United Nations Stalled on Strategy to Save Forests

World Growth -- a U.S.-based non-governmental pro-growth organization -- called on wealthy nations to honor their commitments to support the United Nations’ strategy to save forests in the developing world.

World Growth Chairman Alan Oxley points out that rather than assisting poor countries in their efforts to implement sustainable forestry, U.N. aid donors have been directing those much-needed funds to anti-forestry initiatives promoted by NGOs like Greenpeace and WWF.

Speaking on the release of a new report from the World Growth Forestry and Poverty program -- “Forestry and Development: Building the Foundations for Sustainability” -- timed to coincide with this week’s meeting of the U.N. Forum on Forestry, Mr. Oxley explains, “The U.N. has always insisted that forestry initiatives both protect biodiversity and promote economic growth.

However, influenced by persistent criticism against commercial forestry NGOs like Greenpeace and WWF, aid donors have provided funding to anti-forestry campaigns that devastate the economic welfare of poor communities by restricting forestry in developing countries."

“There’s clear evidence that Greenpeace’s illegal logging claims regularly ignore the facts. World Growth’s new report shows that global targets to reserve 11 percent of the world’s forests for conservation have been far exceeded -- an impressive 80 percent of the Amazon rainforest remained intact. Moreover, the annual rate of deforestation is now less than 0.2 percent per year and falling.”

In “Forestry and Development,” World Growth reveals that deforestation is not caused by commercial forestry (or illegal logging), but rather pressure of population growth and the need to produce valuable crops.

It also outlines the steps necessary to implement sustainable forestry (good technical knowledge of forests, well-trained forest officials, clear property rights and carefully designed forestry policy), noting that the intensive process is costly.

“If the world’s forest-rich developing countries are to successfully transition to sustainable forestry practices, they’ll need financial assistance,” Mr. Oxley continues.

“For that reason the U.N specifically outlined an obligation to resume aid to poor countries for this very purpose in its strategy on developed countries. However, aid donors have yet to honor this commitment.”

In 1991, the World Bank 1991 decided to not support sustainable forestry in tropical countries. Though the organization has informally conceded this policy was wrong and has even recently made a major loan to Brazil to support sustainable forestry, the formal position of the Bank is still stuck in the past.

“Donors have fallen into an aid trap,” says Mr. Oxley. “Rather than fund sustainable forestry -- which enables developing countries to responsibly develop their natural resources and then finance forest conservation themselves -- activist groups have convinced funders to subsidize measures to temporality improve conservation.

Because the conservation can only continue as long as the donor provides the aid, this is poor alternative. “Good aid, on the other hand, produces self-perpetuating conservation. For that reason, the U.N., the World Bank, and world leaders must formally reject misguided anti-forestry policies.”