Latin America Workshop

Synthesis report
Prepared by :
Rosario Ortiz Quijano - Fundación Ecotrópico
December 1998

At the international level :

Avoid any development project that implies forest destruction

Proposals of action :

• Raise awareness among donors institutions and countries of the forests' values to indigenous and traditional communities
• Raise awareness among all society of the forests’ values as providers of environmental services

Support local projects of sustainable management and self –sufficiency

Proposals of action :

• Promote diversification
• Modify consumption patterns
• Provide values for forests and derived services
• Explicit definition of the maximum rates of exploitation
• Establishment of an «  inner law » of forest management

Support the non payment of foreign debt

Proposals of action :

• CAmerican countries to the non – payment of the reate consensus among Latin foreign debt
• Analyze specific impacts of foreign debt on forests and agree on measures to avoid them

Guarantee that the proposed macro-economic reforms be preceded by a detailed social and environmental impact assessment

Proposals of action :

• Exert pressure from civil society to enforce environmental regulations
• Promote decentralized regulatory systems

Regulate transnational corporation activities

Proposals of action :

• Create monitoring systems of TNC’s among civil societies
• Reinforce State’s institutional capability to effectively monitor environmental and social impacts of development projects
• Create a mechanism to guarantee that the countries of origin of transnational corporations assume responsibility for their actions in other countries

Agree on multilateral agreements to reduce world paper consumption

• Raise awareness through campaigns of the impact of the foreseen increase of paper consumption
• Adapt consumption from the supply of sustainable forests ecosystems

At the national level :

Strengthen and redefine State functions

Proposals of action :

• Incorporate environmental and of human development in the economic growth proposals in the search of alternatives for development
• Charge tax to transnational (similar to the Tobin tax), and improve the tribute systems applied national producers that use natural resources, in order to increment the states rents coming from those
• Promote regulatory and control systems over forests

Strengthen civil society’s and ethnic movements’ participation in forest management

Proposals of action :

• Participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in policy negotiations
• Pressure from civil society to enforce environmental regulations
• Promote initiatives to adapt and harmonize environmental legislation with other sectoral legislation (mining, land, energy, etc)
• Encourage participatory forest management research

Address inequitable land distribution

Proposals of action :

• Promote conflict resolution mechanisms in cases of land overlaps
• Make concrete the security, cadastre and regulation processes of land property to define clearly the land ownership and/or forest resource use rights.
• Search for mechanisms to improve land access and /or forests areas use by small scale owners

Guarantee indigenous peoples' and local communities' territorial rights

Proposals of action :

• Recognize indigenous and traditional communities territorial rights
• Ratification and application of the International Treaties that recognize these rights (e.g. : Convention 169, OIT)

Recognize indigenous peoples and traditional communities traditional forest knowledge

Proposals of action :

• Give an effective value to traditional forest knowledge
• Incorporate traditional knowledge into the national regulatory systems of natural resources

Promote the design of the community ownership plans

Proposals of action :

• Support mechanisms for community empowerment
• Restrict or highest audit of transnational corporate action
• Analysis of mechanisms to compensate communities for environmental services
• Promotion of forest certification processes which includes social and communities rights respect aspects

Forbid the patenting of DNA of living organisms

Proposal of action :

• Renegotiate multilateral agreements (TRIPS)

Design and implement effective instruments for forests conservation

Proposal of action :

• Promote research on forest management plans that consider forests as ecosystems and sources of biodiversity
• Identify and remove perverse incentives in different productive sectors
• Change the curriculum in Schools of Forestry
• Establish methodologies for holistic forest valuation systems
• Internalize environmental costs

Promote alternative development policies for local community needs

Specific local community’s recommendations related with inequitable distribution of land :

Strengthen the dynamics and processes of territorial and environmental appropriation, defense and control of indigenous, black peoples and peasants communities

Proposals of action :

• Support land legalization (collective titling, cooperatives, associations)
• Community mobilization for the control and defense of the territory
• Harmonization of traditional practices and uses in protected areas
• Ensure participation and co-management plans in protected areas

Consolidate the indigenous, black peoples and peasants communities local, regional and national organizations

Proposals of action :

• Increase leader training on peoples' rights
• Exchange of experience among organizations and communities in order to plan for common activities
• Create an inter- ethnic mechanism of regional/national/international coordination
• Build leadership capacity in communities on environmental management

Open spaces in the international negotiations for black peoples and peasant communities

Proposals of action :

• Organize an international campaign on black peoples/ peasants communities rights related to forests
• Create space for the Afro-American leaders to the Underlying causes of deforestation indigenous Quito workshop
• Open space of the Afro-American leaders and peasants in the Global Costa Rica workshop and facilitate the presentation of reports from the peasants and black people's workshop
• Guarantee participation of black peoples and peasants communities in IFF-3 meeting

Improve life quality and income of indigenous, black peoples, and peasant communities

Proposals of action :

• Sustainable production alternatives
• Fair prices for products
• Markets guarantee
• Open marketing channels
• Implement ethnic development plans in collective territories
  

Introduction

The Latin American workshop on underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation was held in Santiago de Chile on October 8 – 10, 1998. Thirty-two people representing 10 countries in South America, Central America, and the Caribbean participated.

The workshop was based on the preparation of 5 case studies prepared by a NGO/researcher and a representative of the local community affected by the deforestation process. An Advisory Committee selected the studies in April 1998, after the invitation to present case studies profiles had been distributed through the electronic networks of the region. The case studies were prepared in accord with the Terms of Reference designed by the Organizing Committee of this initiative and required several drafts. One month before the workshop, these studies were distributed among the workshop participants and an electronic discussion was begun.

The Latin American workshop was inaugurated in the FAO building in Santiago de Chile. Other speakers were: Rosario Ortiz, regional coordinator for Latin America, Tomás Lopez R, regional representative of FAO, Miguel Stutzin, president of CODEFF, the local co – organizer of the workshop, and Professor David Barkin of the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana (Xochimilco, México).

The workshop was divided in two phases, and the participants were broken down into three working groups : the identification of priorities among the underlying causes, the establishment of hierarchies, and the search for solutions. In this last phase we proceed to work in four different working groups establishing objectives, actions, responsibilities, indicators for each proposal of action identified as a recommendation for the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests.

I. Identification of the main international underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation

The synthesis of the main international and national underlying causes of forest loss in the Latin American workshop are the following :

Globalization is the context within which all the dimensions of influence (economic, social, cultural and political) and causality are occur. The ignorance or poor understanding of the forests' real benefits and functions lead to a lesser value for the forest as an ecosystem and to conflicting philosophical conceptions of Man-Society-Nature relationships. Western societies base their living standards and needs on unsustainable production and consumption patterns; these elements permeate all the underlying causes of forest loss.

International level of the Underlying Causes of forest loss :

Economic boundary:

· Development Model  :

The development models that the Latin American countries have applied since the enforcement of the Structural Adjustment policies have implied a significant State restructuring. The application of economic growth proposals based on raw material exports, and transnational investments in the most dynamic sectors of the economy, have not generally been favorable for the forests..

The globalization process, promoting economic integration and eliminating barriers to international trade and capital flows, is threatening the forests and the poorest rural communities while placing the possibility of food security of the region at risk. The policy orientation has been strongly influenced by the international financial organizations, and with the help of governments they have encouraged the present model of economic growth. The conservation and sustainable use of forests under this extractive development model is impossible.

· International capital mobility

National governments have entrusted private investment, particularly that of transnational corporations, the task of raising economic growth rates., They have provided a more stable environment for investment and new regulations to protect them. International private capital flows are guaranteed by the government plans and programs benefiting the most dynamic sectors, usually those sectors using natural resources. In practice, these investments have a low employment multiplier , induce little demand from other sectors, and threaten the natural resource base. In this sense, the coordination between international aid (bilateral y multilateral), international private capital, and the new dynamic of the external markets are perpetuating a non - sustainable development style in most Latin American countries.

· Unsustainable production and consumption patterns linked with the life standard and the necessity of goods

The increase in consumption of paper and paperboard over the next 10 years is concentrated in the consumer societies of Europe, North America, and Japan. The creation of a global consuming class is a prerequisite for a global market expansion and will include an increase in paper consumption in Latin American countries. Outside the forest sector, the increase in the consumption of agricultural products will continue to put pressure for the conversion of forests into lands of agricultural use.

· State debts that obligate the countries to generate currency rapidly

During recent years the Latin American debt burden has increased from 9% to 19.3% of the government budget. The debt burden has forced most Latin American countries, through the influence of financial international institutions, to reorient their production to exportation in order to improve their commercial balance and fulfill their international obligations. In many cases this had means the expansion of the agricultural frontiers for cash - crops or the increase of timber exportation from unsustainable managed forests.

· GATT- WTO domination of the international economy

This Uruguay Round agreement fixed the rules for the expansion of the world market and defined international economic policy and regulations. The world economy will be based on increasing globalization of production and consumption, accelerating privatization, falling national trade and investment barriers, and the expansion of corporate markets and investments opportunities.

On the other hand, the persistence of non tariff barriers that support developed country commercial strategies, make it impossible for our countries to compete fairly. The reduction of the terms of trade in raw materials in the world market places a greater burden on our countries. Regardless, it is assumed that if the world economy continues in this direction there will be a greater prosperity and ecological sustainability. Until now, our countries has been excluded from those purported benefits. The case studies prepared for the Santiago workshop (annex 1) and the other studies (annex 2) highlight the opposite.

Cultural perimeter :

· Non consensus on the definition of forests

Forests mean different things to different actors. Forests, plantations, artificial forests must be clearly defined. According to certain official definitions we can replace natural forests for forest plantations and still have forests. From a practical point of view it can means forest impoverishment, biodiversity loss and increase threatening of local populations.

· Non recognition of traditional knowledge of indigenous, black peoples and peasant communities

Traditional knowledge forest has been a powerful anthropomorphic selection force that has contributed to increasing forest biodiversity. In that sense, biodiversity is in part a product of the indigenous, black peoples and peasants communities that live in the forests. As a result, they have a right over the forests genetic biodiversity.

The World Trade Organization and the transnational corporations that market genetic resources (seeds, pharmaceutical, cosmetology industry) are reducing the possibility of creating sustainable conservation and forest management plans by demanding the countries to accept the Trade related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) that call for the privatization of all living forms through the patent formula.

· Garbage culture

Cultural homogenization is based on unsustainable consumption patterns. The culture of garbage shapes the local economies, promoting production patterns leading to the over exploitation of natural resources. For example: high levels of demand for shrimp are promoting aquaculture that displace natural mangroves.

· Global/homogenous versus local/heterogeneous

The corporate–driven world economy bases its expansion on the promotion of homogenous values on the cultural, economic, political, social levels. Cultural differences and idiosyncrasies at the local level are the basis of the construction and defense of new alternatives to the development paradigm.

National level of the Underlying Causes of forest loss:

Economic boundary:

· Re – orientation of production towards exportation

Today the international economy is based on circulating specialized goods and services to promote a country’s products. One of the crucial factors in the current growth economy model is an import – export balance reflected in a well-ordered Balance of Payments. In order to grow economically, countries must have private or public financial flows into their national economies. This is only possible if you have a stabilized economies. Increasing country exports is part of the « shock therapy » to stabilize the economies. This kind of export oriented production is a danger for the food self sufficiency and promotes production imbalances in the countries. Infrastructure road programs are inherently part of this export led production economy;. in forest areas, such programs require heavy forest losses.

· Inequitable patterns of land distribution and ineffective agrarian reform

In all the countries of Latin American region there is a high concentration land ownership. The inequitable distribution of land, the lack of clear property rights, the external threats over traditional territories occupied by indigenous peoples, combine to prevent local communities from having enough autonomy to develop their own economic strategies. The relationship that creates the high concentration of land and the injustice and marginalization of populations generates the unique option of using the forest as the only source for real development.

· Perverse incentives

Subsidies and tax relief, have the perverse effect of wreaking environmental havoc in order to stimulate the development of timber industries, and to promote agricultural expansion. Usually these economic incentives produce important damage to the forests, and have promoted the inefficiency in the activities to which they were directed and have generated speculative mentalities in the resource use. Other perverse incentives among the forest sector include subsidies given to the expansion of plantations which in many cases threaten native forests.

Policies boundary :

Forest policy failures :

· National and sectoral policies that involve deforestation and forest degradation

In Latin America explicit environmental strategies and policies are common. Nevertheless, these policies are reactive because they are formulated to face emergency problems, those that required the creation of Ministries of Environment, National Commissions of the Environment, etc. These environmental organisms are forgotten, forced to act at the margin of national politics for lack of a political will to incorporate the environmental issues in the agenda. The forest institutions inside these environmental organisms are even more forgotten by the dominant forces. Historically this kind of reactive policy has been demonstrated to be ineffective.

The implicit policies and strategies are the real forces that determine the fate of forest ecosystems.. These macroeconomic and sectoral policies are formulated to promote other objectives. They include policies for colonization, infrastructure, energy, and timber and pulp production; they are perfect examples of implicit policies that have negative environmental effects counteracting environmental policies.

· Lack of clear forest policies for the conservation and management of sustainable forests.

Forest policies and other sectoral actions (referring to protected areas, land tenure, economic incentives, etc.) in Latin America are not promoting sustainable forest management. Timber prices are very low and concessions are for rapid extraction and without any consideration of the environmental and social costs. Adequate forest management is impossible under these conditions.

· Specific policies to promote the expansion of the forest industry.

The recommendations of environmental impact assessments present several obstacles, producing pernicious results for forest conservation. In Chile, for example, by law environmental impact assessments are conducted by the enterprises themselves. They contract consultants that develop these studies, limiting transparency in the process. Moreover, due to economic pressures, some projects that affect native forests but received negative environmental impact assessments were approved.

· Weak and centralized regulatory systems

In Latin American countries, forest agencies are centralized and bureaucratic, with poorly trained people who receive very low salaries. They usually are under heavy pressure from representatives of forestry companies,, hydroelectric enterprises, and others. There are too few employees, responsible for huge and dispersed forest. This situation has created the ideal conditions for the proliferation of corruption, which negatively affects the possibility of sustainable forest management.

· Non participation of social organizations, indigenous peoples, black peoples and peasant communities in policy design and implementation

In several Latin American countries local community participation is a constitutional mandate. In the real world, indigenous, peasants and black people’s communities are not partners in the government forest policy design and implementation. Frequently, when they are taken into consideration, participation is understood as merely a formality.

Social boundary :

· Non recognition of territorial rights and the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples

The non recognition of Indigenous People's territorial right in the use of the natural resources (including underground resources) is a common reality in many of Latin American countries. In those countries where these rights are recognized, members who attempt to defend them are often threatened.

Cultural boundary :

· Different regimes of nature representation

The State, capital and others involved in constructing nature, operate in a capitalist regime that sees nature as an obstacle to achieve their goals of «  progress ». The regime of local communities, be they indigenous, peasant, or black people's, is quite different and is in general an « organic » regime, differentiated from the capitalist system:  »  «[...] it is represented by those ways that are not strictly modern. From local knowledge perspective, they can be characterized in terms of not being separable from the physical, human and spiritual world, the vernacular social relationships, non modern knowledge circuits, and use and significant forms of nature that do not imply systematic destruction (Escobar 1997 : 199 – 200)

· Consumption models

Unsustainable consumption patterns are promoted by cultural homogenization. The culture of consumption has colonized almost every existent culture of the world. The transformation of local consumption patterns guarantees market expansion.

· Mining – extractive colonization vision

The undervaluation and non-recognition of local community practices are influenced by the colonizing vision that treats the exploitation of nature as a mining activity. This vision is inherent in the development models and programs offered to communities.

II . Addressing underlying causes: solutions phase

In this session, a new group consisting of community representatives was created. The community group has selected only one underlying cause related to the inequitable distribution of land. They considered that all the other underlying causes can be addressed once this first underlying cause has been resolved. Other participants continued to work on the solution of other underlying causes. The community group was the only one to establish clear and concrete indicators and to identify proposals for action .

Before the groups split again, David Barkin offered some insights for the preparation for the solutions phase of the Latin American workshop (see Annex 3)

The solutions to address the international underlying causes resulting from the general group were :

The solutions to addresses national underlying causes proposed by the group were 

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