FORESTS

The Earth is facing serious declines in forest cover. The annual rate of deforestation is estimated to be anywhere between 15 and 25 million hectares. Each year an area of tropical rainforest equivalent to the size of Portugal is eliminated - rain forests cover about 10% of the world's land area but hold half of all known plant and animal species. All forest are believed to be a source of genetic diversity; the extent of which is still not fully understood. Tropical forests are the most popular example, but temperate forests sustain the same fate, e.g. in Canada where total forest cover is declining as well.

Forests are related to the entire range of environmental and development issues. Most recently they have played a significant role in the discussion about CO2 sinks, temporarily binding CO2 into solid matter and thus serving as a potential means for fighting global climate change. At the same time, global deforestation contributes 15-20% to total greenhouse gas emissions. Forests filter pollution from the air and improve local and regional climates. Apparently, forests also "prevent soil erosion; maintain water quality; and regulate the flow of water in different seasons, thus providing the bloodstream of agriculture, industry, and human communities," as the UNCED officially recognised 1992. The ongoing deforestation has potential catastrophic consequences: loss of soil and land productivity, deterioration of watersheds, flooding, sedimentation, desertification or loss of genetic diversity, just to name a few.

Forests are being cleared for many reasons, often to satisfy consumer demands in the rich countries: wood, paper and to a serious degree crops to feed cattle for the meat consumption of the north. Furthermore, small farmers in poor countries burn down the forests to produce food and cash crops; poor families need fuelwood for cooking, light and heating. Often, forests get converted to other uses such as agriculture, ranching, monocultures, highways, suburbs or shopping malls. Apparently, putting the forests off limits for the people is not a sustainable solution. Only a fraction of the world's forests are being managed in a way which allow current yields to be sustained. Even where corporations or governments emphasise that the total amount of wood on their areas has risen over the last years, watersheds, soil quality or biodiversity suffer. Forest management almost everywhere goes for short-term gains.

THE DEBATE

Forestation is a central issue in the North-South debate. Environmentalists in the North often regard forests as a global resource that contribute to global ecological balance, maintain biodiversity, serve as CO2 sinks, reduce global warming, produce oxygen etc. At UNCED, countries like the US were intent on identifying the forests as part of the "global commons", not least to use them as carbon sinks to "soak up the excess carbon dioxide which they intended to go on pumping into the atmosphere with or without the Convention on Climate Change" (Jonathon Porritt). The South sees this as questioning their sovereignty over their forests resources which are needed for development and growth.

To this day, there is no international, legally binding basis for the sustainable management of forests. Forecasts are dismal for many of the tropical rainforests, which aside from a few 'islands' are likely to disappear entirely over the next decades. At the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the idea of adopting a separate Forests Convention failed to get off the ground. The result was merely the non-binding 'Forest Principles'. Recent years have witnessed repeated efforts to reactivate this topic within international environmental policy-making. In order to promote forest issues politically, the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) in 1995, that was followed by the Intergovernmental Forum on Forest (UNFF) which recommended to establish the new permanent UN Forum on Forests, after the UN General Assembly Special Session, the five year review of UNCED, revealed embarrassingly little progress by many countries which are now keen to be seen performing better at the WSSD.

While some consider the existing instruments adequate, others refer to the bad implementation and call for a review and redesign of the existing instruments and bodies. Considering the sheer speed at which tropical forests are being cleared, the discussion is proceeding too slowly in too many UN fora (IPF, IFF, UNFF) for any effective instrument, binding under international law, to result.

WHAT NEXT?

The key to the preservation of forests is sustainable forest management, which would preserve the biological stock while ensuring long-term gains and generating more wealth for the people than cutting the trees down does. This also includes strengthened participation of all stakeholders to planning processes and decision-making, in particular on the local and community level. Increased attention should be given to the underlying causes such as consumption patterns in developed countries, poverty in developing countries and unsustainable practices of forest management.

New financial resources are necessary to put sustainable forest management into practice as well as reaffirming the targets in development aid that would help developing countries in the economic transition from primary production to feed into developed countries markets to addressing needs of developing countries sustainably. Eventually, wealth derived from forest products should be distributed more equitable, also including payment for indigenous knowledge. Incentives should be developed to encourage sustainable forest management, e.g. by supporting independent initiatives like the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) that provides certification for more sustainable forest use. At the World Summit, the numerous co-ordination and implementation instruments that have been established over the years need to be reviewed and obstacles for sustainable forest management identified and removed. The World Summit should signal in all clarity that an efficacious regime for protecting the world's forests must be quickly established. There have been calls for a Forest Protocol to the Biodiversity Convention. The Biodiversity Convention is the authoritative one for forests anyway, since forests generally form centres of biodiversity. Furthermore, the broad scope of the Convention embraces conservation, sustainable management and benefit sharing in equal measure.