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Chapter 7 The international dimension
International organizations and agreements
The United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development
Debt
for-nature swaps
Genetic materials and medicines from the forests
Consumer
boycotts
A number of important international initiatives have already been taken to slow the present rate of depletion of the world's forests and eventually to stabilize their area. There is also significant public interest and involvement in proposals such as debt-for-nature swaps and the steps taken in some industrialized countries for consumer boycotts of tropical timber originating from land that is not under sustainable management.
Official development assistance (ODA) from donor countries, development banks and United Nations organizations to the forestry sector in 1990 was US$ 1353.5 million, or an increase of US$ 260 million (24 percent) over the figure for 1988 (FAO, 1991b). The value of ODA to the forestry sector in 1988 represented 9.2 percent of the ODA to the agriculture sector and 2.8 percent of the ODA for all sectors. About two-thirds of the ODA to the forestry sector came from donor countries, with the balance approximately equally divided between the development banks and UN organizations. The main fields of expenditure of the 1990 ODA were: forestry in land use (35 percent), forest-based industrial development (28 percent) and institutional strengthening (19 percent). The proportions of the allocations among the different fields of expenditure remained much the same as in 1988, except that the share devoted to fuelwood fell from 17 percent in 1988 to 6 percent in 1990; the reasons for this reduction are not clear.
International organizations and agreements
Support for developing country forestry projects is provided by a variety of national and international agencies. Increasingly, sustainable forest management is featuring in policy documents as well as in loan and grant agreements.
The World Bank is the largest single multilateral lender; up to 1991 it had provided nearly US$ 2500 million in loans to a total of 94 forestry projects. In June 1991 it produced a new forest policy document (World Bank, 1991), its first since 1978. This identified the following as the two main challenges to be met: the prevention of excessive deforestation, especially in the tropical moist forests, and action to meet increasing demands for forest products and services for the rural poor in developing countries through tree planting and the management of existing forest resources. The policies proposed for forest protection to check deforestation include: poverty alleviation, the allocation of land to forestry purposes, corrections to private incentives that encourage timber "mining" and the clearing of forest land, and a controlled increase in public investment. Policies to meet the basic needs for forest products and services arising from forests would include reductions in demand and increases in supply. Other requirements that were recognized were the strengthening of forest institutions and the involvement of the international community in institution building, financing and international trade reforms.
The World Bank has been attacked for promoting environmentally and socially damaging forestry projects because of its emphasis on the economic rates of return on its loans. In its new policy document the bank responded to the criticisms by pledging that future project evaluations would distinguish between projects that are environmentally protective or small-farmer oriented and those that are purely commercial. It also promised that its lending in the forestry sector would be subject to commitments by governments to sustainable and conservation-oriented forestry. One condition laid down in the document is that the World Bank "will not under any circumstances finance commercial logging in primary tropical moist forests". While this policy may reflect the concerns of many environmental groups for such ecosystems, it will not contribute to their conservation.
Since its foundation in 1945, FAO, which is the main UN agency mandated to deal with forestry, has played a major role across the whole spectrum of forestry activities throughout the world. It cooperates with member countries in rural development, policy analysis, institutional strengthening, plantation forestry, community forestry, participatory forestry, sustainable forest management, education, training and the production of scientific information and global statistics on forestry. It provides a neutral forum for discussion on global and regional forestry matters, through, for instance, the biennial meetings of the Committee on Forestry (COFO) and the Committee on Forest Development in the Tropics and the regular meetings of the various regional forestry commissions. The Organization has permanent missions in a large number of member countries which serve to link FAO's expertise with that of national governments; it is also the implementing agency of many donor-funded projects.
In 1985 FAO, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and the World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington-based privately funded research organization, co-sponsored the Tropical Forestry Action Plan (TFAP), renamed in 1991 the Tropical Forests Action Programme. TFAP was the result of a number of tropical forestry initiatives undertaken in the early and middle 1980s. TFAP emphasizes management and planning within the context of overall land-use development as well as the need to involve rural people; it broke new ground in explicitly recognizing the importance of NGOs and allocating them a pivotal position in linking local communities and national governments.
TFAP provides a framework for national programmes for sustainable forest utilization and for harmonizing and strengthening international donor cooperation. FAO supports the efforts of participating countries through its coordinating unit.
By May 1993 TFAP had the formal participation of 90 countries, and had helped 33 countries draw up national forestry action plans that were being implemented, generally with donor support; a further five regional plans were under preparation and one is being implemented. It had also helped to facilitate a 16 percent annual increase in development assistance funds to the forestry sector. Within the framework of TFAP this amounted to a total of US$ 1300 million in 1990 and US$ 2030 million in 1992.
During its first years of operation TFAP came under some criticism. WRI monitored NGO participation between 1988 and 1990 and found that, in practice, it was far less than had been expected, with some governments being extremely reluctant to concede NGOs any meaningful involvement. The study also showed that some of the participating countries put much emphasis on timber production as compared to conservation and rural development. Some tropical governments were disappointed, feeling that the international community had been ungenerous in its provision of assistance.
The findings led to a shift from donor coordination and project activity to a longer-term programme emphasizing policy development aimed at the conservation and sustainable development of forests. Country concerns and activities were to be given greater attention (country-driven emphasis) while plans and programmes were to take account of the interests of the related sectors (interdisciplinarity), with greater involvement of the people and their organizations. Some NGOs still remain sceptical, alleging that donor funding remains based upon previous policies rather than upon the quality of the action plans or the priorities of the recipient nations. Supporters of TFAP maintain, however, that time is needed for its full benefits to be realized, and that for all its flaws it is uniquely valuable for facilitating cooperative efforts between tropical countries and the international community.
The International Union of Forestry Research Organizations (IUFRO), founded in 1892, links forestry research institutes into a global network of research units (interest groups). Its Special Programme for Developing Countries (SPDC), set up in 1983, supports training and self-teaching programmes and information services and promotes interagency contacts.
Whether the role of SPDC will change with the establishment of the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) remains to be seen. CIFOR, based in Bogor, Indonesia, was established in February 1993 as a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). This new organization has a global mandate but will operate in a decentralized fashion through continental coordinators, networks and collaborative research. ClFOR's focus will be on conservation and the improved productivity of forest ecosystems, with programmes in natural forests, open woodlands, plantations and woodlots, and degraded lands. It will include an important component for the strengthening of national forest research institutions.
The International Council for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), which has been based in Nairobi since its establishment in 1978, has also recently joined the CGIAR. It has a mandate for global agroforestry research and will collaborate closely with CIFOR. It is currently promoting "Alternatives to Slash and Bum", a programme carried out in collaboration with research institutions in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR), established as an FAO body under mandate from the UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm, 1972), will shortly become a fully autonomous and independently administered centre within the CGIAR system. IBPGR is preparing proposals for its involvement in the conservation of biodiversity and the germplasm of forestry species.
The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), established in Yokohama, Japan, in 1985, is made up of the world's major tropical timber exporting and importing nations. It supports various programmes concerned with timber harvesting, forest management, reforestation, wood utilization and marketing as well as providing a forum for the international timber trade. ITTO published guidelines on sustainable natural forest management in 1990, on planted tropical forests in 1991 and on biodiversity conservation in 1992. These are intended as broad guides to be followed but to be modified to suit the situations and conditions in individual countries.
ITTO has established a strategy of seeking to encourage member countries to move towards sustainable management of tropical forests. Part of this strategy involves the target that all exports of tropical timber will come from sustainably managed resources by the year 2000. Producer member countries have committed themselves to achieving this, but have stressed that their success will depend on substantial financial and technical assistance from consumer countries.
At a regional level, the Mediterranean environment has been a matter of growing international concern. The forests of the countries to the north of the Mediterranean Sea have been mainly under formal management, while those of the tropical and subtropical countries to the south have been included in TFAP. The countries of the Mediterranean basin have drawn attention to this apparent neglect of a rich and unique forest zone and have proposed an international support programme.
In conformity with the Paris Declaration which was issued after the Tenth World Forestry Congress in 1991, the Forestry Department of FAO, acting as the Secretariat of Silva Mediterranea, drafted a Mediterranean Forest Action Programme. This programme, known as MED-FAP, has been drawn up and is due to be launched in 1993. It aims to help each country carry out a rapid assessment of the state of its forests, identify its priorities, draw up short - and medium - term action plans and obtain funding for their implementation. Such activities are also in conformity with the recommendations of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), which urged every country to establish its own Forest National Plan, with the support of the international community if necessary.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is concerned with fundraising and increasing awareness; it has interests in species and protected area conservation and in forest management. The World Conservation Union, formerly known as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), has a mandate to promote action and to seek support for projects related to environmental protection and resource management. These two NGOs are international in the sense that their activities are not directed by members in individual countries.
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
UNCED, which was held in Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 1992, devoted a considerable amount of attention to the question of the world's forests (see Lanly, 1992). The Rio Declaration, which was unanimously adopted at the end of the conference by the 102 heads of state and government attending, proclaimed 27 general principles to guide states and people in a "new and equitable global partnership" in matters of the environment and of development and in related policies and programmes. Several of these principles are concerned with sustainability, such as those calling for environmental protection as an integral part of development (Principle 4), reduction and elimination of unsustainable patterns of production and consumption (Principle 8), adoption of effective and appropriate environmental legislation (Principle 11) and environmental impact assessments at the national level (Principle 7). Principle 2 stated that sovereign countries have the right to exploit their own resources according to their own environmental and developmental policies. The conference proposed that the Rio Declaration should be further elaborated and presented as an Earth Charter on the 50th anniversary of the UN in 1995.
At the same time, the conference drew up a "non-legally-binding authoritative statement of principles for a global consensus on the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests" (the "forest principles"). The Preamble, which begins by stating that "the subject of forests is related to the entire range of environmental and development issues and opportunities, including the right to socio-economic development on a sustainable basis" (Paragraph a), also states that "forests are essential to economic development and the maintenance of all forms of life" (Paragraph g). The Preamble draws attention to the multiple and complementary functions and uses of forests and to the need for a holistic and balanced view of the issues and opportunities for their conservation and development. It states that the principles apply to "all types of forests, both natural and planted, in all geographic regions and climatic zones" (Paragraph e).
Countries have committed themselves to the prompt implementation of the forest principles and to "consider[ing] the need for and the feasibility of all kinds of appropriate internationally agreed arrangements to promote international cooperation on forest management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests".
The provisions of the forest principles are wide ranging and cover all aspects of the management, conservation and sustainable development of forests all over the world. The need for sustainability is stressed throughout. For instance, Article 2b asserts that "forest resources and forest lands should be sustainably managed to meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual human needs of present and future generations" and Article 3a that "national policies and strategies should provide a framework... for the management, conservation and sustainable development of forests and forest lands".
The forest principles define the sovereign right of countries over their forest resources (Articles la and 2a). Participation in forest conservation and development is recommended for some specific sections of society, such as women (Articles 2d and 5b), indigenous people and forest dwellers (Articles 2d and 5a) and industries, labour, NGOs and individuals (Article 2d). The need for institutional strengthening is stressed in general (Article 3a), in relation to research and training (Article 12b) and in relation to the use of the capacities and knowledge of indigenous and local communities (Article 12d). The protection of ecologically viable representative examples of primary or old-growth forest as well as forests valued for their cultural, spiritual, historical, religious and other values is emphasized (Article 8f). Article 15 calls for the removal or avoidance of unilateral measures, which are incompatible with international obligations, to restrict international trade in timber or other forest products in order to attain long-term, sustainable forest management.
A final agreement, "Combating deforestation", which
appeared under Agenda 21, Chapter 11, was adopted by the plenary
session of the conference on 14 June 1992. This covered four
programme areas:
- sustaining the multiple roles and functions of all types of
forests, forest lands and woodlands;
- enhancing the protection, sustainable management and
conservation of all forests, and the greening of degraded areas,
through forest rehabilitation, forestation, reforestation and
other rehabilitative measures;
- promoting efficient utilization and assessment to recover the
full valuation of the goods and services provided by forests,
forest lands and woodlands;
- establishing and/or strengthening capacities for the planning
assessment and systematic observations of forestry and related
programmes, projects and activities including commercial trade
and processes.
Originally there was a fifth programme area covering international and regional cooperation, but its components were finally distributed among the other four programme areas. TFAP is included under the second programme area, that concerned with enhancing the protection and sustainable management of all forests, which is linked to an appeal to all countries to formulate and implement national forestry programmes or plans.
The UNCED Secretariat estimated the total annual cost of these programmes at about US$ 30000 million per year, of which about $5500 million would come from the international community on grant or concessional terms. Discussion of how and from where such funding should come was not on the UNCED agenda, though a number of countries and organizations used the occasion to promise or pledge financial support.
The fact that the issue of sustainable management of all forests is now firmly on the international agenda is encouraging. But as the haggling and arguing at the conference showed, there is a long way to go before the ringing declarations are translated into the commitments in terms of both policy and finance that are required if effective action is to take place.
UNCED also agreed upon a framework convention on climate change, which was signed by 150 countries. This will enter into force after it has been officially ratified by 50 national governments from among the signatories. The convention mainly commits countries to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and includes proposals for helping developing countries. No targets on emissions or deadlines are, however, included in the convention.
A framework convention on biodiversity agreed upon at the conference was signed by 154 countries. This will come into force after national ratification by 30 countries. Its objectives are "the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources and by the appropriate technology".
The value of the principles enshrined in the Rio Declaration and in the non-legally-binding forest principles and the efficacy of the conventions on climate change and on biodiversity will depend to a large extent on the political will and commitment of the governments and policy-makers to apply their tenets. The body charged with monitoring the implementation of the agreements reached at UNCED is the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), an intergovernmental forum with participation at senior (including ministerial) level.
Many developing countries are heavily burdened with foreign currency debts to commercial banks, to the governments of industrialized countries and to international lending agencies. For some of the poorest countries the possibility of paying off these debts within decades, if ever, is extremely low. Banks and lending agencies, however, remain reluctant to cancel such debts since they consider that it would lessen the chances of being repaid by those countries that are better able to afford the repayments.
Debt-for-nature swaps (DFNS) represent an attempt to benefit the environment by capitalizing on banks' willingness to discount (or sell at less than face value) some of their long-standing debts, to accept an immediate reduced payment rather than waiting for full payment, which may never come. The swap is organized by a third party, either an environmental NGO or the government of an industrialized country, which buys the debt at a reduced rate from the lender and agrees to cancel it provided the debtor country makes a specified investment in an environmental project such as protecting an area of tropical forest of particular ecological significance. In this way, the developing country rids itself of the debt without having to repay any foreign currency but assumes responsibility to undertake certain environmental activities
There are venous instruments for debt swaps (Bramble, 1987),
which include:
- debt swaps: the exchange of one country's debt for that of
another;
- debt-for-equity conversions: the conversion of a hard-currency
debt into an investment in the developing country;
- debt-for-commodity conversions: the conversion of debt into an
export commodity, which can be sold to meet the discounted value
of the debt;
- factoring companies: the purchase, by a company established for
the purpose, of problem loans from banks in exchange for
dividends paid by the factoring company from trading or investing
the debt;
- bonds: a variation of long-term bonds, "exit bonds"
are denominated in hard currencies but can only be traded for
local currency before final maturity.
By the end of 1992 a total of 24 debt-for-nature swaps had been arranged with a face value of over US$ 122 million, generating conservation funds of over US$ 75 million but in fact costing just over US$ 23 million (see Annex 1). The overall impact is small in relation to the total debt of the developing world and the rate at which deforestation is taking place. There are also problems in ensuring that the conservation programmes are realistic and capable of being implemented and maintained on a sustainable basis. An initiative in Bolivia, for example, ran into trouble because local indigenous people as well as loggers who had been awarded concessions laid claim to the land that was to be managed.
Objections have been raised to the rationale of debt-for-nature swaps. They have been criticized as a form of "eco-colonialism", under which industrialized countries would set the priorities of developing countries. It is possible that the system would work in countries that are badly mismanaging their economies, but not in others that are displaying economic discipline. The swaps may add to inflationary pressures. As a result of the attraction of the economic and ecological benefits of debt-for-nature swaps, the needs of the people living in the area may be overlooked. It is nevertheless generally accepted that prudently chosen and well planned debt-for-nature swaps are a viable, if rather complicated, measure which can make a contribution to forest conservation.
Genetic materials and medicines from the forests
An area of controversy in which there is an increasingly evident need for an international agreement is the search by companies from industrialized countries for potentially useful drugs and genetic materials from tropical forests. A successful discovery can be extremely lucrative for the companies involved.
The large-scale harvesting of such drugs from the wild is generally not the objective of these investigations, although in the testing phase large quantities of the raw material are likely to be required. The hope of the companies is that their researchers, by examining the properties and roles of various plants or other forms of life in forest ecosystems, will identify chemical compounds that can be used for human benefit. Normally, once such a compound has been discovered and fully tested, it might be synthesized (and protected by patents); the desired genes might be transferred into another organism; or the plant from which it was derived might be grown under cultivation.
It is hoped that by giving the countries in which the original discoveries are made a share in the profits arising from the use of the genes they will be given an incentive to conserve the ecosystems from which the genes are derived. Contracts could, for example, be based upon exploration fees and a royalty on any drugs successfully developed and marketed, but complex arrangements will be required to monitor sales and to give the company continued (but not sole) access to the genetic resources.
The best known example of an agreement between an institution in a developing country and a private pharmaceutical company for exploration of the potential of natural species for commercial development while at the same time promoting conservation of those species is that between INBio (the National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica) and Merck & Co., a large American pharmaceutical firm. Under this agreement, which was reached in 1991, Merck pays INBio to sample and process, for drug screening purposes, the range of plants, insects and other organisms naturally occurring in Costa Rica. Merck will also pay INBio royalties arising from any drug that is commercially developed from the screening. INBio in turn pays a proportion of the budget for exploration and screening; it also pays a proportion of any eventual royalties to the Costa Rican government for conservation purposes (World Resources Institute, 1993).
The issue of recompensing governments and peoples for the natural genetic resources of their countries was addressed at UNCED within the context of the framework convention on biodiversity, which called for sharing "in a fair and equitable way the results of research and development and the benefits arising from the commercial and other utilization of genetic resources... upon mutually agreed terms".
But the exploration of biodiversity will not necessarily lead to investment in the conservation of forest ecosystems, nor to rich and immediate rewards to the countries where the plants or animals with the desired genes are indigenous, nor even to a share of the rewards for the people using and presently conserving the resource. That there are potential returns from the exploration of the biodiversity of forest ecosystems is undeniable, but if such exploration is to contribute to sustainable forest management it will have to be controlled and managed in such a way that the returns benefit the indigenous people who have an interest in conserving the resource (Reid et al., 1993)
Consumer boycotts of tropical timber have been promoted by a number of environmental NGOs in the industrialized countries in recent years. These have had an impact in some countries. About 450 city councils in Germany for example, have banned the use of tropical timbers and over 90 percent of Dutch local councils have done the same. In the United States, the states of Arizona and New York have banned the use of tropical timbers (excluding tropical plywood in New York) in public construction projects, as have several cities (Global Environmental Change Report, 1991).
Certain tree species have now been listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). CITES is an international convention which governs trade in named endangered species by voluntary agreement among its member countries (99 in 1989). These species are either threatened by extinction or if not now threatened may become so unless their trade is subject to strict regulation.
The objectives sought from bans and boycotts vary, and hence so does their likelihood of being effective. Some seek to encourage consumers to stop buying all tropical timbers in order to maintain species diversity and ecological systems; others are intended to promote sustained yield management. Such conflicting objectives make it difficult to convey a clear message to tropical timber producers and reduce the chances of achieving useful results.
Even if boycotts were totally coordinated and successfully implemented, their impact on tropical forest depletion would be bound to be small. Only about 6 percent of the total amount of wood cut for all purposes in the tropics enters the international timber trade. Moreover, most of the deforestation taking place results not from forestry activities but from uncontrolled clearing for agriculture, which has social and economic roots.
Even if all international trade in tropical timber were halted, deforestation would continue virtually unabated. Action is needed for the social and economic betterment of the rural people of developing countries, along with the promotion of sound forest management and the infrastructure to support it.
Boycotts or bans could even have a negative effect since, ironically, they are focused upon a commodity that can, in fact, be produced sustainably from tropical forests and that gives the forest a value. If the forest cannot be used for timber exports, the temptation is to clear it and use the land to produce crops, including export crops such as palm oil, sugar, pepper, rice, bananas, coffee or cocoa that are not subject to any threat of boycott.
Moreover, boycotts and bans are directly contrary to international trade agreements such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The Uruguay Round of negotiations on GATT sought to liberalize world trade further in a wide range of goods, including forest products. Furthermore, the forest principles that were developed by consensus at UNCED clearly stated that "unilateral measures, incompatible with international obligations or agreements, to restrict and/or ban international trade in timber or other forest products should be removed or avoided, in order to attain long-term sustainable forest management" (Article 15).
FAO opposes such trade restrictions. FAO believes that these measures are unlikely to make any positive contribution to solving the problems facing tropical forests. Bans on trade in tropical timbers would deprive a country and its rural people of the opportunity to derive economic benefits from an important natural resource. The loss of revenue would only aggravate the very problems that the proponents of bans or boycotts seek to solve. What is needed is material support and encouragement to manage and use forests soundly and sustainably.
