Forests 97

Issue 1 March 1996

Welcome to the countdown to action on global forests! Over the next year, the international community must decide what it will do to address the worsening forest crisis world-wide. The nations of the world are expected to arrive in New York at the Fifth Session of the UN Commission for Sustainable Development in Spring, 1997 ready to make some major decisions on sweeping forest-related reforms. Never before has there been such a coordinated and concerted international effort to come to grips with the wide range of issues involved.

The task is enormous and the urgency is great. Yet the issues being discussed in the international forest policy dialogue are highly complex. IISD is launching Countdown Forests 97 to help decision-makers make sense of difficult, inter-related themes. Eight issues of Countdown will provide backgrounders on the key topics and dimensions of the discussions.

The Countdown briefings are intended to complement the detailed reporting on international forest negotiations that appears in IISD¹s sister publication, the Earth Negotiations Bulletin. The ENB provides comprehensive and timely summaries of the forest negotiations in progress, including country positions, meeting dates, contact information and other highlights. Countdown focuses on the substantive content areas in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF), the (extra-governmental) World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development (WCFSD), as well as a host of other international discussions on Criteria and Indicators of Sustainable Forest Management.

Our first issue begins with a primer on the range of topics beings discussed in the international forest policy dialogue. It then explores two of the most difficult topics to be addressed at the March IPF meeting in Geneva: Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation and the difficulty of addressing these in a coherent and systematic fashion; and International Financing and Technology Transfer and the pressing need to move beyond existing North-South differences on these issues.

If the international forest policy dialogue is to lead to positive action, two characteristics will be required of the negotiators and nations sitting at the table - international goodwill to listen and understand, and political will to act.

An Overview of Global Discussions on Forest Issues

The international forest policy dialogue can be separated into three broad and sometimes overlapping categories:

1. Intergovernmental Panel on Forests. The IPF is a two-year-long initiative launched by the UN Commission for Sustainable Development at its third meeting in Spring, 1995. The IPF considers global forest issues in greater depth than was possible for the CSD III session, and is expected to produce recommendations on global action for sustainable forest management at the CSD V session in Spring, 1997. Four intergovernmental, open-ended meetings focus on 10 key program items. Box 1 provides a schedule of the key discussion topics planned for the remaining sessions. At least nine additional meetings will discuss certain programme themes in greater detail, in an attempt to bring the analysis together in time for the spring of 1997.

2. World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development. The WCFSD is an independent dialogue launched by the InterAction Council of Former Heads of State in June, 1995. Members include prominent Southern and Northern leaders in the environment and development field. A report on regional and international institutional and policy reforms for equitable and sustainable forest management is expected by mid-1997. The first of five Public Hearings occurs in Jakarta on March 3-8, 1996 and future hearings are planned for North America, South America, Africa and Russia.

The WCFSD work programme is divided into three broad areas: (1) Sustainable and Equitable Use and Management of Forests, (2) Forest Products Trade and the Environment, and (3) Financial Mechanisms, International Agreements and the Role of International Institutions. Working Panels on the first two substantive areas are expected to begin their deliberations in Jakarta.

3. The C & I Dialogue. Several international fora are currently grappling with the task of producing robust and meaningful criteria & indicators of sustainable forest management (including the Montreal and Helsinki processes, the Forest Stewardship Council, and the International Organization for Standardization). Look for a future issue of Countdown on this topic.

Box 1. Schedule of IPF Discussion Topics

• Underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation (I.2)
• Fragile ecosystems affected by desertification & the impact of air-borne pollutants on forests (I.4)
• Needs of developing countries with low forest cover (I.5)
• International cooperation in financial assistance and technology transfer (II)
• Assessment and valuation of the multiple benefits of forests (III.1)

• National forest & land use plans (I.1)
• Protection & use of traditional forest-related knowledge (I.3)
• Criteria & Indicators for SFM (III.2)
• Trade in forest products and the environment (IV)
• International organizations and multilateral institutions and instruments including appropriate legal mechanisms (V)

• Final consideration of all items and actions to be recommended before CSD V session in Spring, 1997.

Toward Systematic Solutions to Underlying Causes of Deforestation

A host of broad statements on the importance of dealing with underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation have been made, but the question remains - how can the international community address these in a systematic manner?

Deforestation and forest degradation are traceable to a broad range of direct and underlying causes, and these vary across different countries and situations. Suggestions for dealing with these problems also need to take a wide variety of forms.

For this reason, a promising starting point could lie in the creation of simple checklists of possible systemic problems and corrective responses. Box 2 features a checklist for helping readers understand and address these problems. The strength of the checklist lies in its broad-based approach to recognizing and dealing with global forest loss.

Concern over safeguarding national sovereignty has prompted a division of corrective action into two levels - international and national. Because the IPF functions on the international-intergovernmental level, its recommendations on the underlying causes of deforestation are likely to focus on those issues where nations acting alone might be powerless. With international agreement in place, countries would then be expected to carry out their own domestic-level reforms in conformity.

Box 2. Checklist for Analysis and Action on Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation

• Economic & market distortions
• Poverty
• Policy distortions, particularly inducements for unsustainable exploitation and land speculation
• Insecurity of tenure & lack of clear property rights
• Lack of livelihood opportunities
• Government failures or deficiencies in intervention or enforcement
• Infrastructural, industrial or communications developments
• Inequitable distribution of benefits from forests
• New technologies
• Population pressures causing land hunger
• Civil unrest
• International policy, institutional and trade arrangements

• Tenure reform
• Improved forest and land use planning (including a clear vision for the forests of the future)
• Reviews of positive and negative impacts of existing policies on forests
• Cross-sectoral policy coordination
• Capacity-building (including infrastructure, institutions and training)
• Enhanced capacity for systematic policy analysis relating to forests Improved data collection and analysis
• Reform of conditions for award or renewal of forest concessions
• Improved information access
• Improved environmental standards
• Increased participation of forest stakeholders in decision-making
• Macroeconomic reform
• Access to credit & microcredit, technology and markets
• Tree tenure, community stewardship, co-management and benefit sharing
• Increased accountability
• Education and cultural allowances
• Other community development and poverty mitigation measures

• Reform of international institutions, including the role of the FAO in global forest issues
• Reform of international trade arrangements in forest products, with implications for the World Trade Organization and the International Tropical Timber Organization, among others
• Improved international financial assistance, including innovative financial mechanisms
• Improved technology transfer to countries in need
• Enhanced international communication and collaboration (see for example recent changes in UNDP and World Bank project planning with recipient countries)
• Reform of international inequities in the distribution of benefits from forests
• Improved cross-cultural understanding of the role of forests in different societies
• Increased international accountability, with implications for initiatives including certification and trade
• Resolution of outstanding disagreements over intellectual property rights to forest­related knowledge

International Financing & Technology Transfer

This is a highly contentious and politicized issue, and anyone with a stake in the outcome of the international negotiations on forests would do well to pay close attention. It threatens to be the undoing of the negotiations because of continuing disagreement along North/South lines.

Broad agreement exists that international action to counter deforestation in developing countries is being under-financed. Agenda 21 projected a need for US $31.25 billion of net annual investment, but real investment in global forests is actually negative after factoring in losses resulting from deforestation.

A new political reality seems to be emerging in industrialized and donor countries. Increased financial assistance on forests appears unlikely owing to a political climate of budget-cutting and cost rationalization. Alternative means of financing are becoming necessary.

Another debate is also looming. IPF documents argue that GEF funding should be extended to global forest projects, but some nations disagree. Watch for heated discussion on this topic at the March IPF meeting.

Despite the controversy, a number of new funding solutions are being suggested. Innovative financial mechanisms like special taxes, full-cost pricing and the sale of management bonds are being suggested to move beyond the current funding impasse. Such instruments generally attempt to capitalize on previously undervalued benefits of forests, like carbon sequestration, air purification and water retention.

If Northern and Southern countries are finding it difficult to agree on funding from existing budgets, they may find it easier to accept such innovative new and additional financing schemes. An international workshop on this theme will be held in South Africa on 4-7 June, 1996, with sponsorship from Denmark, South Africa and UNDP. Other suggested solutions to the funding impasse include increased cooperation between donor and recipient countries in decision-making on forest projects, and new incentives to mobilize community and private sector flows for sustainable forest management.

Acronyms used in this Issue

• C&I - Criteria and Indicators (of SFM, see below)
• GEF - Global Environment Facility
• IPF - Intergovernmental Panel on Forests
• IPRs - Intellectual Property Rights
• SFM - Sustainable Forest Management
• TK - Traditional Knowledge, including indigenous and farmers knowledge
• WCFSD - World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development

Key Internet resources on the forest discussions

• Countdown Forests 97
• Earth Negotiations Bulletin
• IPF documents
• World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development