The OED Report starts by highlighting that the so called "Indonesian miracle" was the result of an export-led strategy in which forest resources were viewed "as an asset to be liquidated to support (its) growth strategy, establishing Indonesia as a world leader in the export of tropical forest products". At present the rate of deforestation reaches 1.5 million hectares per year, being commercial logging its main cause. This unsustainable use of forests has been accompanied by a highly inequitable distribution of benefits.
Bulletin articles
The importance of a review on the implementation of the Bank's 1991 Forest Policy in Brazil hardly needs to be stressed, given that the country contains almost 27 percent of the remaining moist tropical forests in the world. The OED study states that the average annual forest loss in the Amazon (some 13,000 sq.km/year in the post 1991 period) has slowed down compared to the pre-1991 period, but adding that the precise extent of forest loss remains ambiguous. At the same time, Brazil has been one of the Bank's largest borrowers.
The OED study on Costa Rica appears to be more focused in showing the achievements of the Costa Rican government and in supporting its policies than in evaluating the World Bank's implementation of its 1991 forest policy. However, the report contains interesting elements in this regard.
During the last meeting of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF), NGOs and IPOs made a statement expressing their disappointment and frustration regarding the lack of implementation of measures agreed upon in the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests' (IPF) "proposals for action." The statement said that "for whatever reasons, governments seem either unwilling or unable to take substantive action to solve the world's most pressing forest problems."
Seldom are there news arriving from Liberia. This country, located in the West African region, with shores on the Atlantic Ocean and bounded in the West by Sierra Leone, Guinea in the North and Ivory Coast in the East, ranks amongst the world’s poorest countries and bears the weight of a huge foreign debt. An accelerated process of environmental degradation -including forests- is also affecting the country. Several activities -as mining, plantations and logging- are destroying the dense tropical rainforests.
To the reductionist viewpoint of Western silviculture, forests are mainly -if not exclusively- a source of roundwood for industrial purposes. Nevertheless, forests are not only the home for thousands of indigenous people in different regions of the world, but also a rich source of different goods -wood included- and services. Medicinal plants are one of such valuable products which indigenous people use in traditional medical practices.
The expansion of the tree plantation model in South Africa has given place to a heated debate. Philip Owen, from SAWAC (South African Water Crisis), as well as several other concerned people, have repeatedly argued that the plantations scheme is detrimental to grassland and water conservation, thus negative with regard to rural communities.
Corruption and incapacity among forestry officials, as well as the activity of illegal loggers, timber product dealers and sawmillers are responsible for the disappearance and degradation of Tanzania's forests (see WRM Bulletins 27 and 29). This not only means the destruction of a valuable ecosystem in a tropical region but also the loss of the source of resources and incomes for forest dwellers and forest dependent people.
Uncontrolled logging threatens the future of Cambodian forests. A review of logging concessions in Cambodia was initiated last year, with the aim of identifying those concessions which should be terminated due to their repeated legal infringements, and those which should be continued under new contracts. The initiative, which was funded by the Asia Development Bank (ADB), has been crippled by time and financial constraints resulting from shortcomings in the ADB's management process.
The preservationist approach to forest protection, which considers people as a threat to nature, ignores the human and territorial rights of rural communities and indigenous peoples living in the forests, who in fact usually contribute to their conservation. The view of nature as a void space, at the same time beautiful landscape and store of biodiversity for humanity, is not only unrealistic -since practically all the Earth is nowadays a geographic space modified by human intervention- but also leads to social and environmental conflicts.
Borneo, one of the biggest islands of the Malaysian archipelago in South East Asia, is under the sovereignty of three states: Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Originally this big island was completely covered by dense tropical forests. The expansion of the lumber-exporting industry, together with oil palm and pulpwood plantations both in Malaysia and Indonesia have nearly completely destroyed the Bornean forests. Consumers of tropical timbers in the North, such as buyers of plywood for home building in the USA are ultimately responsible for this ecological disaster.
The Selangor dam project is being strongly resisted by local communities, indigenous peoples and environmental NGOs, since it means the destruction of 600 hectares of rainforest, the eviction of the native Temuan from their ancestral homelands, and the destruction of the green sanctuary of Pertak in Ulu Selangor. It is also feared that the wetlands near Kuala Selangor, as well as the montane forest of Pertak will be adversely affected. Additionally, safety matters regarding the dam structure have not been adequately addressed.