Background Document
Costa Rica, 18 - 22 January, 1999

Latin America

The Latin American workshop on underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation was held in Santiago de Chile between October 8 and 10, 1998. Thirty-two participants were present, representing 10 countries of different regions of South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

The workshop was based on the preparation of five case studies elaborated by an NGO/resaercher and a representative of the local community affected by the deforestation process. An Advisory Committee selected the studies in April 1998, after an invitation to present case study profiles had been distributed among electronic networks in the region. One month before the workshop these studies were distributed among the workshop participants and an electronic discussion was developed.

The Latin American workshop was inaugurated in the FAO building in Santiago de Chile. Rosario Ortiz, regional focal point for Latin America, Tomás Lopez R, regional representative of FAO, Miguel Stutzin, president of CODEFF, local organization co-organizer of the workshop, and Professor David Barkin of the University Autonoma Metropolitana de Mexico made presentations.

The workshop was divided into two phases, worked out in three different working groups: a UC identification/priorities/establishing hierarchies phase, and a solutions phase. Before this latter phase started, David Barkin gave an insightful presentation, and the definitions of objectives, actions, responsible agents, indicators and timing were elaborated as recommendations for the IFF.

Latin American Workshop and Case Studies Recommendations

The workshop recommended a number of objectives, at the international, national and local community levels, and set out proposals for actions to achieve those objectives.

1. International level

At international level, the objectives were:

(1) To avoid any development project that implies forest destruction:

Proposals for action:

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

(2) Support local projects for sustainable management and self-sufficiency:

Proposals for action:

• Promotion of diversification;
• Modification of consumption patterns;
• Forest valuation and services;
• Explicit definition of maximum appropriation;
• Establishment of an 'inner law' of forest management.

(3) To support the non-payment of external debt:

Proposals for action:

• Create consensus among Latin American countries on non-payment of external debt;
• Analyse specific impacts of external debt on forests and agree on measures to avoid them.

(4) To guarantee that the proposed macro-economic reforms be preceded by a detailed social and environmental impact assessment:

Proposals for action:

• Exert pressure through civil society to apply environmental regulations;
• Promote decentralised regulation systems.

(5) To regulate transnational corporations' (TNC) activities:

Proposals for action:

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

(6) To agree on multilateral agreements to reduce world paper consumption.

Proposal for action:

• Raise awareness through campaigns of the impact of the increases foreseen in paper consumption;
• Adapt consumption to the supply of sustainable forest ecosystems.

2. National level

At the national level, the workshop put forward the following objectives:

(1) To strengthen and redefine State functions:

Proposal for action:

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

(2) To strengthen the participation by civil society and ethnic movements in forest management:

Proposals for action:

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

(3) To address unequitable distribution of land:

Proposals for 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.

(4) Guarantee indigenous peoples' and local communities' territorial rights:

Proposals for action :

• Recognise indigenous and traditional communities' territorial rights;
• Ratification and application of the International Treaties that recognises these rights (e.g., Convention 169, OIT).

(5) Recognise indigenous peoples' and traditional communities' traditional forest knowledge:

Proposals for action :

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

(6) To promote the design of community-formulated plans:

Proposals for 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 include social and communities rights respect aspects.

(7) To forbid the taking out of patents on the DNA of living organisms:

Proposal for action:

• Renegotiation of multilateral agreements (TRIPS).

(8) To design and implement effective instruments for forests conservation:

Proposals for action:

• Promote research on forest management plans that consider forests as ecosystems, as well as their biodiversity;
• Identification and removal of perverse incentives in different economic sectors;
• Change the curriculum of the education systems for foresters;
• Establish methodologies and holistic forests valuation systems;
• Internalisation of environmental costs.

(9) To promote alternative development policies based on local communities' needs.

3. Community Level

The workshop made the following specific local communities recommendations, related to inequitable distribution of land.

(1) To strengthen the dynamics and processes of territorial and environmental appropriation, defence and control of indigenous, black peoples' and peasants' communities:

Proposals for action:

• Land legalisation (collective titling, co-operatives, associations);
• Community mobilisation for the control and defence of the territory;
• Harmonisation of traditional practices and uses with the protected areas;
• Participation and co-management plans in protected areas.

(2) To consolidate the local, regional and national organisations of indigenous, black peoples' and peasants' communities:

Proposals for action:

• Leader capacitation on peoples' rights;
• Exchange of experience among organisations and among communities in order to plan common activities;
• Create an inter-ethnic mechanism of regional/national/international coordination;
• Build leader communities' capacities for environmental management.

(3) To open up spaces in international negotiations processes for black peoples' and peasants' communities:

Proposals for action:

• Organise an international campaign on black peoples'/peasants' community rights related to forests;
• Create space for Afro-American leaders in the UC indigenous Quito workshop;
• Enlarge the space for Afro-American leaders and peasants in the global Costa Rica workshop and report presentations of peasants' and black peoples' workshop;
• Guarantee participation of black peoples' and peasants' communities in the IFF-3 meeting.

(4) To improve life quality and economic income of indigenous, black peoples' and peasants' communities:

Proposals for action:

• Sustainable production alternatives;
• Fair prices for products;
• Market guarantees;
• Open commercialisation channels;
• Implementation of ethno-development plans in collective territories.

Main International and National Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation Identified by the Latin American Workshop

The Latin American workshop synthesis of the main international and national underlying causes of forest loss are as follows. The current globalisation era is the framework in which all the ambits of influence (economic, social, cultural and political) and levels of causalities are inscribed. Ignorance or inadequate understanding of the forests' real benefits and functions, the undervaluation of forest as an ecosystem, the different philosophical conceptions in the Man-Society-Nature relationships on which Occidental societies base their life standard and the necessity of goods from unsustainable production and consumption patterns permeate all the underlying causes of various levels of forest loss.

1. International level

Economic boundary:

• Development model  
• International capital mobility
• State debts that obligate countries to rapidly generate currency
• GATT- WTO domination of the international economy
• Unsustainable production and consumption patterns linked with standards of living and the necessity of goods
• Non-recognition of the traditional knowledge of indigenous, black peoples and peasant communities

Cultural boundary:

• Non-consensus on the definition of forests
• Garbage culture
• Global/homogenous versus local/heterogenous

2. National level

Economic boundary:

• Re-orientation of production towards exportation
• Inequitable patterns of land distribution or land or agrarian contrareform
• Perverse incentives

Policies boundary:

• National and sectoral policies that involve deforestation and forest degradation
• Lack of clear forest policies in relation to the conservation and management of sustainable forests
• Specific policies to promote the expansion of the forest industry.
• Weak and centralised regulatory systems
• Non-participation of social organisations, indigenous peoples, black peoples and peasant communities in policy design and implementation

Social boundary:

• Non-recognition of territorial rights and the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples

Cultural boundary:

• Different regimes of nature representation
• Consumption models
• Mining - extractive colonisation vision

List of Case Studies and in-depth studies

Case studies

• Southern Chilean native forests and the Mapuches, Ruperto Ramos, Indigenous community Juan Queupán Rodrigo Catalan, Centro de Educación y Tecnología

• Deforestation, forest degradation in the territory-region of the black peoples' communities of the Colombian Pacific, Hernan Cortes, Black peoples' communities Eduardo Restrepo, Colombian Anthropology Institute

• Social Exclusion and Development Domination . The Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Guyana, Marcus Colchester, Forest Peoples Program, Virgil Ferreira, Amerindian Peoples Association

• Ecological Reserve and Protected Forest Mache- Chindul, Esmeraldas province, Ecuador, Antolin Tapuyo, Chachi community leader of Mache- Chindul Domingo Paredes, Fundacion Natura

• Case study of the Serrania of Yvytyrusu, Paraguay, Francisco Nuñez, Yvytyrusu hill dwellers association (APCY) Jose Ibarra. Fundation Alter- Vida

In-Depth Studies

• Magnitude and Causes of the deforestation and forest degradation in the Bolivian forests. Pablo Pacheco, International Center of Forest Research (CIFOR), Study Center for the Work and Agrarian Development (CEDLA) and Workshop of Initiatives in Rural Studies and Agrarian Reform (TIERRA)
• Industry role: the Aracruz case study Rosa Roldán. Environment Project IBASE, Río, Brasil,
• Macro factors and sectorial policies that influence deforestation and forest degradation process , Nicolo Gligo, CEPAL, Chile
• Central America: The case of forests fires Alberto Salas, UICN-ORMA, Costa Rica
• Case study of the Peten department, Guatemala – community forest concessions Marcedonio Cortave ACOFOP, Guatemala
• Deforestation and forest degradation in the Cuban forests in colonial and neo-colonial history and the reversion of this unsustainable illness with the Cuban revolution Adalberto Merrero et al., Forest Research Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture of Cuba Republic

List of Participants

• ADALBERTO MARRERO, Cuban Research Forest Institute Director, Cuba
• ALBERTO SALAS, UICN/ ORMA, Costa Rica
• ANTOLIN TAPUYO, FUNDACIÓN NATURA, Ecuador
• CESAR VITTERI, Coordinator Latin American Forest Network / FUNDACION NATURA, Ecuador
• DAVID BARKIN, UNIV. AUT. METROPOLITANA- Professor, México
• DOMINGO PAREDES, Fundacion NATURA, Ecuador
• EDUARDO RESTREPO, Instituto Colombiano De Antropologia- Researcher, Colombia
• FRANCISCO NUÑEZ, Yvytyrusu hill dwellers association (APCY), Paraguay.
• HERNAN CORTEZ, National coordination of Black peoples communities process, Colombia
• JOSE IBARRA, ALTER. VIDA – Member of Directive Conseil, Paraguay.
• LORENA GAMBOA, Director Foundation Tropical Forest Rescew – Intrenational Network of Analog Forestry – Regional Focal point, Ecuador
• MARCEDONIO CORTAVE, ACOFOP PRESIDENT, Guatemala
• MIGUEL LOVERA, SOBREVIVENCIA - Friends of the Earth, Paraguay
• PABLO PACHECO, Researcher CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS PARA EL DESARROLLO LABORAL Y AGRARIO, Bolivia
• BERTRAN HUSH, School of Forestry Engeniers Director, CHILE
• CLAUDIO FIABANE, ODEPA Sector Forestal, Chile
• FLAVIA LIBERONA, RENACE Forest Area Director, Chile
• LUIS EDUARDO ASTORGA, CODEFF – Friends of the Earth – Associate Researcher, Chile
• MARCELA OCHOA, CONAF, Chile
• MALU SIERRA, DEFENSORES DEL BOSQUE
• RODRIGO CATALAN, CET Coordinator, Chile
• RUPERTO RAMOS, PRESIDENT COMUNIDAD QUEOPAN. TEMUCO, Chile
• VICENTE PAEILE, CONAMA, Chile
• FRANZ ARNOLD, CODEFF, Chile
• HERNAN VERSCHEURE, CODEFF/ Friends of the Earth - Coordinator Forestry Program, Chile
• RICARDO CARRERE, World Rainforest Movement, Uruguay
• ROSARIO ORTIZ, Foundation Ecotropico, Colombia
• ROSA ROLDAN, IBASE - Researcher, Brasil
• SUSANA PIMIENTO, WWF-COLOMBIA Biodiversity coordinator, Colombia
• WINFRIED OVERBEEK, CIMI, Brasil
• ROBERTO ARAQUISTAIN, Co – director of Agriculture frontier program CENTRO AMERICANO CCAD-UNION EUROPEA, Panamá

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