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Forestry & Development E-News |
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www.forestryanddevelopment.com May 2007 |
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Forestry & Development E-News is an electronic newsletter
which reports and comments on regional and international developments in
forestry. If you do not wish to receive Forestry & Development
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Forestry
in developing countries has come under recent attack, once again, from
anti-development NGOs on opposite sides of the globe. Australian Conservation Foundation The
Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) launched a second attack on the ANZ banking group last
month, pressuring it to withhold banking services from one of its clients,
Rimbunan Hijau (RH), a timber producer in The
attacks on the timber industry in PNG, the bank and the timber importer have
come just weeks after the PNG forestry industry announced a commitment to a
legality verification scheme through Swiss-based firm SGS. RH
has borne the brunt of unsubstantiated claims of illegal activity and
corruption by NGOs such as ACF and Greenpeace for
many years. RH has worked closely with the PNG Forest Industry Association,
ANZ Bank and SGS to implement a legality verification scheme and demonstrate
the legality and credibility of the company's activities. ACF
made a bogus complaint last year to the Australian Treasury that ANZ were in
breach of OECD guidelines about multinationals engaging in corrupt dealings
in developing countries because it was banker to RH. The Treasury ruled there was no substance
to the ACF complaint. The
campaign against ANZ
and RH is part of a disturbing trend that has seen NGOs
pressuring banks into withholding their services from companies whose
activities they find objectionable. Banks such as HSBC and Citibank are
finding themselves under increasing pressure to comply with their demands or
face smear campaigns. Worse than this is that many banks - like Citibank -
are caving into this type of environmental blackmail. Greenpeace On
the other side of the globe, Greenpeace has launched an attack on Dutch
timber importers such as Hoek Lopik,
which purchase timber from RH. The NGO has once again called for bans on
imports of timber from developing nations, putting the future of developing
economies at risk.. It
tried this tactic in Ironically,
the Greenpeace report uses photos featuring logs harvested by RH which bear SGS tracking labels, proving their point of origin and
demonstrating their legality. The
report was also released at the same time as a Greenpeace report that
unfairly criticizes timber operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
and a WWF report that also criticizes the EU's timber
import policies. All
this activity is taking place at a time when the EU is assessing whether it
needs to take "additional measures" on illegal logging. Caught up
in this long and protracted campaign are the developing countries themselves,
who depend on forest industries for jobs, raising living standards and
economic growth. |
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PNG MERBAU (KWILA) EXPORTS LEGAL,
SAYS PNG INDUSTRY 7 May 2007: The Papua New Guinea Forest Industry Association
(PNGFIA) has released a statement saying that virtually all exports of merbau (also known as kwila and
ipil) from PNG are legal. The body released the
statement on the eve of the 42nd session of the
International Tropical Timber Council. The statement comes in response to an increasing
global campaign that calls for merbau to be placed
under Appendix II of CITES, meaning it could only be traded under quota. The campaign, initiated by Greenpeace, has
targeted merbau from PNG, despite the fact that merbau makes up a very small proportion of timber exports
from PNG - just 3 per cent in 2006 according to the PNGFIA. The campaign also states a number of misleading
conclusions: it egregiously conflates PNG with neighboring West Papua, an
Indonesian province where illegal logging and corruption are rife; it says
that merbau is endangered, despite the IUCN saying
otherwise; and it fails to mention that merbau
grows in a number of areas, including in Africa, South East Asia, Australia
and Hawaii, and it is also used in agroforestry. UN FORUM OF FORESTS ADOPTS
NON-LEGAL BINDING INSTRUMENT 28 April 2007: The Seventh Session of the United Nations
Forum on Forests announced that it has adopted a Non-Legal Binding Instrument
on All Types of Forests (NLBI). The session, which concluded in Greenpeace and WWF have been campaigning since before the Rio Earth
Summit in 1992 for a global convention on forestry. Developing countries suspect this would be
a vehicle to push policies antipathetic to the development interests of poor
countries. The NLBI focuses on strengthening political commitment to implement
sustainable forestry management for all types of forests; to enhance the contribution
of forests to poverty eradication and environmental sustainability; and to
provide frameworks for national action and international cooperation. The NLBI also seeks a reversal in the decline of development
assistance provided to forestry in developing countries. Although the NLBI reinforces state sovereignty over the exploitation
of natural resources, it also calls for the enhancement of bilateral,
regional and international cooperation to promote international trade of
forest products harvested according to domestic legislation; and the
addressing and combating of trafficking of illegal forest products through
both the promotion of forest law and governance. The NLBI was welcomed by all member states, scientific bodies, the UN
Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Bank, but was heavily
criticised by NGOs at the Session. NGOs argued that the Instrument does not
tackle the "underlying causes of deforestation … including the need for
the reduction of consumption." The session documents are available here. US TIMBER DEBATE BASED ON FALSE STATISTICS 14 April 2007: Anti-logging bills have been proposed in the The proposed Legal Timber Protection Act, introduced in US Congress on
March 13, would hold importers and retailers of timber and timber products
responsible for the legality of the logs used, effectively making monitoring
of the entire supply chain mandatory.
A similar proposal was introduced in the Illinois General Assembly by
State Representative, Susana Mendoza in February. According to newspaper reports, The PNG Government has asked the Bank to correct the report, but it
refuses to do so. The Bank's anti-development
stance on commercial forestry in developing countries has contributed to a
decline in provision of aid to forestry in developing countries. 11 April 2007: The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC) has cancelled 21 logging contracts it deemed to have been granted
illegally. The contracts covered
approximately 3 million hectares of forest. The holders of the cancelled rights, mostly small
companies, were given two weeks to contest the decisions. Large logging
firms, such as Safbois, Sodefor,
Siforco and Soforma,
account for approximately 70 per cent of the country's production capacity,
but were unaffected by the decisions. The DRC government has come under considerable
pressure from the EU and from the World Bank regarding its forestry policies.
The International Conference on Sustainable Forest Management in the
Democratic Republic of Congo was held in February; The Belgian Government has also pledged to expand
an awareness-raising campaign within the EU that highlights the importance of
sustainable forestry in the DRC for economic and social development. Despite
this positive Belgian approach, Greenpeace has called for a complete halt to
logging in Information on the International Conference on
Sustainable Forest Management in the Democratic Republic of Congo is
available here. EU
SUSPENDS IMPORTS OF RAMIN FROM 2 April 2007: The EU has suspended imports of the timber ramin from all Malaysian territories. The EU Scientific
Review Group on Trade in Flora and Fauna made the decision that ramin imports be suspended in mid-Arpil. The basis for this decision was that trade in the species "is
likely to have a harmful effect on the conservation status of the species or
the extent of the territory occupied by the species". The report also stated that requested information regarding quota
establishment for the species had not been received, nor has a report
outlining their non-detriment findings on the previous quota. The EU will
urge There has been considerable pressure on the trade in ramin for a number of years. It is currently on the CITES
(Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species) in Appendix II,
listed as a vulnerable species, meaning trade is permitted. Some of the pressure that has been applied to ramin
trading is related to the timber's role in orang-utan and Sumatran tiger
habitats. The assessment of the EU Scientific Review Group can be read here. |
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