14th April 2005 – Press Information

 World Bank is contributing to destruction of world’s forests

A new independent report published today finds that programmes funded by the World Bank Group are causing destruction of the world’s remaining forests and harming poor people dependent on forests for their survival. The report- entitled ‘Broken Promises’ [1] - says that the Bank has failed to implement its own Forest ‘Safeguard’ Policy, adopted in 2002, and that not one of the conditions the Bank promised to fulfil has been met [2].

The report finds that:

“In spite of all its past promises, the World Bank continues to be a major actor in the destruction of forests, and is pushing forest peoples into dispossession and poverty”, said Ricardo Carrere from the World Rainforest Movement. “The Bank has blatantly breached its own policies regarding forest conservation and forest peoples’ rights”.

Broken Promises also exposes how the Bank’s involvement in forestry violates its stated mission to ‘fight poverty’ and promote sustainable development.

Simon Counsell, Director of the Rainforest Foundation UK said “The Bank appears to have learned nothing from its disastrous forays into the forests of countries such as Cameroon and Gabon, and is now on course to facilitate the destruction of the world's second largest rainforest, that of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Bank's plans for DRC’s forests are likely to damage or destroy the livelihoods of tens of millions of the world's poorest people, trample on the rights of indigenous forest people, and promote conflict and corruption along the way. The Bank’s management must closely investigate how its staff could have made such appalling mistakes”.

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Notes:

[1] ‘Broken Promises: How World Bank Group policies and practice fail to protect forests and forest peoples’ rights’ will be issued in Washington, DC, on the 14th of April 2005, and is available through the web-sites of the Forest Peoples Programme and the World Rainforest Movement

[2]In 2002, the World Bank’s new ‘Forests Strategy’ and Operational Policy on Forests were adopted, under a volley of criticism from civil society and indigenous peoples, who found that their key demands were far from met.In response to this criticism, the Bank’s Board of Directors only approved the controversial new Forests Policy with a number of conditions to be met by the Bank.

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