ENVIRONMENT: Vast Majority of World’s Forests Unprotected

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Sep 9 1996 (IPS) - A forestry map released by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) Monday showed that only a tiny fraction of the world’s forests are protected and urgent government action is needed to change the situation.

The map showed that barely six percent of the 3,300 million hectares of forest on the world’s surface are under protection.

The WWF compiled its map in collaboration with the British World Conservation Monitoring Centre, combining information collected by satellites with data collected on the ground, showing the current situation in some 80 countries.

It shows where the most important temperate and tropical forests are found, and which areas are covered by protection.

The data showed that since 1992 deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 34 percent, and the equivalent of a forest the size of Belgium has disappeared.

Francis Sullivan, leader of the WWF forests campaign, demanded a considerable increase in the number of areas with legal protection and also the monitoring of the use of unprotected forest land.

The WWF information was distributed at the inauguration of the United Nations ad hoc Intergovernmental Group on Forests meetings in Geneva.

Sullivan reminded the delegates from 53 countries, that “in many cases the solutions to the forest problems are obvious, but the governments refuse to adopt them.”

“If we are decided to detain the permanent degradation of the forests which still remain, this question should be the central issue of the sessions,” he said.

The current 3.3 billion hectares represent barely half the forests that once covered the earth, said the Venezuelan Javier Arreaza, another WWF leader.

Arreaza recommended the nations commit themselves to modifying the current policies by creating protected areas, and promoted the use of stickers showing the origin of products from sustainably managed forests.

In some countries, like Cambodia, Cameroon, and Russia, which still have large areas of forest, protected areas still have to be created in order to preserve the different types of forests.

However, in some of these countries, the forests are being commercially exploited by timber companies, said the WWF.

We now know the degree of forest protection is lower than the internationally accepted minimum of 10 percent of the world’s forests, said Sullivan.

“With this map, we can blow away the smoke screen which has hidden the truth on the state of the forests for so long,” he added.

Finally, he stressed the public can now see for themselves how little of the forests are protected and how much urgent action is needed.

In 1992, the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil passed the forest issue on to the Sustainability Commission, which, in turn, passed it on to the ad hoc Intergovernmental Forests Group.

“They keep on delegating and don’t start concrete action. I don’t see where this is going to end,” said Arreaza.

The ad hoc Intergovernmental Group will be meeting until Sep. 20, in the first of a cycle of four sessions.

The organism will discuss financial aid and technology transfer to encourage the adoption of sustainable forest management.

The governmental and independent environmental delegates will also discuss the certification of forest products – the “ecological sticker.”

The meeting agenda also includes the analysis of trade and the environment in region to the forest products and services.