The path toward an international agreement on forests has proved to be as unexpected and tiresome as a forest terrain can be for an inexperienced traveller. After the difficult discussions at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), where the outcome was the non-legally binding Statement of Forest Principles, a number of international initiatives have been launched. Efforts began at the multilateral (UN), non-governmental, bilateral and regional levels for an agreement on forests that is considered key to the other high-profile conventions on climate change and biological diversity.

Two substantive efforts came in 1995. One was from the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) which set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) to promote a focused discussion on this sector. The other was the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development (WCFSD) with the goal of developing "a global vision of forests in the twenty-first century."

The IPF, after two years and four meetings, recommended continued intergovernmental policy dialogue even as it failed to agree on major issues such as financial assistance and trade-related matters and whether to begin negotiations toward a global forest convention. The UN General Assembly agreed in June 1997 to continue the intergovernmental dialogue and established an ad hoc open-ended Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF). The IFF moved the debate forward in as much as the General Assembly decided to set some concrete goals and mandated that "the Forum should identify the possible elements of and work towards consensus on international arrangements and mechanisms, for example, a legally binding instrument."

The IFF has identified its work program, which includes eight items grouped into three categories. These include promoting the IPF's proposal for action; matters like financial resources, transfer of environmentally sound technologies and trade-related issues, which were left pending in IPF; and efforts toward international agreement and mechanisms. The IFF, which is now engaged in detailed discussions, will present its report to the UNCSD in 1999. Based on that report and the decision of UNCSD, the Forum will engage in further negotiations.

The negotiations so far have not progressed a great deal. The Earth Negotiations Bulletin, published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, in writing about a recent meeting noted that "the 'IPF take two' sensation was particularly acute in discussions on trade and environment." Delegates observed that the matters remain just as pending after IFF-2 as they were after IPF-4 because of the utter lack of consensus emerging from 'substantive' discussions on the issue. Delegates repostured themselves along familiar North-South lines on issues of market access, trade barriers and the environmental versus economic and social goals of trade."

Working on a parallel track, the WCFSD appears to have had some success in forging associations around the world through dialogue and public hearings. It has set up a Science Council and Policy Advisory and has held discussion in all the regions of the world about the need to protect forests. It achieved a major boost this year when the Union Environment Minister, Suresh Prabhu, signalling the WCFSD's growing importance, released its major recommendations in a summary report in India.

Even as the debate on the international agreement continues, perhaps the decision-makers need to be reminded of the specter haunting the globe. Recent estimates by the WCFSD reveal that forests have virtually disappeared in 25 countries, 18 have lost more than 95 percent and another 11 have lost almost 90 percent. In the last two decades of the 20th century, the world has been losing 10 to 15 million hectares of forest annually to permanent deforestation. Nearly 800 plant species in the United States may become extinct within the next year and between 20 to 25 percent of all the species on Earth may disappear within the next 30 to 40 years, with 85 percent of the organisms remaining unknown to science.

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