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Forestry and Development E-News: Special
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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
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Commentary
by Alan Oxley
Greenpeace gets it wrong: the poor in the Pacific are the victims
September 9: Last week, Greenpeace blundered with a clumsily executed publicity
stunt in the Papua Gulf in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the remote South Pacific.
Greenpeace protestors illegally
boarded a ship, claiming that the timber it was transporting to China was
illegally logged by long-standing Greenpeace target, Rimbunan
Hijau, the largest forest business in PNG. Greenpeace hadn't checked its
facts. The timber was not from a Rimbunan Hijau company. When told this, Greenpeace pointed to a
report by SGS, the Swiss inspection company, which cited the company
concerned. But the SGS report was found to be in error. Greenpeace persisted and continued
to claim that the ship was carrying timber from the Rimbunan
Hijau company. Associated Press (AP) correctly
reported the Greenpeace action as "piracy", an illegal boarding and
seizure of a vessel. The Post Courier
newspaper in Port Moresby ran the AP report in full, with the headline "piracy". This was unusual. The Post
Courier is traditionally a critic of the timber industry in PNG. It
probably felt misled. The day before, it
had devoted extensive space to the Greenpeace argument that it was saving PNG
forests. Just like the famous Brent Spar
blunder in 1995, when Greenpeace erroneously insisted that the ditched oil
platform discharged a large amount of oil into the North Sea, Greenpeace is
still claiming that the timber is from Rimbunan Hijau. In the end,
Greenpeace apologized about Brent Spar. So far there is no sign it will follow suit
in PNG. Is this hoodwinking on Greenpeace's part, or is the NGO jammed between a rock
and hard place? There seems to be plenty of hoodwinking. Hoodwink one - illegal logging The Greenpeace campaign against
illegal logging in PNG has been one great hoodwink. It claims that 70 per cent of timber in PNG
is illegally logged and that 90 per cent of Rimbunan
Hijau timber is illegally logged. An independent
survey of the company's operations recently found that it complies with PNG
forestry laws and regulations. Furthermore,
Rimbunan Hijau is
pioneering the introduction of systems to enable forest businesses in PNG to
demonstrate the legality of timber through an independently verified chain of
custody. This has been jointly funded
by the International Tropical Timber Organization. The best estimate of
illegal logging in PNG is not more than 15 per cent of production. That will
be by companies which are not members of the PNG Forest Industries
Association. The Association opposes
illegal logging. Rimbunan
Hijau is its largest member. Greenpeace must know this. It no
longer claims that forestry is undertaken without permits or licences. It now
argues that timber in PNG is illegal if there are villagers who claim that they
were not consulted during the granting of a forest concession. That is just sophistry. Village politics in PNG do not operate by
consensus. There is always someone
with a grievance, usually about not getting enough money. Compared with many poor countries, PNG has
a fully functioning legal system.
Something is illegal when a crime is proven. Hoodwink two - the "Paradise Forests" are under threat Greenpeace claims that the "Paradise
Forests" of irreplaceable primeval forest of PNG are about to be lost. More sophistry. Greenpeace has concocted both the
"Paradise" and "primeval" concepts and the criteria for
what threatens them - principally passing a road through a very large area. PNG's environmental forest legacy is not
under threat. Around one-third of the
whole of PNG is off limits for forestry.
Conservation areas have been declared.
The deforestation rate is low and is for the most part caused by
population growth in the Highlands and the practice of subsistence
agriculture - not forestry. Hoodwink three - trade bans are needed The next hoodwink is that failure
to have laws which ban imports of "illegal timber" from countries such
as PNG is destroying forests and causing climate change. Greenpeace appears to have mounted
the exercise to have pictures of PNG tribesmen in traditional dress and
spears with the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza to circulate in the European and
British Parliaments to pressure passage of legislation to ban imports of "illegal"
timber. Virtually no PNG timber is shipped
directly to Europe. Most goes to Indonesian authorities have
clamped down and now estimate that only 5 per cent of timber from Indonesia
is now logged without permits, compared with 50 per cent earlier in the
decade. It is unlikely that the share of
improperly procured timber in wood products shipped to Europe from Asia and
the Pacific will now be significant. It
certainly does not warrant EU Governments instituting virtually unenforceable
laws and clumsy, costly import regulations on timber imports. Hoodwink four - treating the poor with a double standard Even if those who donate to
Greenpeace and take its admonitions seriously are prepared to tolerate this
mistake in the Gulf of Papua, they should think about the final and biggest
hoodwink Greenpeace is practicing. It
is on them. They are being led into a very
callous and uncaring treatment of the poor. First, there is the poverty
double-standard. Why is it considered
acceptable to seek to ban something supposedly illegally produced in a poor
country, when the suggestion of passing a law in Europe to ban products from
Mafia-controlled businesses in Italy or the United States would be derided? Second, do they realize that the
implication of the global campaign run by Greenpeace and WWF, its partner in
this, to halt and restrict commercial forestry in poor countries is the further
impoverishment of poor people? Greenpeace advocates replacement
of commercial forestry with communal and subsistence forestry. Consider the
impact in a country such as PNG with an annual per capita income of around U$350
per head. WWF itself has concluded
that communal forestry in PNG is not economically viable. A switch to communal forestry would mean the
loss of 10,000 jobs and around US$100 million in taxes and royalties, a loss
of US$200 million in exports and reductions in remote poor areas of roads,
air services, education and health facilities which the Government cannot
provide. The local people want these
returns. Who is Greenpeace, a donor to
Greenpeace or a legislator in an EU parliament to say that people in poor
countries should not avail themselves of their abundant natural resources,
especially when reasonable environmental policies are in place? Finally, the whole Greenpeace
strategy - depicting tribesmen in traditional warpaint
with spears and birds of paradise feathers - is both demeaning and inhuman. These
people are being used as publicity pawns. The value advanced is that they
will be better-off living supposedly environmentally-friendly lives, practising communal forestry, living off the natural
fruits of the forest, all the while maintaining low life expectancy, high
infant mortality, poor education rates and low standards of living. Alan Oxley is Principal of ITS Global, which consults to the timber
industry in the Asia-Pacific region
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