Genetically modified crops have been hogging the limelight of public opinion due to the controversy arising on their unpredictable consequences on health and the environment. Nevertheless, the genetic engineering of trees has been largely in the shadows. In the meantime, joint ventures of giant corporations were created to carry out research in the tree biotechnology field.
Bulletin articles
The announcement by Papua New Guinea (PNG) Prime Minister Mekere Morauta in December 1999 of his intention to impose a moratorium on new logging and extensions, and to review existing logging concessions was enthusiastically received by national and international environmental NGOs, as well as by local small sawmill operators, which consider that any new large-scale logging concessions should be stopped in a country that has already lost more than 10% of its forests because of this depredatory activity (see WRM Bulletin 30).
The current FPIRS process seems to be coming out with a number of ideas for the future Bank's approach to forests, some of which clearly expressed while others underlying though carrying an equally clear message. Most of these ideas are included in the OED report -whose reading we recommend- but we would like to concentrate on a few of them, which we consider to be more important.
What follows are summaries of the OED main report and of the six country studies which the OED carried out as part of the FPIRS process. In the summaries, we have aimed at highlighting those aspects which we believe to be more relevant, trying not to include our own opinions, some of which we add at the end of each summary. We strongly urge, however, all those intending to participate directly or indirectly in the FPIRS process to also read the full studies, given that neither our summary nor the official OED studies' summaries reflect the rich information contained in the full texts.
The OED report considers that even if the Bank influenced the ongoing process of forest policy reform in Cameroon, it "made no provisions for implementation or enforcement of those provisions". The document states that the Bank did not attempt all the right and relevant things prescribed by the 1991 policy, and made several mistakes from a strategic point of view. As a result there is a gap between the stated policies and their implementation.
The World Bank's work in China's forest and forest-related sectors is portrayed as highly successful by the report, though including a number of recommendations for future work to address some current constraints.
The Report considers that since most of the post-1991 projects in India have not been completed, it is not possible to evaluate them. Nevertheless, it points out that implementation progress is considered satisfactory, but performance among different states varies. During the two decades in which the Bank has been involved in the forest sector in that country, the design and implementation of its projects have allegedly improved substantially.
The OED Report starts by highlighting that the so called "Indonesian miracle" was the result of an export-led strategy in which forest resources were viewed "as an asset to be liquidated to support (its) growth strategy, establishing Indonesia as a world leader in the export of tropical forest products". At present the rate of deforestation reaches 1.5 million hectares per year, being commercial logging its main cause. This unsustainable use of forests has been accompanied by a highly inequitable distribution of benefits.
The importance of a review on the implementation of the Bank's 1991 Forest Policy in Brazil hardly needs to be stressed, given that the country contains almost 27 percent of the remaining moist tropical forests in the world. The OED study states that the average annual forest loss in the Amazon (some 13,000 sq.km/year in the post 1991 period) has slowed down compared to the pre-1991 period, but adding that the precise extent of forest loss remains ambiguous. At the same time, Brazil has been one of the Bank's largest borrowers.
The OED study on Costa Rica appears to be more focused in showing the achievements of the Costa Rican government and in supporting its policies than in evaluating the World Bank's implementation of its 1991 forest policy. However, the report contains interesting elements in this regard.
During the last meeting of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF), NGOs and IPOs made a statement expressing their disappointment and frustration regarding the lack of implementation of measures agreed upon in the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests' (IPF) "proposals for action." The statement said that "for whatever reasons, governments seem either unwilling or unable to take substantive action to solve the world's most pressing forest problems."
Seldom are there news arriving from Liberia. This country, located in the West African region, with shores on the Atlantic Ocean and bounded in the West by Sierra Leone, Guinea in the North and Ivory Coast in the East, ranks amongst the world’s poorest countries and bears the weight of a huge foreign debt. An accelerated process of environmental degradation -including forests- is also affecting the country. Several activities -as mining, plantations and logging- are destroying the dense tropical rainforests.