Millennium Development Goals

The plight of tropical forests and the people who live there attracts little more than small print in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Hidden within the nebulous Goal 7 - "ensure environmental sustainability" - lies Indicator 25 which calls vaguely to reverse the loss of "land area covered by forest". There is no distinction between tropical and other types of forest and no connection made with the fundamental object of the MDGs to reduce poverty.

Guarana fruit, Brazilian forest, CFU000522 © Roberto Faidutti / Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations

The result is that national poverty reduction strategies tend to ignore forest issues and that aid earmarked for human development is less likely to be directed to forest programmes. Yet the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 350 million people, including 60 million classed as indigenous, live within or close to tropical forests and are highly dependent on forest produce for livelihoods, food, fuel and medicine. The majority of these people fall into the category of extreme poverty that the MDGs are supposed to address.

The UN Forum for Forests (UNFF), the global body responsible for driving forward the "management, conservation and sustainable development" of forests, has succeeded only in securing a non-legally binding international agreement on the building blocks of sustainable forest management. Bereft of the human development dimension and lacking political commitment, the MDG indicator for forests is failing dramatically. Whilst forest coverage in non-tropical areas is recovering, the ten countries most responsible for tropical deforestation cleared an area of rainforest between 2000 and 2005 equivalent to more than twice the size of Paris every day.

Climate Change

Forest burning for pasture, Central African Republic, CFU000204 © Roberto Faidutti / Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations

Although the role of tropical forests as a vital carbon sink has long been understood, the current international agreement dealing with climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, offers no more protection to tropical forests than the MDGs. This is because the only countries obliged to achieve quantifiable emission reductions before 2012 are those from the wealthy higher latitudes - countries in which the most important forests are located are committed only to "promote sustainable management" of forests under the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Rising concern about climate change has renewed attention to the position of tropical forests in the emissions equation. Destruction of the rainforest releases carbon dioxide through disturbing the substantial residue of carbon in the soil, the decay of leaves and wood, and combustion in "slash and burn" forest clearance. Whilst timber products store carbon, the amounts are small relative to the surrounding destruction. The science of this human-induced carbon exchange is complex but there is consensus that deforestation contributes around 20% of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the world's transport sector. It also removes future capacity to absorb carbon dioxide.

Science is still evolving on the threat of a feedback loop - the impact a warming planet might have on tropical forests - but studies of the Amazon rainforest suggest a slow conversion to dry savannah. This would be hard to imagine in the great tropical forests of South America, West and Central Africa, and Southeast Asia which are characterised by high year-round rainfall and dense canopied forests of immense variety - in Malaysia 180 different tree species have been counted in a single hectare.
Causes of Deforestation

Log barge, Indonesia, FO-5709 © Patrick Durst / Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations

Most countries have put together national forestry plans which pay repeated homage to phrases such as "sustainable forest management". Unfortunately the countries with the most valuable forests tend to be those at a relatively early or middle stage of development; countries in which insatiable global demand for timber and cash crops all too easily overwhelms weak institutions vulnerable to corruption and lacking capacity for law enforcement. Bold announcements of initiatives to halt deforestation all too often advance little further than the press conference.

Too many countries lack inventories of their own lands and title - inevitably the rights of forest dwellers are too easily brushed aside by powerful individuals or corporations. The result is widespread illegal logging and land-grabs for agriculture or ranching, inflicting abuse of individual rights and loss of national income. In Cambodia, even the most senior politicians have been accused by Global Witness of involvement in illegal timber business for their personal benefit. In Papua New Guinea, all logging is believed to be illegal as has been the case in countries plagued by internal conflict such as Liberia and Burma where opposing sides exploit timber to finance their armies.

This is a failure of global market economics as much as local governance; rich countries make inadequate efforts to respect certification schemes led by the Forest Stewardship Council. There has been some progress in the resolve of multinational retailers to monitor suppliers, and in persuading China to bring to heel its rape of the Burma rainforest. But the recent knee-jerk drive by the EU and US for biofuels to fight climate change has presented a blank cheque to Brazilian and Indonesian business interests to clear forests for sugar-cane and palm oil plantations.
Forest Assets

There is a deeper structural failure of economics in that no monetary value is placed on the vital contribution of tropical forests to the biosphere - as a carbon sink through photosynthesis, as an influence on local climate and rainfall through respiration, as a medium for water storage and filtration through root structure, and as a protector of soil quality and quantity, and species biodiversity. One hectare of Amazon rainforest can contain more plant species than the whole of Europe; the current rate of extinction of plant and animal species through deforestation is believed to be 1000 times greater than that in pre-human history.
Carbon Model

Phaeomeria Magnifica, Brazilian forest, CFU000507 © Roberto Faidutti / Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations

The search is therefore on for a new economic model for tropical forests which attributes monetary value consistent with the objective of sustainability. Traditional economists such as Sir Nicholas Stern, who published the influential Review on the Economics of Climate Change for the UK government, favour payments by rich countries to compensate forest countries for calling a complete halt to deforestation. Payments would be assessed by a business technique known as "opportunity cost" which values the lost opportunity of logging or agriculture which could otherwise have occurred. Stern calculated this figure to be $5 billion per annum for the 8 countries contributing 70% of forest-related emissions, just 5% of current foreign aid budgets. He concluded therefore that addressing deforestation is one of the most efficient and cost effective ways of tackling climate change.

Whilst such payments could be arranged as aid, an alternative suggestion is to convert "avoided deforestation" into carbon credits for sale to rich countries, companies and individuals as part of their commitment to meet emission reduction targets. A similar process is already under way within the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol but credits are confined to reforestation or afforestation schemes. The wider carbon trading path is favoured by the Coalition for Rainforest Nations (which excludes Brazil) and talks are due at the Bali climate change conference in December 2007 to consider whether the CDM could include the more radical option after 2012.

There would be immense practical difficulties in implementing "avoided deforestation" and the concept does little to address underlying problems of governance and vulnerability to corruption. Those who feel that carbon accounting is too esoteric point to the experience of Paraguay where the government simply placed a ban on logging, purchased satellite technology to monitor results with adequate staff resources and swiftly reduced illegal logging by 85%.
Community-based Model

Forest medicine, Senegal, CFU000354 © Roberto Faidutti / Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations

Another criticism of carbon trading is that it is a macro-economic tool controlled by government institutions, doing little to transfer powers to the people directly dependent on the forests. An alternative rights-based approach by contrast begins with the forest dwellers, seeking a basis for sustainable livelihoods through secure land rights and support for forest markets whether small-scale timber or "non-timber forest products".

There are however limitations of community-based forest management, not least the geographic inaccessibility to wider markets for local produce. In practice the forest often acts as a safety net for other livelihoods, some even connected with commercial logging. A progressive national strategy may therefore concentrate on recognising the different forest stakeholders and aligning their rights and responsibilities to create mutual interest in forest sustainability. For example, in Liberia, where the opportunity has arisen for a fresh start after years of collapse, the government has divided forest resources into three categories, for forest communities, for protected areas, and for commercial logging with obligations to invest a share of profits in local services.

A truly sustainable model for tropical forest management nevertheless remains elusive. Logging which targets carefully selected trees with techniques which minimise collateral damage can transform the long term yield of the forest - such areas combined with protected forest reserves are believed to extend to about 5% of all global tropical forests.

Camisea pipeline scars rainforest © Amazon Watch

A rights-based approach to forest management would also offer greater protection against non-timber infrastructure projects of which the Comisea gas pipeline in Peru is the most controversial example. Much of this development will take place in a national reserve, overriding protection of the rights of indigenous people. Clearing forest for roads or pipelines fractures the sensitive ecosystem and weakens resistance to more extensive deforestation.
Brazil

Brazil is the country most linked in the public mind with tropical forests; about 40% of the Amazon rainforest, the largest in the world, lies within Brazil's borders. About 20 million people live in the Brazilian Amazon region, many of them dependent on the forest for their livelihoods.

Deforestation for soy production, Brazil © Greenpeace International

A country which has become a potential economic powerhouse, jostling for position in influential global forums, can surely break the mould and create the institutional capacity to defeat the evil of illegal logging. The government claims significant success from its Action Plan for Deforestation Prevention launched by President Lula da Silva in 2004, backed by strong police enforcement. Yet the rate of annual deforestation remains no less than it was in the 1990s. The Federal government struggles to offer protection to those indigenous people whose lands remain unregistered, or to prevent the violence of local criminal turfwars, as illustrated by the murder of Dorothy Stang in an area of rampant illegal logging in 2004.

A new threat looms in Brazil's drive for production of the biofuel ethanol, a science in which the country leads the world. Environmentalists say that this strategy is adding pressure to convert forest into land for soy beans and sugar cane, a concern that is strongly rebutted by President Lula.
Democratic Republic of Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) offers similarities to Brazil in that it embraces about 50% of the vast Congo Basin rainforest with about 40 million people dependent to some degree. Whilst there have been serious abuses of logging licences, the country's share of the forest is relatively undisturbed due to the undeveloped infrastructure. With a newly elected democratic government and donors ready to provide support, the opportunity exists to learn from generations of mismanagement in Africa and beyond.

A dubious start was made in 2002 when the World Bank encouraged the government in a development model which envisaged that timber should be a major export market, with little account of the interests of local communities. After to a wave of criticism from global forest campaigners, the World Bank retracted its advice and the government has banned the issue of new licences whilst it reviews all those currently in force, many of them gained illegally since 2002. Enforcement of licence conditions in this vast and impoverished country, plagued by corruption, will be a daunting challenge.

Time is not on the side of reform, whether driven by concerns for human development or by the theory of carbon markets. The Stern Review cryptically pointed out that, if worldwide deforestation remains unchecked, its carbon emissions for the years 2008-2012 alone will exceed those of the entire history of aviation up to the year 2025.

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