Message-ID: <FC13EF9CBDE1D111942000805F9F1E3554F45F@metonymy.iisd.ca> Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 11:13:27 -0500 From: Scott Anderson <mailto:sanderson@IISD.CA> Subject: Press Release: Our Forests...Our Future To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
** Please Distribute - Apologies for Cross Posting **FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 19, 1999
CONTACT: Tom Lalley, EMS, +1 202/463-6670 Lisa Magnino, Fenton Communications, +1 202/822-5200
BLUEPRINT TO SOLVE GLOBAL FOREST CRISIS PRESENTED BY FORMER TOP WORLD LEADERS
World Commission Proposes Coordinated Management System
Washington, D.C. (April 19, 1999) -- We can satisfy the world's material needs from forests without jeopardizing their ecological services, said the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development, a group initiated by former top world leaders, which today released its report "Our Forests...Our Future." After holding hearings on five continents, the Commission concludes that changing the way we value and manage our forests both development and forests can be sustained.
their ability to reproduce. Nearly 75 percent of West Africa's tropical forests have been lost since 1950. Thailand lost a third of its forests in just 10 years, during the 1980's. Forests face an even shakier future with the global population expected to grow 50 percent in the next half century.
"Fixing the forest crisis is basically a matter of politics," said Ola Ullsten, Co-Chairman of the Commission and a former Swedish Prime Minister. "It is about governments assuming their mandate to protect their natural resources - including forests - for the long term benefit of their citizens."
The Commission advocates "a set of global, national and local level arrangements to involve people in all decisions concerning their forests" called Forestrust with four components:
* Forest Watch - A network connecting ordinary citizens with decision makers. Forest Watch would also gather, analyze and disseminate information on forests.
* Forest Management Council - An institution to standardize sustainable practices including eco-labeling of forest products and certification.
* Forest Ombudsman - A network of officials to identify and pass objective non advocacy judgements on corruption, inequity and abuse in forest operations.
* Forest Award - A way to recognize and reward good performance in sustainable forest management.
The Report also challenges the handful of countries with some 85 % of the world's forests to exercise leadership through a Forest Security Council, modeled partly on the G8 summits but also involving the science, business and NGO communities.
"There is clear link between degraded forests and poverty." said Dr. Emil Salim Co-Chairman of the Commission and a former Indonesian Minister of Environment and Population. "We estimate that one billion of the world's poorest people in about 30 heavily deforested countries would be alleviated from poverty if given government support for managing neighboring public forest land and sharing the benefits within their communities."
Today, virtually the only economic value officially assigned to forests is in timber. The report suggests the introduction of a Forest Capital Index. Such a measure would take into account forests as the largest reservoir for plants and animals on land, their role in maintaining supplies of clean water, in creating and retaining soil, in contributing to the productivity of fisheries and agriculture, and even helping to regulate climate.
The Forest Capital Index would permit decision makers to evaluate progress in sustaining forest capital in each country, facilitate a global framework to estimate the value of eco-system services provided by forests and create the basis for market mechanisms to compensate developing countries for ecological services.
To accommodate a growing population's need of more land for food production the Report recommends making better use of the millions of hectares of degraded land left behind both by poor agriculture practices and mismanaged forests through an "Evergreen Revolution."
"Despite unintended environmental consequences of the Green Revolution, it not only saved millions of people from starvation but also millions of hectares of forests from encroachment by agriculture," said Dr. M.S Swaminathan, India, Commission member and one of the architects behind the Green Revolution of the sixties. "Now it is critically important for the world to take the best of that era's accomplishments and merge them with a new generation of ideas through an Evergreen Revolution."
"The Forests have a role in supplying the world with timber and fiber," said Commission member Dr. George Woodwell of the Woods Hole Research Center, USA. "But while those products can be partly substituted, the forests' ecological services for a functioning world cannot. That is what the forest crisis is all about."
The Report will be available for purchase on Monday, April 19, 1999. The full report is available through Cambridge University Press and the Summary is available from IISD. Detailed ordering information will follow on April 19, 1999.
For more information or for a copy of the report, contact: Tom Lalley, Environmental Media Services - +1 202/463-6670 Lisa Magnino, Fenton Communications - +1 202/822-5200 Ajit Krishnaswamy, WCFSD Secretariat - +1 204/958 7700, 204/958 7756 http://iisd.ca/wcfsd/default.htm