Summary

In the five years since Rio, global forest destruction has worsened, not improved. Two key global conventions, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), both opened for signing at Rio and now in force, provide mandates and legal frameworks for effective coordinated global action to protect forests and promote ecologically responsible use. Sadly, governments have yet to implement forest related measures under these conventions; despite a broad consensus among international legal experts that these and a handful of other treaties provide governments with virtually all the elements needed for meaningful action to save forests. The legal framework to save forests already exists. What is missing is the political will to implement, coordinate and strengthen forest-related elements of existing instruments and obligations.

Proposals by some governments to start negotiations on a forests convention are too narrowly focused on forestry ministry/industry promotion of timber extraction and trade, and would sanction the very destructive forestry practices driving global deforestation and forest degradation. They inadequately address conservation and sustainable use of forest biological diversity, non-timber forest values, the rights of indigenous peoples and other environmental and social issues. A stand-alone forest convention would actually weaken existing agreements, particularly the CBD. For these and other reasons, the proposed Forest Convention is better named a "Chainsaw Convention."

Problem Statement

Global action on forests remains mired in largely sterile inter-governmental debates, shallow posturing, failure to implement existing agreements, declining funding and government unwillingness to address underlying forces that drive deforestation and forest degradation worldwide. Forests are matters of national sovereignty, indigenous peoples rights, and local use, but they also provide ecological services critical to the long-term health and functioning of the planet, especially as reservoirs of biodiversity and regulators of global climate. They are home to 50-90% of the world's species, and millions of indigenous peoples. These biological and cultural legacies are invaluable, but commercial logging and deforestation increasingly threatens them with extinction.

Forests are also a globally significant reservoir of carbon. As forests are logged and cleared, sequestered carbon is released into the atmosphere. Global warming further compounds the problem, leading to extensive forest areas becoming drier and more susceptible to huge wildfires and insect attacks, causing further releases of carbon into the atmosphere. The burning of fossil fuels contributes about 80% of the carbon released into the atmosphere. A rapid transition to reliance on renewable energy must be a global priority, with a quick halt to deforestation an essential complementary strategy, to reduce disruptions to the global climate system.

Some Key Facts

• More than ten forest-related conventions exist, including

  the CBD,

  the FCCC,

  the Convention to Combat Desertification,

  the International Tropical Timber Agreement,

  the Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples,

  the Geneva Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution,

  the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage,

  the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

• There were no IPF experts group meetings on Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation IPF. Surely coming to common agreements on the CAUSES of deforestation and forest degradation is an essential pre-condition before deciding if a new convention is needed. .
• Industrial logging is implicated as the lead culprit in the forest biodiversity crisis from boreal Sweden and Canada to the tropics of Africa, the Amazon and Asia-Pacific
• A 1997 study by the World Resources Institute found that less than 20% of the worlds original natural forests remain in relatively large functionally intact blocks, so-called "Frontier Forests". Three countries, Brazil, Canada and Russia contain more than 70% of the world's remaining frontier forests. Under current trends 75% of these could be lost in the next 5-10 years. Industrial logging was found to be the biggest single threat.
• A 1995 WWF study of the global forest crisis, "Bad Harvest," also identified the timber industry as the single biggest threat to old-growth and other high biodiversity value forests around the world.
• Upwards to 50,000 species are estimated to be driven to extinction each year due to forest destruction.

Greenpeace's Involvement in the Issue

Greenpeace campaigns worldwide against destructive logging practices including in Canada, Brazil, Russia, the US, Chile, New Zealand, the South Pacific, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Spain and Finland. We are working to end industry reliance on clearcutting, overcutting, highgrading and other destructive forestry practices, and to strengthen protections for remaining ancient and old-growth forests. We combine campaigning in regions of forest destruction with consumer awareness campaigns in key market countries, and seek a rapid switch to ecologically and socially responsible forest use. Greenpeace delegations have participated in all of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests sessions, the Commission on Sustainable Development, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as CITES. Greenpeace has also prepared six UNESCO World Heritage nominations in Russia covering over 20 million hectares.

Solutions

1. Continue the CSD's Inter-Agency Task Force on Forests to provide coordination of forest related activities among UN agencies and relevant Convention Secretariats
2. Full implementation, coordination and strengthening of forest related elements under existing agreements, with particular emphasis on the CBD
3. Reject any commitments to start negotiations on a new forest convention - no chainsaw convention
4. Comply with Rio/Agenda 21 agreements to provide greater assistance to promote sustainable development in developing countries
5. Assess and improve the quality of aid, and target aid towards forest conservation and bottom-up and community-led efforts to promote ecologically responsible forest use
6. Commit to halt all further destruction of primary and old-growth forests by the year 2000
7. OECD countries should establish national targets to reduce over consumption and wasteful consumption of forest products
8. Ensure full participation of environmental and social NGOs, indigenous peoples and women in all forest related decision making processes and development initiatives
9. Triple the area of ecologically representative protected natural forests by the year 2000, with a six-fold increase by the year 2005
10. Ban destructive forestry practices such as clearcutting, overcutting and highgrading
11. Convene an open, participatory, international experts panel to examine Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation and make recommendations for action
12. Implement the Action Points in chapters I-IV of the IPF report by, inter alia,
    1. reducing the debt burdens of heavily indebted forested countries and thus lessening pressures for the unsustainable cutting of their natural forests for foreign exchange
    2. dramatically improving the scientific rigor and comprehensiveness of global forest assessments of the state of the world's forests, with a particular emphasis on forest quality indicators
    3. helping local communities to promote better conservation and sustainable use of their forests
    4. investigating and working to eliminate trade in illegally cut timber
    5. improving forest valuation techniques in order to reflect the full range of environmental and social services provided by forests and not just their timber values
    6. adopting full-cost accounting techniques which include environmental and social costs

       Relevant Reports

       "Forests, the FAO Ministerial and 1995 CSD - The Way Forward," briefing document prepared for the CSD intersessional meeting, NY, 27 February - 3 March, 1995. Greenpeace International, Amsterdam;

       "Options for Strengthening the International Legal Regime for Forests. Prepared by the IUCN Law Center for the European Commission, with the European Forest Institute and the Center for International Forestry Research, 1997 (78 pp.).

       Key Contacts

       Greenpeace International,
       Clifton Curtis tel: 1.202.319.2473, fax: 1.202.462.4507, e-mail: clif.curtis@wdc.greenpeace.org

       Bill Barclay tel: 1.415.512.9025, fax: 1.415.512.8699, e-mail: bbarclay@mail.sfo.greenpeace.org.