forest policy, the "cooling-off" of the dramatic north-south conflict seen over forest issues at UNCED, and important emerging accords and actions instigated both by governments and NGOs.
Many of the options are not entirely new, and some have been presented before in slightly different forms. These are worth repeating so that international policy-makers will consider them again in the new political and institutional context at the time. Ideas revisited now could stand a greater chance of acceptance than before.
Detailed analysis of how to implement many of the options presented here is beyond the scope of this brief synthesis and deserves considerably more attention in subsequent work. Interest from governments, international organizations, and NGOs to take forward some of the recommendations would undoubtedly help stimulate such analysis.
In many developing countries and in transitional economies (for instance, the former Soviet Union), discount rates are far higher than in the more stable and diversified economies of the industrialized countries. Not surprisingly, then, Brazil, and Cameroon, as well as Russia, to give but a few examples, have some of the highest rates of conversion of the natural resource base to liquid financial assets with the least concern for long-term sustainability. The cash generated by this "cut and run" approach can subsequently be invested for a higher rate of return over the long term than is likely to be obtained by managing natural resources for continuous production over many years.36
n be increased by, for instance, taxing products from poorly managed forests and by subsidizing sustainable producers, through cheaper credit, low-cost technical assistance, reduced land and export taxes, and lowered licensing fees. The goal is to create a favorable profit differential between the products of a well-managed forest and those from a poorly managed one. Raising prices across the board would only drive producers to further mine the resources for maximum short-term gain.
Recurring themes in studies of policy failures in the forest sector are poor rent capture, forest concession agreements which are very favorable to concessionaires and unfavorabel to the countries in which the concessions are awarded, and inadequate monitoring of the practices of concession holders43. Addressing these issues is clearly a challenge for policy makers at the national level, rather than at the international level. Recent experiences in Central America (see below), and ongoing donor-supported policy reform processes in countries such as Peru, Bolivia and Guyana, suggest that regional cooperation and strategic foreign assistance can provide useful impetus to such efforts.
For community forest managers, who often see the forest as far more than just timber, price differentials for sustainably produced forest products may not be overly important. The discount rate problem discussed above is worst where outside commercial interests move into new forest areas purely for financial gains. Often, such gains come at the expense of other stakeholders, especially local forest users and forest-dependent communities. When the long-term value of the forest is recognized to be more than simply its capacity to produce timber or other saleable goods, the incentive for sustainable management is far greater. Other values include watershed protection, habitat for species that are important protein sources, fuelwood production, and religious or spiritual value. The case studies of various forms of community management built upon communal ownership of forest lands (in India, Brazil, and Niger) demonstrate that often the interests of community forest managers are served by managing forest resources for long-term production. In addition, small-scale forest users have comparatively few alternative investments open to them, so the possibility of making a "quick buck" and to invest elsewhere for higher rates of return than those offered by long-term forest management are minimal.
A further issue related to trade is that of consumption and waste. Millions of board feet of plywood made from tropical timber is discarded annually in the construction industry. A recent set of studies by ITTO in Ecuador highlighted wastage rates of up to 70% for chainsaw-based forestry operations in the Ecuadorian Amazon45. This issue should be addressed by shifts in national policy and is therefore beyond the scope of this paper.
The Central American experience (Case Study 1) demonstrates that neighboring countries that share close historical, cultural, and commercial ties can establish common agendas and actions, accompanied by shared commitments to significant changes in national policy. Much of this success may be attributed to region's relatively small size, as well as to the nations' many common interests and visions for the future and the leading role that the heads of state and their ministers have to establish a clear political mandate for the process.
Although the initiative was entirely controlled by national governments, donors extended strategic financial and technical support to the Central American governments establishing new regional institutions and strengthening existing bodies. The greatest opportunities for other regional agreements may be where neighbors already coordinate action on other issues, such as economic development, trade, transport, and environmental protection. Examples of ongoing regional agreements and cooperation include the Andean Pact,46 Mercosul,47 ASEAN,48 the Amazon Cooperation Treaty,49 CILSS,50 the Mekong Committee,51 the European Union, and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Some of these initiatives have, however, been the brunt of criticism for shortcomings in their effectiveness.
Beyond the more traditional forest-for-timber interests, regional agreements increasingly appeal to neighboring countries for other reasons. They may be concerned about agreement on controlled access to genetic resources held in common between neighboring countries or more negotiating power in the international arena. Neighbors with common and closely related genetic resources risk competing with each other in the international marketplace should high-value genetic material such as new crop strains and pharmaceutically active agents be discovered. But if regional agreements on forests, trade, or economic development were coordinated and mutually strengthened, such competition could be reduced. The option to negotiate en bloc with neighboring countries with shared interests also gives small countries a greater voice in international debates. The CCAD (Central America) and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty countries presented regional position papers at UNCED, thus demonstrating the potential for inter-regional negotiation on environment and development.52
The international community should be more responsive to opportunities such as those that lead to the Central American forestry accords and actions described in Case I. International donor agencies should seek partnerships with regional bodies and work with them to develop action agendas to promote sustainable forest use as part of a more comprehensive approach toward sustainable development.
1. The exchange of information between and among communities, governments, and the private sector to share knowledge about successful forest-management experiences; and
2. The sharing of information among governments to identify critical situations where forests and forest-dependent livelihoods are in jeopardy unless concerted international action is taken to support domestic efforts.
Inefficient exchange of information between agencies and communities leads to needless repetition of expensive experimental projects and delays the start up of new initiatives. These problems become particularly acute at the grassroots level, where each community or small enterprise has to learn the ropes of organizing and implementing new or improved forest-management initiates. Sharing information about the mistakes and successes of others would radically reduce needless repetition and improve the success rate of trial-and-error processes.
The committee would mobilize political, technical and financial support so that funds and expertise could be channelled quickly toward appropriate short-term and long-term programs--say, technical support and local institution building. Of course, intense coordination and responsiveness by donors during crisis come to nothing if not followed by long-term development programs. In cases such as Russia's, urgent attention is required now to establish the institutions and policies necessary to respond to the country's economic development and conservation needs in the forest sector and related sectors in the future while long-term, multidonor efforts must also follow.
If joint implementation results in a transfer of funds to developing countries for forestry programs, these nations' need to know how to implement successful reforestation and forest management programs. The measurement of carbon sequestration, the evaluation of potential carbon-offset programs, and accountability for established schemes are all prerequesites for operating joint projects. Developing capacity in all three merits special attention and coordinated research.
Local forest land owners, licensees and occupiers, be they independent business people, indigenous communities, or the nation-state, play major roles in deciding the fate of the patches of forest under their domain. They make some of the most important decisions about how forest lands are to be used and whether or not sustainable practices should be employed56. T
he recent success of various multi-stakeholder efforts at the regional and local levels is a strong precedent for opening international debates and processes to greater non-governmental participation. Such inclusiveness also reflects the spirit of the UNCED accords.
The recent history of international forest policy dialogue, however, suggests that far more needs to be done to promote non-governmental participation in international discussion. In contrast with some of the local and regional cases described here, participation by key stakeholders, such as the private sector, environmental and social development NGOs, and local forest owners, has been scant at the international level.
To the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group on Global Forests in Kuala Lumpur, only three non-governmental environment or social development institutions were invited, out of the total of 23 participant delegations. All three were based in Europe or the United States.57 Similarly, to the "Olympia" meeting in the Montreal Process--a discussion of criteria and indicators for sustainable management of temperate and boreal forests--only three US-based environmental NGOs58 were initially invited. In response to pressure from US NGOs, the organizers invited one international NGO based in Europe shortly before the meeting. No NGOs concerned with social development issues or environmental NGOs from outside North America and Europe were asked to attend.
Restricting participation in international dialogue to government representatives who have only a limited understanding of day-to-day management of forest resources helps explain why the international debate dwells on general principles and accords, rather than on specific actions. In contrast, the processes leading to the institutionalization of the Forest Stewardship Council at the global level, the workings of the CCAD in Central America, and the experiences in British Columbia have been much more productive.
Efforts should also be made by governmental institutions outside of international meetings and formal processes to engage NGOs and others in collegial, informal discussion of issues and ideas. Indeed, such contact in the past has spawned valuable ideas and partnerships.
Various articles of international law require broad participation in national and international policy processes and provide support for recognition by nation states of community-based property rights, customary practices, and protection from other interests. Key articles include a decision of the International Court of Justice in 1975 recognizing the existence and legitimacy of indigenous rights in the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara.61 The United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights further strengthens this legal basis for the participation of non-governmental interests in policy-making.62 The International Labor Organization, following two years of debate, promulgated in 1989 the Convention (Number 169) Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries. ILO 169 recognizes rights of ownership over lands traditionally occupied, and the need for effective protection of those rights.63
Some legal experts have also argued that bilateral and multilateral loan agreements are similar to treaties and therefore enforceable under international law. A major obstacle to enforcement is that the same people who write the agreements and manage the loans are also responsible for their enforcement. An independent mechanism allowing greater public scrutiny of international lending and the enforcement of lending requirements could overcome this problem64 65.
The FAO, under new direction for the first time in 18 years, is also poised to provide leadership and vision in such key areas as forest monitoring, information sharing, and technology transfer. The new Director General will finalize his first workplan for the institution by June 1995. The new plan should clearly present proposals for increasing the effectiveness of cooperation between FAO and other multilateral agencies, which include issues of governance within FAO itself.
That said, the structural obstacles to this leadership challenge to FAO are great. A small number of countries dominate decision-making in the institution and its governing council has long consisted mainly of Ministers of Agriculture who have kept funding for forestry at only about 4 percent ($15 million per year) of the agency's regular program budget. So enormous are pressures for greater investment in the agriculture sectors that the FAO Committee on Forestry (COFO) (which is responsible for forest planning within the institution) has been unable to increase funding for the forests program. In this setting, a first step to reform might be strengthening COFO's decision-making mandate so as to better balance forestry and agriculture. FAO's new Director General recently announced a modest increase of about 1% of the regular program budget for forestry for the current year.
A related problem is a lack of coordination within governments with respect to FAO and CSD. Responsibility for FAO falls to the Ministries of Agriculture while CSD is generally covered by the Ministries of Environment and Foreign Affairs.
Beyond FAO are concerns about the growing importance of the multilateral credit institutions, lead by the World Bank. Like FAO, they are reluctant to relinquish power by working more cooperatively and closely with other donors and agencies. In addition, internal incentives, structures, and governance prompt employees if these institutions to promote "big projects" so they can rapidly disburse large amounts of funds. Although often technically well-designed and popular with recipient governments, these large initiatives are almost invariably far beyond the implementation capacity of national institutions in recipient countries.
In the wake of the criticism of the TFAP, a proposal presented in 1990 and further refined in 1991 called for revamping the TFAP. One widely supported idea was to establish an independent international consultative group composed of high-level representatives of the major bilateral and multilateral donors, key recipient countries, and non-governmental groups. It would meet informally, make decisions by consensus, and strive to take the lead in designing a global strategy to combat deforestation and promote sustainable forest use. The early version of the proposal also included the establishment of a technical advisory panel, made up of experts in such fields as forest resources and social science, to assist the consultative group.
This consultative group could grow out of the task force itself to provide a permanent yet relatively agile mechanism (compared to the CSD, for example) for leading the global forest debate. Meanwhile, the task force itself could be an appropriate forum for discussing more complex issues such as the value of a binding International Convention for forests and sustainable development.
An International Forests Convention should establish agreements for technical as well as direct and indirect financial assistance, through traditional donor activities as well as trade policy, debt relief, and investment incentives. The heart of the agreement could be minimum regional or global targets for maintaining forest cover. Such agreements would require tough decisions by the richer nations to support the actions of poorer countries willing to recognize the national and international value of their forest resources, address current policy failures, and seek alternative routes to economic development. Agreement to targets could be followed by trade-offs between regions and countries, as proposed for greenhouse gases under the joint implementation component of the Climate Convention. A convention could also commit signatories to guidelines for national planning and donor coordination, combatible with the overall actions identified in Agenda 21 for achieving sustainable development. An information-collection and -sharing component might also be appropriate.
Experience at UNCED suggested that in 1992 achieving global consensus over more than the non-binding Forest Principles document was impossible. Although a globally binding accord might not be any easier to put in place now, the proposed Task Force should nonetheless examine the extent to which such an agreement could help reduce deforestation rates. It may be more appropriate to focus on regional agreements and more effective implementation of the Biodiversity and Climate Conventions, which themselves provide much scope for international cooperation to combat forest loss. Still, a new convention on forests would establish a focal point through its secretariat and advisory bodies with a clear mandate (and therefore power) to better coordinate policy development, priority setting, and program implementation.
The convention could lead to establishment of a new institution, a so-called "World Forest Organization" (WFO)66 that could be within or outside the United Nations system and possibly amalgamate some of the existing functions of FAO, ITTO, IUCN, CIFOR, IUFRO, UNIDO, and GEF. The convention proposal is strongly supported by Malaysia and some European governments, but strongly opposed by many others, particularly in Latin America.
An alternative to a full-blown forests convention is a forests protocol for the Biodiversity or Climate Convention. This proposal has relatively little support, however, since in the short to medium term intellectual property rights and other issues will overshadow it and since this route may be no easier to negotiate than a stand-alone convention.
Interests of the North and South might converge over the issue of rehabilitation of degraded forests and forest lands (with financing through the Global Environment Facility). The joint implementation provisions of the Framework Convention on Climate Change could provide an additional focus for negotiations.
Through existing institutions and policy-making processes, the spirit of the hard-won Forest Principles and Agenda 21 accords of UNCED could be kept alive and given form. If structural obstacles within FAO, UNDP, and the International Financial Institutions make it difficult to restructure and realign forest priorities, and if CSD is ineffectual, then the more farsighted governments, international organizations, NGOs, and millions of forest-dependent people should cooperate to promote new institutions, mandates, and processes.
Central America has experienced alarming levels of deforestation and forest degradation over the last decade. Costa Rica's annual deforestation rate was 2.6 percent between 1980 and 1990; the deforestation rates in El Salvador and Honduras (2.1 and 1.9 percent per year) were also high over the same period. To address this and other environmental and development problems, the governments of the Central American countries created the Central American Commission for the Environment and Development (CCAD), which has effectively coordinated and promoted international policy agreements in the region.
CCAD was created in 1989, mandated by the Presidents of the seven countries, who stated that the institution's top priority should be to address deforestation. Its members head up the ministries of the environment and natural resources of the seven Central American countries. To develop its programs, the five-person secretariat works with government agencies and NGOs and hires consultants for specific projects. This combination of high-level commitment and flexibility enables CCAD to address environmental problems that cross national boundaries.
Following the high-level call to address deforestation, CCAD created a regional forestry unit to work on a Tropical Forestry Action Program for the region during the period 1990-91. One result of the TFAP process was adoption of common guidelines for forestry concessions, largely in response to poor concession management in Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. (Guidelines include commitments to establishing a forestry policy based on zoning of permanent forestry, the adoption of a contractual system for the long-term use of forests, and the evan-handed application of laws regulating forestry activities to national and foreign concessionaires.67)
In 1992, CCAD coordinated the development of a joint position ("Agenda 2000") for the region at UNCED. After UNCED, CCAD supported the creation of the Central American Inter-Parliamentary Commission on the Environment. This commission, which congregates members of parliament of the seven Central American countries, was instrumental in getting these countries to sign a regional Forests Convention68 that is now being implemented by the regional Central American Forest Council created exclusively for this purpose.69
CCAD's success stems partly from its a transparent and participatory decision-making process: NGOs, representatives of indigenous peoples, and businesses all participate in CCAD's quarterly meetings and other sponsored events. Another key element is its regional rather than global approach. Because only a small number of member countries with clear common interests are involved, progress on sensitive issues is possible.
The management of forest resources in India has been one of the most challenging environmental issues in South Asia. Since 1951, degraded lands in India have doubled in size, reaching 174 million hectares by 1990. According to recent estimates, demand for fuelwood and fodder will triple within the next ten years.70 Large-scale reforestation and watershed-management programs conducted by the Indian government have largely failed.71 Community-based forest management has proved to be a feasible alternative and as of 1994 fifteen of India's 22 states have formally initiated joint forest management (JFM) programs.
Local communities in Orissa now manage 1,200 patches of forest, covering a total area of 186,900 hectares, through the efforts of 1,180 "User Group Organizations" (UGO). In the 360-hectare Binjgiri Protected Forest, for instance, environmental protection has been the driving force for improved forest- management practices. Surrounded by rural villages, the forest was almost completely denuded by the late 1960s. Streams dried up, pond sedimentation increased, and fuelwood grew acutely scarce. Following the initiative of a former resident of Kesharpur, a movement to protect the Binjgiri Hill was initiated. The villagers of Kesharpur soon realized that the regenerating forest would be endangered if the other villages surrounding Binjgiri were not involved in its protection. This led to the creation of the "Brikshya O'Jeevar Bandhu Parishad" (BOJBP; "Friends of Trees and Living Beings"), a grassroots organization that provided essential leadership for community involvement in forest conservation.
Thanks to BOJBP's strong cultural links with the villagers of the region and to environmental awareness activities72 traditional village councils - the local authority of rural villages in Orissa - established rules for using the Binjgiri forest. Forest cutting and animal rearing were restricted. Families were assigned responsibility for taking turns patrolling the forest. The payoff was the return of streams that had dried out and water flows for months after the rainy season ended. In addition, fish populations grew more abundant as pond water quality improved.
The community-based forest-management systems in Orissa and elsewhere in India vary, depending on the condition and diversity of the local resources. In the Puri district, where the Binjgiri forest is located, the great scarcity of natural resources led to the creation of BOJBP. The rules for forest use were well defined and "moral" sanctions, such as requesting the violators to apologize in public, were the rule. In other communities where resources were moderately scarce, as in the Dhenkanal district, the villagers' lack of emotional attachment to the forest made fines and other more formal sanctions necessary. When resources are less scarse, user group organizations are often organized more loosely, as happened in the Phulbani district.73
Community-based forest-management systems succeed because they rely on the autonomy of villagers: regulatory measures for forest use are based on traditional community directives and norms. Government agencies should act as agile facilitators and legitimators, providing a supportive framework for community organization and supplying technical assistance. The state government in Orissa has realized that decentralization, or sharing of power with the communities, is fundamental to assuring long-term sustainability in the use of forest resources. This realization not only benefits local communities, but also the state and nation.
Decisions over the development and conservation of Vancouver Island's forest resources in the Canadian province of British Columbia have long been plagued by conflict and tension between well-organized and vocal interest groups ranging from conservationists to local government officials and loggers. To break through the years of bitter argument, the government of British Columbia established a one-year regional land-use negotiation on Vancouver Island led by the Commission on Resources and Environment (CORE), the provincial body charged with crafting land-use strategies.
The discussions involved representatives from conservation, youth, fisheries, major manufacturers, forest independents, small communities, agriculture, local government, provincial government, first nations, organized labor, tourism, recreation, and other interests. All representatives were trained in dispute resolution and consensus building, and all their views and positions were accepted as legitimate. Decisions required negotiated agreement rather than votes.
The government showed critical leadership at the start by acknowledging the need for a fundamental change in the way forests were being managed. It also took steps to eliminate overcutting, reduce reliance on commodity forest products, and to set a minimum of 12 percent of the land base as protected areas for strict conservation, and to develop a biodiversity-protection strategy at the landscape scale. The government also pledged financial support for forest-dependent communities and the resources need to retrain workers and diversify the local economy.
Participants discovered that much of the earlier conflict over forest resource management was a result of manipulation by vested interests rather than differences of values. Myths were put aside and new ideas won support as mutual respect made all parties more accommodating. Unanimous agreement was achieved on a visions statement for the year 2020, and the year of dialogue built strong support for change in the way decisions are made. Unfortunately, as government support for the shared decision-making approach weakened, one of the major industrial sectors interrupted the process at the eleventh hour refusing to accept the concensus position. As a result, the Commissioner was forced to prepare the report. Even so, the report reflected the spirit of much of the discussion and agreement.
In 1976, a small community of people whose livelihood depends on the collection of such forest products as rubber and Brazil nuts started a movement that would come to have international repercussions. Some years before, southerners had begun arriving in the northern state of Acre to begin cattle ranching and had triggered large-scale deforestation. The local group tried to block the ranchers and argued through the legal system for recognition of their land rights. Some cases were won, others lost.
As the rate of deforestation increased, the local groups developed a proposal for the creation of protected areas--"Extractive Reserves" --covering the zones inhabited by local communities practicing sustainable forest management. The argument went as far as the international financial institutions in Washington, DC where movement leaders such as Chico Mendes argued that new infrastructure development projects must be preceded by recognition of traditional community forestlands. The idea was accepted, and, at the cost of many lives, Extractive Reserves came into being. Now, large inhabited forest areas are state owned but used by local communities who develop convincing management plans. The state has the last say over resource use in the areas but in practice delegates resource management decisions to the communities.
Today, almost 20 years later, important lessons stand out. First, the best way to avoid deforestation is to recognize traditional property rights systems developed by forest-dependent communities. This means protecting communities from outside colonization and helping them provide basic services. Second, combining protected forest areas, zones for small-scale agriculture, agroforestry systems, and local forest- product processing enterprises on the local landscape is a simple and efficient way to maintain quality of life and protect the natural resource base.
Third, assuring local resource rights and promoting sustainable management in forest areas that are of global significance for biodiversity conservation and other environmental services transforms the local forest owners into important interlocutors in the national and international dialogues on forest policy. This transformation could greatly improve policy-making at various levels. In many cases, these communities are locally developing the new systems and methods with the most potential for forest conservation. As communities learn and share different lessons, the potential for transferring technology and improving production methods grows throughout different regions of the world.
A further lesson from the Extractive Reserves experience is that a few small-scale, local initiatives cannot address regional deforestation, much less the many problems with prevailing forest policy around the world. Yet, they are valuable, as starting points for new policy proposals. The key point is that they build on and support local systems that recognize the value of diverse forest resources. Extractive Reserves cover only about 1 percent of the Brazilian Amazon, so obviously additional steps must be taken to develop strategies that increase the value of the forest as forest, independent of the pattern of land ownership. Precedents exist, and various proposals have been presented. Needed now is institutional change at the national and international levels to carry out the new proposals.
The Forestry Land Use Planning Project (FLUP) was launched in Niger in 1980 to help control desertification--one of deforestation's most painful legacies in the Sahel. The FLUP intended to survey alternative forest management strategies and prepare management plans for Niger's 66 national forests. The proposal was recognized as too ambitious, so project managers narrowed the focus to the Guesselbodi National Forest (GNF)--which had lost 50 percent of its forest cover in the past 30 years--as a demonstration project.74
Ten years after the Guesselbodi project was implemented, the degradation of the forest resources has been reversed and income levels of the villagers depending on the forest have improved. These results have brought the Guesselbodi project to the attention of international donors which have directed more foreign assistance to the Niger Forest Service.
The success of the Guesselbodi project was partially due to the decision made by FLUP's managers to involve the villagers residing near the Guesselbodi National Forest from the very beginning of the development of the management plan. Research took full advantage of the villagers' knowledge and understanding of social and economic conditions, and it proved essential for the design of the forestry- management plan. Local people and university students became important advocates of the policy reform essential to the initiative's success. Also important, the GNF management plan was conceived through an ecosystem-management approach and was based on multiple-use and sustainable-yield concepts.
The Guesselbodi project was especially successful in building an institutional relationship between the Niger Forest Service and the forest stakeholders. The villagers' use of the Guesselbodi natural resources became regulated through a contract between their own cooperatives and the Forest Service. Coming to this agreement involved overcoming resistance from government officials to give up a centralized system in favor of a system where power was shared with the public. International donors played an important role in pressuring the government for this change by linking the release of funds to the policy changes. This institutional arrangement worked: the average cooperative member earned US$128 in the three months of the wood-cutting season, a significant pay-off considering that the annual per capita income in Niger is only US$425. The cooperative later realized that other forest products exceeded the value of the wood revenues, and began exploring new opportunities for generating income.75
The benefits of the Guesselbodi project haven't been just local. The project sparked broad policy reforms in Niger's natural resources management system. (Here, donor coordination and investment in policy reform as a component of project implementation, as well as local participation, have been invaluable.) The project also serves an important demonstration function locally, nationally, and beyond.
Policy-makers and environmentalists face a remarkable challenge in Russia's Far East, where economic and political transition have pushed sustainability very low on the list of priorities. Despite the prevailing economic difficulties, some local initiatives are restoring hope for the conservation of the country's forest resources.76
For more than 40 years, the village of Katen in Eastern Russia has depended on the operation of the state-owned timber company, Lespromkhoz. Over 80 percent of the once-abundant forest resources of the region have been degraded through overlogging. During all its years of operation, Lespromkhoz never used sustainable forest-management practices. Indeed, poorly managed clear cuts and high-impact selective logging damaged the forests, replanting was inadequate, and poorly planned road building provoked severe erosion. As forest resources disappeared, villagers lost their jobs; by the early 1990s 50 percent of Katen's population was unemployed. Villagers knew that they needed an alternative to the old timber company, and two former Lespromkhoz employees created the "Kafensky Forest Management Enterprise"77 to experiment with new approaches to forest management.
The new company is taking the lead in promoting the wise use of forest resources in the region. Kafensky is lobbying the regional government to protect the virgin forests in upland Katen and proposing economic activities based on sustainable forest-management practices. Because Lespromkhoz sold its logs unprocessed, prices for timber were extremely low and jobs in the village depended exclusively on timber harvesting. The new entrepreneurs propose installing sawmills and a furniture factory to increase the added value of the harvested timber and to generate jobs for the villagers. The company is also seeking markets for the honey and ginseng that are abundant there. At the same time, the new company will also develop forest-management and restoration plans and will introduce low-impact timber-harvesting practices.
Forest-management alternatives are also being promoted in other parts of Russia's Far East. In the Maly Khingan mountain region, for example, the establishment of a protected area is being combined with promotion of economic activities in the secondary forest surrounding the area. In the forests along the Bikin River, where the ecosystem is too fragile to sustain logging, a proposal is being developed with the indigenous people of Krasny Yar village for gathering, processing, and marketing the more than 200 medicinal plants found in the forest.
Although these projects are in preliminary stages, the combination of sound forest management, economic development, and the involvement of the communities affected by the projects signal that the sustainable use of Russia's forest resources might be attainable. The challenge is to implement enough alternative initiatives while also establishing an effective policy, legal, and institutional framework to support them. Given the near collapse of local government institutions in the region, international donors and NGOs must together turn the situation around quickly enough to conserve both the forests and the livelihoods that depend on them.
2. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN-ECE), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), The Forest Resources of the Temperate Zones: Main Findings of the UN-ECE/FAO 1990 Forest Resource Assessment (New York: UN, 1992).
3. Eric Rodenberg, "Eyeless in Gaia: The State of Global Environmental Monitoring," 1992. World Resources Institute, Washington DC.
4. World Resources Institute, World Resources 1992-93 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
5. World Resources Institute, World Resources 1994-95 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994) p. 136.
6. Derek Denninston, "Air Pollution Damaging Forests," Lester R. Brown, et al eds. in Vital Signs (New York: W.W. Norton, 1993), 108.
7. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Forest Resources Assessment, 1990: Tropical Countries. FAO Forestry Paper 112 (Rome: FAO, 1993), 52.
8. World Resources Institute, World Resources 1994-95 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 134.
9. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Forest Resources Assessment, 1990: Tropical Countries. FAO Forestry Paper 112 (Rome: FAO, 1993), Tables 4a, 4b, and 4c.
10. World Conservation Monitoring Center, Global Biodiversity: Status of the Earth's Living Resources (London: Chapman and Hall, 1992), 202.
11. W. V. Reid, "How Many Species Will There Be?" in Tropical Deforestation and Species Extinction, T.C. Whitmore & J.A. Sayer ed. (World Conservation Union/London: Chapman & Hall, 1992), 63.
12. Thomas Lovejoy et al, "Edge and Other Effects of Isolation on Amazon Forest Fragments," in Conservation Biology Me. E. Soule, ed., (Sutherland, Mass.: Sinauer Press), 257-285.
13. Davis Stole and Compton Tucker, "Tropical Deforestation and Habitat Fragmentation in the Amazon: Satellite Data from 1978 to 1988," Science, June 25, 1993, Vol. 260, No. 5116: 1905-1909.
14. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Forest Resources Assessment, 1990: Tropical Countries. FAO Forestry Paper 112 (Rome: FAO, 1993), 31.
15. World Resources Institute, World Resources 1994-95, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994) 134 and Table 23.1.
16. Tapani Oksanen, Matts Heering, Bruce Cabarle, and Caroline Sargent, "A Study on Coordination" in Sustainable Forestry Development, Report to the Tropical Forestry Action Program Forestry Advisers' Group (June, 1993) 4.
17. Ibid., 5.
18. Ola Ullsten, Salleh Mohd, and Montague Yudelman, 1990. The Tropical Forestry Action Program, Report of the Independent Review, FAO, Kuala Lumpur; Colchester, Marcus and Larry Lohmann, 1990. The Tropical Forestry Action Plan: What Progress?, London, World Rainforest Movement, The Ecologist, Friends of the Earth;
Robert Winterbottom, 1990. Taking Stock: The Tropical Forestry Action Plan After Five Years, World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C.
The WRI review built upon background research and collaborative experience in implementating the TFAP. Three key WRI studies that fed into the major policy report, Taking Stock, were: Cheryl Cort, "NGO Participation in the Tropical Forestry Action Plan", 1991; Elizabeth Halpin, "Indigenous Peoples and the Tropical Forestry Action Plan", 1990; and, Owen J. Lynch, "Whither the People? Demographic, Tenurial and Agricultural Aspects of the Tropical Forestry Action Plan", 1990.
19. Nels Johnson and Bruce Cabarle, Surviving the Cut (World Resources Institute, Washington DC). 1993.
20. Lee Talbot, A Proposal for the World Bank's Policy and Strategy for Tropical Moist Forests in Africa (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1990) 3.
21. R. Goodland, E. Asibey, J. Post, and M. Dyson, Tropical Moist Forest Management: the Urgent Transition to Sustainability (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1990) 4.
22. Marcus Colchester, "The International Tropical Timber Organization: Kill or Cure for the Rainforests?", 1990, The Ecologist, Volume 20, pp. 166-173.
23. Species in Appendix I include Chilean false larch (Fitzroya cupressoides), the monkey puzzle tree's Chilean population (Araucaria araucana), and Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). Appendix II includes Caribbean mahogany (Swietenia mahagony) and the Pacific coastal mahogany (S. humilis).
24. The Netherlands has proposed the inclusion of big-leaf American mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) in Appendix II of CITES. As of August 1994, observers expect there to be too much opposition from importer and exporter countries for the vote to be in favor of inclusion when considered at the next CITES meeting.
25. Officially called "Non-Legally Binding Authoritative Statement of Principles for a Global Consensus on the Management, Conservation, and Sustainable Development of all Types of Forests."
26. These are: Chapter 9, "Protection of the Atmosphere"; Chapter 10, "Integrated Approach to the Planning and Management of Land Resources"; Chapter 12, "Managing Fragile Ecosystems: Combating Desertification and Draught"; Chapter 13, "Managing Fragile Ecosystems: Sustainable Mountain Development"; Chapter 14, "Promoting Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development"; and Chapter 15, "Conservation of Biological Diversity."
27. World Conservation Monitoring Center, Global Biodiversity: Status of the Earth's Living Resources (London: Chapman and Hall, 1992) 256.
28. The criteria are: conservation of biological diversity, maintenance of productive capacity of forest ecosystems, maintenance of forest ecosystem health and vitality, soil and water conservation, maintenance of forests contributing to global carbon cycles, long-term output of multiple socioeconomic benefits, and legal policy and institutional framework.
29. The final document was entitled "Framework for National Reporting to the 3rd Session of the CSD, 1995."
30. The Woods Hole Research Center organizing committee, World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development: Possible Mandate, Key Issues, Strategy and Work Plan (published by the organizing committee chaired by Ambassador Ola Ullsten of Sweden and coordinated by Dr. Kilaparti Ramakrishna of The Woods Hole Research Center, 1993).
31. CIFOR is the newest component of the network of institutions known as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
32. FAO news release, May 1993.
33. Owen J Lynch, "Whither the People? Demographic, Tenurial and Agricultural Aspects of the Tropical Forestry Action Plan," (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1990); Marcus Colchester and Larry Lohman, eds. "The Struggle for Land and the Fate of the Forests," (Penang, Malaysia: World Rainforest Movement, 1993); Charles V. Barber, Nels Johnson and Emmy Hafild, Breaking the Logjam: Obstacles to Forest Policy Reform in Indonesia and the United States (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1994); Kirk Talbott and Shantam Khadka, "Handing it Over: An Analysis of the Legal and Policy Framework of Community Forestry in Nepal," (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1994).
34. See Robert Winterbottom, Taking Stock: The Tropical Forestry Action Plan After Five Years (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1990) Table A, 46.
35. Charles V. Barber, Nels Johnson and Emmy Hafild. Breaking the Logjam: Obstacles to Forest Policy Reform in Indonesia and the United States (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1994.)
36. R. Schneider, "Government and the Economy on the Amazon Frontier," in Latin America and the Caribbean Technical Department, Regional Studies Program, provisional report no. 34 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, May 1994).
37. Mohan Munasinghe and Wilfredo Cruz, Economywide Policies and the Environment: Emerging Lessons from Experience. (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1994).
38. Wilfrido Cruz and Robert Repetto, The Environmental Effects of Stabilization and Structural Adjustment Programs: The Philippines Case (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1992).
39. World Bank Operations Evaluation Department, "Natural Resource Management in Bolivia: 30 Years of Experience" Report No. 11891, (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1993).
40. "Good" forest practices or sustainable forestry are interpreted here in an environmental and social sense, not in the traditional forestry sense of "sustained yield." Promoting increased sustained yield forestry could have greater environmental and socially negative impacts than a mere continuation of high-grading practices. Sustained yield forestry involves treatments to reduce biodiversity rather than maintain it through vine cutting and poisoning of "unwanted" species and aims to increase the volume of wood cut per unit area per unit time by increasing the number of species harvested. Simple high grading, especially if performed using low-impact logging techniques, could have a far lower environmental impact, and could be financially more rational.
41. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), FAO Year Book: Forest Products 1992 (Rome: FAO, 1994) 9-16.
42. Personal Communication, M. de Montelambert, FAO.
43. Robert Repetto and M. Gillis, Public Policies and the Misuse of Forest Resources, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK: 1988); Nels Johnson and Bruce Cabarle, Surviving the Cut, (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1993).
44. Forest Stewardship Council Guidelines for Certifiers, Oaxaca, Mexico, July 1994.
45. Estrategias para la Industria Sostenida de la Madera en el Ecuador, 1993, Ministry of Agriculture and Institute of Forestry, Wildlands and Wildlife, Republic of Ecuador/ITTO.
46. The Andean Pact created under the Cartagena Agreement unites Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela under the common goal of cooperation for balanced and harmonious economic development of the member countries. The Pact includes significant agreement on social issues and programs for infrastructure development which have major implications for the forestry sector.
47. Mercosul ("Mercado Comum do Sul" in Portuguese), or Southern Common Market, was signed in 1994 by Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. It will come into force in January 1995. Discussion is already underway to incorporate Chile.
48. ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, was established in 1967 by Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, and the Philippines to promote regional economic cooperation and address security issues. Recently there have been moves to incorporate social and environmental components.
49. The Amazon Cooperation Treaty was signed in 1978 by Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela to promote harmonious development in the Amazon Basin.
50. The Intergovernmental Committee on Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) was established in 1973 after a catastrophic drought, signed by the nine countries most affected by the disaster: Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Chad. Program objectives include empowering the people to once again become the driving force for development and reestablishing the ecological balance in the region.
51. The Mekong Committee was established in 1957 by Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, which all share the lower Mekong River Basin. The countries agreed to a shared conceptual framework for planning the development of the river system.
52. Agenda Centroamericana de Ambiente y Desarrollo, Comision Centroamericana de Ambiente y Desarrollo, 1992; Manaus Declaration and Joint Position Document of the Amazonian Countries for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Pro Tempore Secretariat of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty, Ecuador, 1992.
53. The six headings are: (a) The promotion and implementation of conservation, management, and overall aspects of sustainable development of forests; (b) Promotion and implementation of the sustainable use of forests and related economic development; (c) The role of major groups and social aspects of forests; (d) Institutional strengthening and capacity building; (e) International and regional cooperation and support; and (f) Forest issues relating to the other chapters of Agenda 21 and International agreements.
54. CIFOR is the latest member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) located in Bogor, Indonesia. The CGIAR Secretariat is affiliated to The World Bank Group in Washington D.C.
55. Eric Rodenburg, Eyeless in Gaia: The State of Global Environmental Monitoring (Washington D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1992) Appendix A, 9.
56. Kirk Talbott and Shantam Khadka, "Handing it Over: An Analysis of the Legal and Policy Framework of Community Forestry in Nepal," (Washington, D,C.: World Resources Institute, 1994).
57. The three were Worldwide Fund for Nature, Sierra Club, and the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
58. World Resources Institute, National Audubon Society, and Sierra Club.
59. Examples include the United States delegation to The International Tropical Timber Organization, and the British delegation to the India-United Kingdom workshop on reporting guidelines for United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development.
60. The term NGO is problematic as it encompasses so many different types of organizations ranging from grassroots mass movements with hundreds of thousands of members to capital-city based technical support bodies and one-person, self-promotion exercises. This diversity creates a challenge for governments seeking NGO involvement--who should they invite? This problem can be overcome by regular contact with the NGO community and gathering of information on the roles and characteristics of the various groups in a given country.
61. Owen J. Lynch, "Bridgebuilding among Local and International Constituencies: The Need for Local Level Incentives in Sustainable Development and International Law." Presented at the International Symposium on Sustainable Development and International Law organized by the Austrian Ministry for Environment, Youth and Family, Baden bei Wein, Austria, 1994; See also, Owen J. Lynch, "Securing Community-Based Tenurial Rights in the Tropical Forests of Asia: An Overview of Current and Prospective Strategies," (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1994).
62. Article 27 mandates that ethnic, religious, and linguistic "minorities . . . shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture." Further, Article 1.2 provides that "in no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence."
63. Article 7.1 states that, "The peoples concerned . . . shall participate in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of plans and programs for national and regional development which may affect them directly."
64. "Earth Rights and Responsibilities: Human Rights and Environmental Protection," Conference report, 1992. Yale Law School. pp. 34-44.
65. Drawing various relevant instruments of international law, a Draft Declaration of Principles on Human Rights and the Environment was prepared in May 1994 by an international group of experts on human rights and the environment convened by the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. It is the first proposed international legal instrument that comprehensively addresses the linkages between human rights and the environment.
66. Ralph Roberts, Stanley Pringle and George Nagle, 1991 (and 1993 update), World Forestry Leadership, Canadian International Development Agency Discussion Paper.
67. Lineamientos de Politicas y Guía de Procedimientos para Concesiones Forestales de Gran Escala en Centro America, (Comision Centoamericana de Ambiente y Desarrollo), 1993.
68. Convenio Regional para el Manejo y Conservacion de los Ecosistemas Naturales Forestales y el Desarrollo de Plantaciones Forestales, Comision Centroamericana de Ambiente y Desarrollo, 1993.
69. The Council has power to instruct government agencies in each member country to take specific steps to implement the accord, such as the call for implementation of social forestry program by 1996. Council members include representatives of the government forest agencies, national TFAP coordinators, the Regional Forest Industries Federation, rural workers' union leaders and a representative of the Regional Council on Women and Forestry Development.
70. Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain, Towards Green Villages (New Delhi: Center for Science and Environment, 1989) 1.
71. Mark Poffenberger, Joint Management for Forest Lands: Experiences from South Asia (Ford Foundation, January 1990) 1.
72. An example of this effective strategy is illustrated by this episode: after Mr. Jognath Sahu, BOJBP's secretary, failed to persuade villagers to plant seedlings in a denuded piece of hill land, he stood with his family and few volunteers at a roadside and, as villagers passed, they touched their feet, asking them to plant a few seedlings. Thanks to this emotional appeal, BOJBP successfully attained its objective.
73. Sashi Kant, Neera M. Singh, and Kundan K. Singh, Community Based Forest Management Systems: Case Studies from Orissa (New Delhi: Indian Institute of Forest Management, April 1991) 42-43.
74. Guesselbodi was considered representative of the typical vegetation predominating in Niger, and its location (only 30 km from the capital) made Guesselbodi especially attractive for logistical reasons. Location proved to be important for lobbying reasons, for it was visited by the Niger decisionmakers in the process of modifying policies to fully implement the project.
75. Greg Minnick, The Guesselbodi Experiment Revisited: Implications for Forestry in the Sahel, Report to the World Resources Institute (?).
76. Lisa Tracy, "Implementing Sustainable Forestry Practices in Russia," in Prout Journal (August 31, 1993).
77. Currently receiving support from the Pacific Environmental and Resource Center (PERC), a California-based NGO.