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Forestry & Development E-News: October 2009 |
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Forestry and Development (F&D) is an online resource on sustainable forestry. It supports
commercial forestry as a viable source of economic growth which is compatible
with sustainability. |
Contents
Greens at the
fringe in global forest-climate debate Green campaigners have relegated themselves to the fringes of the forestry debate by lobbying against the international consensus on sustainable forest management. Canberra issues illegal logging impacts
paper The Australian Government has issued a draft paper that attempts to cost introducing legislation that would ban imports of so-called 'illegal timber'. Forest carbon markets susceptible to "wide abuse", expert warns The forest carbon market is likely to attract organised crime gangs, international law enforcement agency Interpol has warned. Emissions
from deforestation tally exaggerated: expert The level of carbon emissions caused by global forest destruction is
likely to be significantly lower than 20 per cent, according to the Head of Brazil's widely
respected National Institute for Space Research. AusAID has published its annual Pacific Economic Survey. |
Greens at the
fringe in global forest-climate debate
October: Green
campaigners have relegated themselves to the fringes of the forestry debate
by lobbying against the international consensus on sustainable forest
management (SFM). Two
activist groups – Greenpeace and Global Witness – have taken aim at the
generally accepted concept of SFM. In
doing so, both groups are lobbying against the work of the world's most
respected and technically proficient forestry and environmental
organisations, including the International Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO),
the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) and the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They
are also lobbying against what has become the international consensus within
international climate negotiations. Although
the negotiations themselves have almost stalled, nations have agreed that
REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) be
broadened to REDD-plus; the 'plus' includes sustainable forest management,
conservation, afforestation and reforestation. This
broadening is consistent with the outcomes of the 1992 Rio Summit, which
reached an international consensus that forests must be used for economic,
social and environmental purposes. Unfortunately
for the world's poor, Greenpeace and Global Witness want to take
'economic' out of
the equation. The
Green position demonstrates that they are more interested in politics than
climate. A
2007 report issued by the UNFCCC itself demonstrated that there is greater
potential in emissions reductions from implementing SFM than pure REDD – and
at a lower cost. Despite
the clear higher benefits and lower costs, neither Greenpeace nor Global
Witness is interested in SFM. Global Witness has gone so far as to suggest
that the inclusion of SFM in the negotiations is a sign of 'vested
interests'
infiltrating the United Nations. Why? Both
groups have a political rather than an environmental agenda. Their opposition
(in Greenpeace's words) is opposition to 'industrial' activity
in forests. They
have called for 'zero gross deforestation' and do
not support reforestation or afforestation projects under the UNFCCC. Simply,
they do not want any trees cut nor do they want new forests established in
developing countries. The
world's
forest industries provide significant contributions to GDP and employment. In
Brazil, for example, more than one million people are employed in the forest
industry. Applying
SFM to all operations in developing countries would provide clear economic
and environmental benefits. But
the implications of Greenpeace's position are nothing less than horrific. The
UNFCCC reports that almost three-quarters of the world's
deforestation is caused by a combination of
subsistence and commercial agriculture. Are
Green activists prepared to tell market gardeners in Papua New Guinea that
they are unable to clear land to grow crops for their families? Or tell the
44 million additional people that Indonesia is projecting in its population
figures that they must live on the same amount of food? |
Canberra issues illegal logging impacts paper
13 October: The Australian Government has issued a draft
paper that attempts to cost introducing legislation that would ban
imports of so-called 'illegal timber'. The
draft is the result of an election promise made in 2007 by the Rudd
Government to address the issue. There
has already been a great deal of Green lobbying over the outcomes of the
report and any policies to be implemented. Yet
the paper – prepared by the Canberra-based Centre for International Economics
– makes a number of clear findings on the impact of any new legislation. First,
it finds that that effectiveness would be limited. The draft states that
unilateral Australian import restrictions would only stop production of about
one-tenth of the products incorporating illegally logged timber coming to
Australia. The rest would be diverted to other markets. Moreover,
any actual reductions in illegal logging activity would be tiny: 0.0035 to
0.0331 per cent of all illegal logging activity. Second,
it finds that Australia will incur all of the costs without achieving the
commensurate benefits of reducing the damage caused by illegal logging. Third,
it finds that the measures are likely to cause welfare losses in Australia
and those developing countries from which Australia may be importing products
incorporating illegally logged timber. While
welfare losses in a profitable industry might be a clear reason for not
proceeding with the legislation, perhaps welfare losses in the forestry
sector are precisely what the Greens want. |
Forest carbon markets susceptible to "wide abuse",
expert warns
5 October: The forest carbon market is likely to attract organised crime gangs,
international law enforcement agency Interpol has warned. According to the agency, the
increasing amounts of money flowing into the voluntary
carbon market sector means that there will be attempts by criminals to
take advantage of fledgling systems of governance. "Alarm
bells are ringing",
Peter Younger of Interpol told the Guardian
newspaper. "It is simply too big to monitor.
The potential for criminality is vast and has not been taken into account by
the people who set it up." Younger,
who made similar remarks earlier this year, is preparing an Interpol report
on illegal logging. "Organised
crime syndicates are eyeing the nascent forest carbon market. I will report
to the [World] Bank that REDD schemes are open to wide abuse." He
added that the corruption associated with forest carbon schemes could take
many forms. "Fraud could include claiming
credits for forests that do not exist or were not protected or by land grabs.
It starts with bribery or intimidation of officials, then there's threats and violence against
those people. There's forged documents
too." There has been widespread
media reporting in The Economist
and other international newspapers of alleged corruption associated with
forest carbon credits in Papua New Guinea. |
Emissions
from deforestation tally exaggerated: expert
August: The level of carbon emissions caused by
global forest destruction is likely to be significantly lower than 20 per
cent, according to the Head
of Brazil's widely respected
National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Gilberto Camara. In an interview with Reuters,
Camara said that the 20 per cent figure was based on poor science, adding
that rich industrialised countries had no interest in questioning the figure
because it placed greater pressure on developing countries to reduce
emissions. "I
should only state that the two people who like these figures are developed
nations, who would like to overstress the contribution of developing nations
to global carbon, and of course environmentalists". The findings of the INPE are
consistent with a number of papers that have been issued in recent years that
question the rates of deforestation as reported by the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and other bodies. |
PNG leading Pacific economy
October: AusAID has published
its annual Pacific
Economic Survey. It confirms that the two largest economies in
the region, PNG and Fiji, accounted for 63 per cent and 16 per cent of Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) in the region, respectively. PNG's economic growth was over 5 per
cent in 2008. Its GDP was forecast to
fall back to 2007 levels, although foreign direct investment (FDI) is rising
after falling for a number of years.
According to the report, export volumes of logs in PNG doubled between
2001 and 2007. The report also noted that
the sector has been affected by both the global recession and by poor weather. The volume of logs for the first quarter of
2009 was down by 74 per cent relative to the corresponding 2008 quarter. |
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