By Liz Alden Wily.
Independent land tenure & community forest management adviser
Participatory forest management in Africa. An overview of progress and issues
Other information
The word "modern" is usually understood as meaning progress. In forestry, it clearly means the opposite, particularly --though by no means only-- with respect to biodiversity. Modern industrial forestry aims at the production of ever increasing volumes of wood per hectare, regardless of its impacts on people, soils, water and biological diversity.
At the end of UNFF1 (first session of United Nations Forum on Forests) in June 2001, NGOs and Indigenous Peoples Organizations (IPOs) decided that the real test for the UNFF would be in 2002 when the new Forum would address substantive issues instead of process and operational questions. The time came and UNFF2 was held.
Forests are very important for people who live in or close to forest areas and use forests for their livelihood. However, people’s use of forests for daily subsistence, provision of food, medicines, shelter and agricultural production and for their social, cultural and spiritual well- being, are commonly undervalued or ignored.
International Rivers Network is inviting to participate in the 5th Annual International Day of Action Against Dams and for Rivers, Water and Life on March 14th, 2002, which it defines as "a time to join together in solidarity to protest destructive development and celebrate our successes over the last year. It is also a time to fight for social justice and the rights of communities over their resources and lives."
A new report clearly links the disappearance of the world's forests with the horrifying catalogue of human rights abuses taking place as a result of conflicts between forest peoples and the powerful government and corporate interests within forests. Published by Fern, "Forests of Fear: the abuse of human rights in forest conflicts" calls for governments, environmental groups and aid donors to prioritise the defence of human rights as the primary solution to solving the forest crisis.
What follows is a letter circulated by Fern, explaining the objectives of the EU Forest Forum and inviting interested organizations to join:
Dear friends,
In spite of the fact that the situation in the Congo Basin has been much less publicized than that of the Amazon Basin, the truth is that deforestation has reached alarming rates in the six countries lying within the basin (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon).
Massive logging has been identified as Cambodia's main environmental problem. Since the 90s, the timber sector, replicating the globalised forest management pattern that prioritises short-term financial profit to ecological stability, aggressively exploits Cambodian forests. Virtually all forestland, except for protected areas, has been allocated as concessions to mostly foreign companies. Additionally, the mid-nineties were characterized by large-scale uncontrolled and illegal logging activities throughout the country.
Newly installed forestry minister M. Prakosa and trade and industry minister Rini M.S. Suwandi announced a moratorium on the export of logs and wood chips in October in order to "safeguard the conservation of Indonesian forests."
More than 80 percent of timber from the Amazon is logged illegally, and mahogany --also known as the “green gold”-- has been the main target of such operations. Mahogany's value --a cubic meter can fetch more than US $1,600 per cubic meter-- has attracted loggers who encroach deep into pristine forests to supply a demand almost exclusively aimed at export markets.
Although the President has changed in Perú, the forest degradation process and the indigenous peoples' situation remains the same or even worse. As was denounced several times in previous issues of this bulletin (1, 8, 34 and 35), the Peruvian Amazon forest is being degraded by activities such as oil prospection and extraction and logging by powerful Malaysian companies. Illegal logging also adds a new menace to the material and cultural survival of the indigenous groups that live in the forest.