Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation: No hope without forests - Environmental Audit Committee Contents


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 93-99)

MR DUNCAN BRACK AND MS ALISON HOARE

16 DECEMBER 2008

  Q93 Chairman: Good morning and welcome to the Committee. We have just been talking a bit about governance. I wonder if you could say how important you think an improvement in governance is in tackling deforestation.

  Ms Hoare: It is absolutely fundamental. A lot of deforestation is the result of poor governance and so without effective governance it is not possible for a government to control its forest resources. It needs to devise a strategy or plan of how to manage the forests and also you need good governance to implement that planning. Without good governance nothing is going to work basically.

  Q94  Chairman: What do you think about the progress of Poznan on these issues, if any?

  Ms Hoare: I did not participate in Poznan, but from the feedback that I have had from colleagues I guess I would say that the progress was probably what was to be expected. It is very much just a step on the road to Copenhagen. As we heard from the previous witnesses, there was little progress in terms of some of the substantive issues, but it was useful in identifying some of the key methodological and more technical questions that still need to be addressed. So really the next year is going to be very critical in the run up to Copenhagen.

  Q95  Chairman: Do you think it is possible to be successful in dealing with deforestation without both poor governance being tackled and also the whole question of the economic value of the qualities that can be produced? Are those two ingredients absolutely essential to the process of tackling deforestation?

  Ms Hoare: In relation to forest governance, yes, it is certainly essential. As I was highlighting, a government needs to be able to be able to control its resources, it needs to be able to develop an effective strategy and implement this. This means that you need effective institutions and there needs to be systems in place so that governments can consult with all the stakeholders concerned. All those elements need to be in place if deforestation is going to be tackled. The second part of your question was?

  Q96  Chairman: It is really how the economic factors work in this as well.

  Mr Brack: Clearly there needs to be a higher value to protecting the forest and not cutting down than there is to logging it or replacing it with agriculture—palm oil or soy or whatever. At the moment the economic returns to alternative investments like palm oil and soy are much, much higher than sustainable forestry. So until you sort that out as well as the governance problems you will not have a solution. If you are going to say that countries will be protecting much bigger areas of their forest than they currently to, you also have to find a means of making a living for all the people who currently rely on extractive methods of forestry and that is millions of people, which is not an easy thing to do.

  Q97  Dr Turner: What do you think about the treatment of governance issues in the Eliash Review?

  Ms Hoare: I welcomed the strong focus on governance issues, I think that was right and highlighting the fact that there needs to be effective institutions in place and also the focus on land rights and ensuring that those fundamental issues are addressed. Where I do have concerns is I think it was overly optimistic in relation to the ease with which those issues can be addressed. I think it will be a lot more difficult than is implied by the Eliash Review. If you look at the history of development interventions, they all show and highlight the difficulty of bringing about effective reform.

  Q98  Dr Turner: You clearly do not share his confidence that the governance issues can be wrapped up in five years and the history of attempting to tackle governance in the past backs up your lack of confidence, does it not?

  Ms Hoare: Yes. I do not share the optimism that we can address these issues within five years. Clearly the situation varies hugely in different countries. In some countries if you have effective interventions with a clear idea of how to intervene and good support from the government in place then five years would be sufficient, but in many other countries it will not be. A key problem is that in many countries there still remains a lack of political will to instigate change.

  Q99  Dr Turner: What would you say were the principal reasons for the failures of past attempts at governance reform?

  Ms Hoare: It is difficult to say. There is a whole host of reasons. From the perspective of the donor side of view, it is often a case of perhaps not a sufficiently co-ordinated approach and not consistent, not having a sufficiently long-term view as well. It is not possible to have effective forest governance reform without looking more widely, so it has got to be part of a bigger picture. In many countries failures in forest governance is due to wider governance failure, so you need a very broad picture. In countries where the whole sociopolitical system is not functioning effectively it is very difficult to instigate change.

  Mr Brack: We have tried to encourage people to look at the lessons from the FLEGT process which is designed to improve governance in forest countries, so it is tackling exactly the same problems that any REDD mechanism will have to do. The sheer scale of the problems they are tackling is very daunting in some countries. We are talking about the clarification of forest law which is often contradictory between different levels, between national and regional levels and generally not well enforced anyway. The previous witnesses made the comment about the lack of capacity which is certainly true. You are talking about clarification of land ownership legislation which has been a problem in many countries for decades, if not longer. You are talking about needing to put in place a system for independent verification of what is going on, which can be quite costly. The five-year target might be possible in some countries, but you are assuming general political will across all elements of government and not just the forestry ministries, which I think are generally signed up to the REDD agenda, but all the other law enforcement agencies, finance ministries, industry, agriculture ministries have to be working in the same direction. In many countries I do not think you have that general commitment and general political will. Even if you can deal with the underlying problem of corruption— I do not agree with the previous witness— that is a problem in many, if not most, forest rich developing countries. The FLEGT system has had problems. To assume that you can sweep all those aside and solve all your governance problems in 40 rainforest nations in five years is just ludicrously optimistic. I do not think you will find many people who work on forestry governance who would not agree with what I have said.



 
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