Reemphasizing, World Forests Threatened
*********************************************************************
OVERVIEW & SOURCE by EE
At the current meeting of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on
Forests, NGOs reiterated the mounting threat of uncontrolled logging for
forests and the ecosystem processes they provide. WWF contended that only
6% of the world's 8.155 billion acres are protected. The $100 billion
dollar industrial timber industry is held to be largely responsible for
accelerating forest loss. The failure of national government's to act to
reign in forest destruction is noted. Following is a photocopy of a
Reuters article covering the meeting.
Environmental groups say world forests threatened
Copyright 1996 by Reuters
9/9/96
GENEVA (Reuter) - Environmental groups warned Monday that the world's
remaining forests were under mounting threat from uncontrolled logging by
international companies and a refusal of governments to extend protected
areas.
The charges were issued as delegates from 53 countries to the United
Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) began a two-week meeting
in Geneva to discuss ways of halting increasing forest destruction.
In a report to coincide with the meeting, the Swiss-based World Wide Fund
for Nature (WWF) said latest figures showed that only six per cent of the
8.155 billion acres of forest left around the globe were protected.
Francis Sullivan, leader of WWF's Forests for Life Campaign, told a news
conference solutions to the problem were obvious "but governments are
refusing to act.
"What we need is a dramatic increase in the number of legally-protected
forest areas as well as the controlled use of forests which fall outside
the protective boundary," he said.
At the same time a British- and United States-based group, the
Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), said the international timber
trade -- valued at around $100 billion a year -- played a critical role in
the decline of forest cover.
"The vital ecological, economic and social functions of this precious
resource are under increasing threat because the timber industry is subject
to no coherent international regulation to match its global power and
influence," an EIA study declared.
The study, "Corporate Power, Corruption, and the Destruction of the World's
Forests," said the lack of international controls had "encouraged the use
of illegal and unethical activities by many large companies, both in their
dealings with foreign governments and in their logging operations."
The IPF was set up by the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development in
March last year and is working on draft recommendations for consideration
by world leaders at a special "Earth Summit" in New York in June 1997.
But environmental activists say the power of the forest product industry --
believed to be the third largest global industrial sector after
telecommunications and automobiles -- could prevent any effective action.
To back its own campaign, the WWF Monday released data gathered by the
British-based World Conservation Monitoring Center (WCMC) showing a 34 per
cent increase in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon since 1992.
Sullivan told the news conference this meant an area the size of Belgium
had been lost in a country which was home to some of the world's largest
remaining forest areas.
The data also showed that countries like Russia, Cambodia and Cameroun,
where large regions of forest still survived although widely exploited by
commercial loggers, had yet to establish networks of protected areas.
A global map produced by the WCMC showed "that levels of forest protection
are far below the internationally-accepted minimum of 10 per cent of the
world's forests," Sullivan declared.
"With this new map, we can blow away the smokescreen which has hidden the
truth about the state of the world's forests for so long....This issue must
be the central theme of IPF if we are to stop the continuing degradation of
the world's remaining forests."
This document is a PHOTOCOPY and all recipients should seek permission from
the source for reprinting. You are encouraged to utilize this information
for personal campaign use; including writing letters, organizing campaigns
and forwarding. All efforts are made to provide accurate, timely pieces;
though ultimate responsibility for verifying all information rests with the
reader. Check out our Gaia Forest Conservation Archives at URL= http://forests.org/gaia.html
Networked by:
Ecological Enterprises
Email (best way to contact)-> grbarry@students.wisc.edu
BACK TO
*********************************************************************