Memorandum submitted by Global Witness
Global Witness is a UK-based NGO which seeks
to end human rights and environmental abuses around the world,
in particular natural resource-linked conflict and corruption.
Global Witness' work has been both a catalyst and driving force
behind the major international initiatives established to address
these issues, including the Kimberley Process and the Extractive
Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
Global Witness aims to achieve sustainability
in the forest sector by targeting illegality. Global Witness has
been working on illegal logging, forest governance and transparency
issues since its formation in 1994. Our work in Cambodia on illegal
logging, including an official role working with the government
as Independent Forest Monitor from 1999-2003, played a critical
part in the establishment of the regional Forest Law Enforcement
and Governance (FLEG) and EU FLEGT processes.
Global Witness has campaigned against illegal
and destructive logging practices in Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon,
the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Honduras, Liberia and
Nicaragua. In addition, we are currently working on forest and
climate change issues and the destructive practices of industrial
scale logging companies.
SUMMARY
Global Witness supports the creation
of an international fund, financed by industrialised countries,
to make payments to tropical forest countries, to keep forest
standing, as part of a strengthened international deal on climate
change.
Such a fund must take into account
the need to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation
and the global environmental services provided by forests such
as carbon storage and sequestration.
Payments could be related, in part,
simply to the area of forest that a country oversees rather than
on complex carbon accounting.
Forest carbon credits must not be
included in the carbon market.
Industrial scale logging companies
and plantations must not benefit from forest carbon finance.
THE ROLE
FINANCIAL MECHANISMS
MIGHT HAVE
IN HELPING
TO ADDRESS
EMISSIONS FROM
LAND USE
CHANGE
Forest-carbon storage, sequestration and emissions
1. To date, the forest climate debate has
been, by and large, narrowly focussed on Reducing Emissions from
Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). Recent United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) discussions in
Bali and Accra have concentrated on forest carbon emissions, as
have the World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Facility[12]
(FCPF) and United Nations Collaborative Programme on REDD in Developing
Countries[13]
(the UN-REDD Programme) initiatives.
2. Such a focus is understandable: The Stern
"Review on the Economics of Climate Change", issued
on 30 October 2006, found that: "Emissions from deforestation
are very significantthey are estimated to represent more
than 18% of global emissions, a share greater than is produced
by the global transport sector."[14]
3. However, a limited discussion about REDD
de facto excludes countries and peoples that currently manage
their natural forests responsibly. It also fails to take into
account the value of forests, in countries that do have a deforestation
and degradation problem, that are not under immediate threat.
This could create a perverse incentive for landowners and governments
to increase the rate of deforestation and degradation, in order
that they might benefit from REDD payments at some point in the
future. To be successful therefore, any forest climate change
strategy must consider the value of the essential global environmental
services that natural forests provide, including carbon storage
and sequestration.
Legal and illegal sources of forest-carbon emissions
4. The forest-climate debate has so far
failed to pay adequate, if any, attention to the specific measures
required to halt and reverse tropical deforestation. This is perhaps
not surprising, given that the discussion is primarily taking
place during post-Kyoto negotiations between climate change experts
who know little, if anything, about forests, forest governance,
or the people who live in and depend upon them.
5. Governments own almost all forest in
Africa and Asia and the majority in Latin America. Most deforestation
is planned by governments, which sanction the clearance of natural
forest to make way for agricultural land, pasture and infrastructure
expansion. For example, in early 1980 the government of Indonesia
slated 30 million hectares of forest for conversion. By 2002 an
equivalent area of forest had been lost.
6. In addition, most forest degradation
takes place as a direct result of government policy; it is wholly
predictable. 350 million hectares of the world's tropical forests
are zoned for timber production, about half currently under government
concession. Logging, even selective logging, degrades the forest,
a situation made worse in most countries by a lack of government
oversight in the field. Logging operations provide easy access
for farmers, and others, whose activities may lead to further
degradation and, ultimately, to deforestation.
7. Corruption at national, provincial and
local levels is almost invariably bad for forests. Uncertainty
as to tenure, confused, contradictory or overlapping laws, discretionary
powers and lack of transparency all exacerbate the problem.
Financial support for ending deforestation and
degradation
8. Global Witness supports the Stern review's
recommendation that poor countries that are rich in forests "should
receive strong help from the international community, which benefits
from their actions to reduce deforestation." Any credible
forest climate strategy must include the provision of finance
to help bring and end to illegal and legal forest destruction.
9. Significant levels of finance, from industrialised
countries, should be made available to forest-rich nations to
lift some of the financial and domestic political pressure to
convert their forests to industrial agricultural uses, or to log
them on an industrial scale.
10. Money should also be targeted at those
countries with significant illegal deforestation and degradation
problems, to pay for institutional, policy and legal reform, increased
transparency and enforcement activities.
11. Such funds could usefully be invested
in the following:
Good governance and successful action
to address corruption.
Increased mapping of community resources,
securing legal title to land, and access and user rights for forest
dependent people.
Ensuring that forest policy reform
is centred on the improvement of local livelihoods and advances
the rights of forest dependent communities.
Ensuring that forest dependent communities
participate fully in forest sector reform, and in the forest management
decisions that impact them directly.
Ensuring that commitments made by
countries participating in the regional Forest Law Enforcement
and Governance (FLEG) initiatives are implemented in full.
Legislative reform in timber producing
countries so that what is legal equates with just, equitable,
transparent and sustainable[15]
management of the forest estate.[16]
Ending the direct financing of logging
companies, and sector reform initiatives that favour industrial-scale
logging.
Dismantling industrial-scale logging
operations, reducing timber-processing capacity and managing the
political transition as established interests are displaced.
Pro-poor forest-based alternatives
to industrial scale logging.
Independent Forest Monitoring.[17]
THE ENVIRONMENTAL
AND SOCIAL
RISKS AND
BENEFITS OF
USING SUCH
FINANCIAL MECHANISMS
Carbon markets will not stop global warming
12. In the light of recent global financial
turmoil relying on market mechanisms, to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and hence the rate of global warming, would appear at
best, reckless in the extreme. Global climate security must not
be placed in the hands of the bankers and speculators responsible
for near financial meltdown. At the time of writing, bailing out
the so-called "casino capitalists" has cost governments
in excess of $2 trillion. The cost of failing to stop global warming
however will be measured not just in monetary terms but also in
real physical hardship for billions of people, mass migration,
regional instability and increased instances of violent armed
conflict.
13. To date, carbon markets, including the
European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) (the World's largest)
and the "cap and trade" system under the Kyoto Protocol
to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),
have delivered little in terms of greenhouse gas emission reductions.
It is arguable that the market approach has in fact delayed the
critical move to a zero-carbon economy. Global Witness does not
therefore consider carbon trading to be the most effective, or
indeed equitable, means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
14. This position is supported by the likes
of George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open
Society Institute, Jeffrey Sachs, the distinguished American economist
and special advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon,
and many NGOs.[18]
15. It is Mr Soros' view that the "cap
and trade" approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions
has been adopted for reasons of political expediency rather than
because it is more effective than, for instance, a tax on carbon
emissions. In his opinion it will be possible for the unscrupulous
to make a great deal of money out of carbon trading, "without
actually dealing with the problem that it's designed to cure."[19]
16. Professor Sachs does not believe that
the current international architecture for reducing greenhouse
gas emissions has achieved much. He has argued that the "Wall
Street approach" to carbon, with the associated design of
complex financial instruments, should be replaced by more simple
mechanisms. Professor Sachs argues that carbon taxation is better
placed to deliver the finance necessary to combat climate change.
Although, according to Sachs, there is little economic difference
between a tax and the auctioning of tradable permits, he thinks
that the tax option as simpler to administer and easier to adjust
as required.[20]
17. Clearly, the main risk associated with
a market-based approach to climate change is that it will fail
to deliver the desired results, before we reach the point where
positive feedback sets in. That is, when the warming of the earth's
atmosphere results in change, such as the loss of ice cover and
thawing of permafrost, that causes further (potentially runaway)
global warming.
Carbon markets will not stop deforestation or
degradation
18. As with global warming, the danger of
adopting a market-based approach to reducing deforestation and
forest degradation is that it simply will not work. This will
result in serious negative impacts on 90% of the 1.2 billion people
living in extreme poverty who depend on forests for their livelihoods.
Significantly, forests contribute directly to the natural environment
that supports agriculture and food production for almost half
the population of the developing world. Relevant ecosystem services
that would be lost as forests are cleared and degraded include
watershed protection, soil stabilisation, rainfall generation,
climate buffering, and pollination services. In addition, the
90% of terrestrial biodiversity found in the world's forests,
a disproportionate share being found in the forests of developing
countries, would be at risk.[21]
Government funding is the most appropriate source
of finance to pay for combating deforestation and forest degradation
19. For forest protection to work, the funding
required must be dependable and long-term. As recent events demonstrate,
markets are inherently volatile and unreliable: billions have
been wiped off the value of shares and the price of oil, for example,
plummeted from a high of almost $150 a barrel in July 2008 to
$80 in October 2008.
20. For this, and other reasons (please
see below) Global Witness supports the creation of an international
fund to keep forest standing, as part of a strengthened international
deal on climate change. Parties to the UNFCCC decided to launch
formal negotiations on such a deal in Bali, in December 2007.
Negotiations are scheduled to conclude by the end of 2009 at the
Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
21. The Brazilian government also favours
a fund-based approach to forest protection. More than three million
hectares of forest are lost in Brazil each year, almost a quarter
of the global total. Clearly, if the international community is
to successfully address deforestation and forest degradation it
is essential that the Brazilians support the chosen financing
mechanism.
22. Significantly the European Commission
considers public funding to be the most appropriate source of
revenue with which to combat deforestation in the medium-term.[22],
[23]
23. In Stern's opinion curbing deforestation
"is a highly cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse gas
emissions." Norway however, is the only country that has
so far committed significant funds to help reduce deforestation
and forest degradation in the tropics: up to US$560 million each
year for the next five years. If European Community member states
were to commit a similar proportion of their combined GDP this
would amount to about US$23 billion per annum. Interestingly,
this is of the same order of magnitude that Sir Nicholas Stern
has suggested is necessary to halve greenhouse gas emissions from
forests in the next 10 years:
"Initial planning should be on the basis
of funding of US$15 billion per annum, with revision in the light
of pilots and experience, with a view to halving emissions from
deforestation in the next decade."[24]
24. It is Global Witness' view that the
essential global environmental services that forests provide,
including carbon storage and sequestration, should also be accounted
for, so that the next international deal on climate change also
benefits the countries and peoples that currently manage their
natural forests responsibly (please see above). By providing sufficient
funds, Annex 1 countries would go some way to convincing developing
nations that they are serious about combating global warming.
THE USE
OF LAND
USE CHANGE
CREDITS IN
CARBON MARKETS
AND IN
MEETING EMISSION
TARGETS
25. A far simpler approach than forest carbon
accounting is required to ensure fair payments to forest-rich-but-poor
countries for the essential global environmental services, including
carbon storage and sequestration, that their forests provide.
For example the international community could consider payments
to these countries based simply on the area of natural forest
that they oversee. In addition, it may be considered desirable
to make increased payments for forests which support local peoples'
livelihoods and, or, high biodiversity. Forests slated for conversion
or under concession agreements with industrial logging companies,
on the other hand, would receive no such payments.
26. Forests must be kept out of the carbon
market. Bringing forests into an international carbon marketenabling
countries and companies to buy and trade forest carbon credits
in exchange for permission to continue polluting the atmospherewill
neither reduce carbon emissions nor halt deforestation. The purchase
of forest-carbon offsets could provide a low-cost option, for
industrialised countries and polluting industries, to reducing
emissions directly and create a disincentive for investing in
the development of clean energy technologies.
27. The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) has failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
and its contribution to sustainable development, a key objective,
has been negligible. In an increasing number of cases, CDM projects
have exacerbated the plight of poor people by providing additional
finance to polluting industries, whose activities are a considerable
risk to local livelihoods.[25]
28. The CDM is not designed to deal with
key issues relevant to forests, such as permanence of carbon storage,
complex land-use change patterns, land tenure, poverty alleviation,
indigenous peoples' rights, and corruption.
29. Many countries with significant areas
of tropical forest, such as those in the Congo Basin, have such
poor governance records that potential investors would most likely
be deterred from investing. Carbon markets cannot create the conditions
necessary for the market itself to function effectively, for example:
security of tenure and clear legal rights, and a functional administration
and judiciary. Only government-government direct assistance is
ever likely to bring these conditions about.
30. The fact that the European Commission
has decided not to include forests in the ETS for at least a decade,
and then only after certain issues have been satisfactorily resolved,
is a very welcome development.[26]
It is Global Witness' view that issues such as monitoring, verification
and liability, let alone "additionality"[27]
and permanence, are unlikely ever to be resolved to the degree
necessary for forest carbon trading operate effectively.
31. Arguments in the Eliasch Review that
in the long term a cap and trade system, for achieving reductions
in deforestation and forest degradation, performs best against
the criteria of effectiveness and equity are far from convincing.[28]
REDD on the cheap would appear to be the primary consideration.
THE WORLD
BANK'S
FOREST CARBON
PARTNERSHIP FACILITY
32. Please see attached documentation:
Appendix 1: 7 September 2007, NGO letter to Mr.
Benoit Bosquet
Appendix 2: 14 November 2007, NGO statement on
the FCPF
THE ROLE
OF TECHNOLOGIES
SUCH AS
REMOTE SENSING
IN THE
VERIFICATION OF
LAND USE
CHANGE CREDITS
33. It has been estimated that a global
network for forest monitoring, using medium resolution satellites
would cost only $12 million to create. Despite this, only Brazil
and India regularly monitor and report changes in forest cover
using remote sensing. The FAO Forest Resource Assessment remote
sensing survey (FRA RSS), using high-resolution satellite data,
is restricted to 10% of the world's tropical forests. Significant
improvements are planned for the FRA RSS 2010, however the results
will still not be representative at a country level. Mexico has
compiled detailed forest inventories over time, but again this
is an exception that proves the rule. Reaching a consensus on
the rate, location, and extent of global forest loss and decline
is therefore problematic, and any estimates should be treated
with extreme caution. Estimates of deforestation in the dry forests
and savannahs of Africa, for instance, vary by a factor of 10.
34. It is interesting to note that 146 of
the 228 countries and territories, taking part in the FAO FRA
2005, provided exactly the same net annual forest cover change
figures for 2000-05 as for 1990-2000. This is odd, given that
net change is the sum of four variable processes: annual deforestation,
forest loss due to natural disasters, afforestation and reforestation.
It is also interesting to note that for the 79 participants that
reported a decrease in net forest cover, between 1990 and 2000,
only three (Cambodia, Malaysia and Brazil) reported a significant
increase in annual net forest cover loss for 2000-05. Two other
countries, Namibia and Argentina reported increased net annual
losses, each up by 1,000 hectares. Again this is a rather strange
result given the increased pressure on forests due, in particular,
to an increase in demand for agricultural land to feed a growing
and more affluent global population. For more information please
see Appendix 3 Draft Document Avoiding Deforestation.
35. In Asia, Indonesia is currently losing
almost 1.9 million hectares each year, followed at some distance
by Burma (over 450,000 hectares), the Philippines (over 250,000
hectares), Cambodia and Malaysia. In Africa, Sudan experienced
the greatest change losing almost 590,000 hectares, closely followed
by Zambia (about 450,000 hectares), Tanzania (over 410,000 hectares),
the DRC (almost 320,000 hectares) and Zimbabwe (over 310,000 hectares).
In South America, Brazil, with well over half the forest, lost
more than all other South American countries combined. Between
2000 and 2005 Brazil lost an average 3.1 million hectares of forest
each year, followed by Venezuela (almost 290,000 hectares) and
Bolivia (270,000 hectares).
36. Of these, only two, the DRC and Bolivia
were included in the Bank's list of 14 "ready" for REDD:
six in Africa (the DRC, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, and Madagascar);
five in Latin America (Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Mexico, and
Panama); and three in Asia (Nepal, Lao PDR, and Vietnam).
THE SUCCESS
OR OTHERWISE
OF GOVERNMENT
EFFORTS IN
REDUCING EMISSIONS
FROM INTERNATIONAL
LAND USE
CHANGE
37. Global Witness is not aware of any UK
government efforts, to reduce emissions from international land
use change, other than the commitment of funds to as yet untested
international initiatives such as the FCPF.
THE INTERACTION
OF CARBON
FINANCE MECHANISMS
WITH THE
TIMBER TRADE
38. The UK government must ensure that industrial
scale logging companies do not benefit from forest-climate funds.
Degradation of tropical forests by industrial logging is a significant
source of carbon loss. The carbon stock of forests subject to
commercial logging, even of a selective nature, is on average
significantly less than the carbon stock of natural, undisturbed
forests.[29]
Furthermore, roads and other infrastructure built to facilitate
industrial-scale logging often open up the forest to further exploitation,
leading to deforestation and permanent conversion.
39. Forest-living people "want an ample
subsistence base, which can also provide means of fulfilling their
social and cultural needs, rather than short-term economic benefits
from industrial logging and related activities, which may risk
their subsistence base in the longer term".[30]
In Global Witness' experience, industrial scale logging, rather
than reducing rural poverty, has had an entirely detrimental effect
on local livelihoods. In countries as diverse as Cambodia and
Cameroon, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea (PNG), the poor have
become poorer, communities alienated, and the incidence of local
conflict increased. In countries, such as Liberia and DRC, where
management and control capacity in the field is all but absent,
these problems are even more acute, and have in the past been
associated with violent armed conflict and regional instability.
40. Making the industrial scale logging
concession system work has been a major preoccupation for the
World Bank and others, including European governments, in many
countries.
41. In Cambodia the Bank funded the Cambodia
Forest Concession Management and Control Pilot Project from 2000-05.
This project was subsequently the subject of an Inspection Panel
investigation, as were Bank activities in the forest sector in
DRC. The Cambodia Inspection Panel Investigation Report (IPIR),
issued in July 2006, found that: "... one could hardly overemphasise
the negative effects of the logging on ... very poor and vulnerable
rural communities and indigenous peoples." The Inspection
Panel also found that concession logging had "contributed
to significant degradation of Cambodia's natural forests and has
hastened the conversion of forests to other forms of land use."
42. David Kaimowitz, the former Director
General of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR),
has described concession logging as "a system that has consistently
proved itself to be problematic" and one for which there
is "inadequate information about how to make it work properly".
43. That the industrial scale-logging paradigm
has failed is not just the view of forest management experts and
it is not limited to Cambodia. On 25 July 2006 for example, Baroness
Amos, the UK Government's House of Lords spokesperson on international
development said: "There is a growing consensus that the
traditional concession-based industrial logging model does not
generate the desired economic, social and environmental benefits."
44. Even the World Bank has stated recently
that "Industrial timber production has a poor record in Africa.
Over the past 60 years, there is little evidence that it has lifted
rural populations out of poverty or contributed in other meaningful
and sustainable ways to local and national development."[31]
45. The Independent Forest Sector Review
team in Cambodia concluded that, "the main gainers from the
concession system were those allocated concession rights in the
first instance." More often than not this has been the case
wherever industrial loggers have operated and must not be repeated
with respect to forest carbon finance.
GOVERNMENT SUSTAINABLE
PROCUREMENT OF
FOREST PRODUCTS
46. For information relating to the problems
associated with forest certification please see for example: http://www.fsc-watch.org/.
The Forest Stewardship Council is probably more credible than
the other certification schemes accepted by the UK government
as proof of sustainability.
THE SUCCESS
OR OTHERWISE
OF THE
EU FOREST LAW
ENFORCEMENT, GOVERNANCE
AND TRADE
(FLEGT) ACTION PLAN,
AND GOVERNMENT
SUPPORT FOR
IT
47. FLEGT and the associated Voluntary Partnership
Agreements (VPAs) can help address illegal deforestation, degradation
and forest sector governance. Lessons learned from the FLEGT programme
could and should inform the debate about how forests, and the
people, who live in and depend upon them, can help in the fight
against global warming. Minimum requirements for meaningful consultation
developed in the context of negotiating VPAs may provide valuable
guidance.
48. It should be noted however that there
is a danger that FLEGT will further entrench the failed industrial
scale logging paradigm, making degradation and deforestation more
likely.
49. It should also be noted that after prevaricating
for over five years, the European Commission decided, on 17 October
2008, not to make it illegal to import illegally harvested timber
into Europe. The long-awaited proposal for a regulation, "Laying
down the obligations of operators who place timber and timber
products on the market", instead adopts a systems-based approach.
50. Under the proposed regulation operators
have to exercise due diligence to minimise the risk of placing
illegally harvested timber and timber products on the market.
In turn, it is envisaged that competent authorities in member
states will carry out checks to verify if operators are complying
with the provisions of the regulation. This is likely to detract
from efforts to detect illegal timber imports. In the event of
non-compliance operators maybe required to carry out corrective
measures.
51. Assessing whether or not a timber trader
has exercised due diligence is inherently subjective. Unless being
caught in possession of illegal timber is treated as de facto
proof of a failure to comply, this legislation is very unlikely
to provide a deterrent to the determined illegal operator.
52. By way of contrast, legislation passed
in the U.S. on 22 May 2008, makes it illegal for a person or company
to "import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, or
purchase" timber or timber products" illegally "taken,
harvested, possessed, transported, sold or exported."[32]
The beauty of the U.S. Lacey Act is that it is entirely objective,
if you are caught with illegal timber you have committed an offence.
53. The Lacey Act creates a number of offences
depending on the operator's degree of knowledge at the time of
the offence. Knowingly engaging in prohibited conduct could result
in a fine of up to $500,000 for a company, $250,000 for a person
or twice the maximum value of the transaction. In addition they
face a possible prison sentence of up to five years and forfeiture
of the goods. Being required to undertake "corrective measures"
is unlikely to be as effective a deterrent as the prospect of
five years in prison.
54. Timber and timber products from VPA
countries will be considered legal for the purposes of the proposed
regulation. Effectively this means that timber illegally logged
in a third country can be laundered into the system via a partner
country and enter Europe accompanied by a valid legality licence,
thereby compounding the problems associated with the Commissions
earlier directive on illegal logging.[33]
55. As it stands, this legislation is unlikely
to have much impact on the illegal timber trade in Europe. In
coming months it is essential therefore that the European Parliament
and Council of Ministers agree to the changes that are necessary
to make this legislation effective.
PLANTATIONS ARE
NOT THE
SAME AS
NATURAL FORESTS
56. The UNFCCC defines a forests as, "a
minimum area of land of 0.05-1.0 hectares with tree crown cover
(or equivalent stocking level) of more than 10-30% with trees
with the potential to reach a minimum height of 2-5 metres at
maturity in situ. A forest may consist either of closed
forest formations where trees of various storeys and undergrowth
cover a high proportion of the ground or open forest. Young natural
stands and all plantations which have yet to reach a crown density
of 10-30% or tree height of 2-5 metres are included under forest,
as are areas normally forming part of the forest area which are
temporarily unstocked as a result of human intervention such as
harvesting or natural causes but which are expected to revert
to forest."
57. It is Global Witness' view, and that
of many other NGOs, that plantations should not be included in
the UNFCCC's definition of forest. It is widely accepted that
a plantation does not have the same characteristics as a natural
forest. Plantations contain only a fraction of the carbon and
biodiversity that natural forests have. Monoculture plantations
in particular deplete soil quality and water resources, and have
many adverse environmental and social impacts. Positive incentives
aimed at sustaining standing forests must not end up profiting
plantations.
20 October 2008
12 For more information please see: http://carbonfinance.org/Router.cfm?Page=FCPF&ItemID=34267&FID=34267 Back
13
For more information please see: http://www.undp.org/mdtf/UN-REDD/overview.shtml Back
14
For more information please see:
The Review on the Economics of Climate Change, Executive summary
(full), 30 October 2006, from: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/stern_review_report.cfm Back
15
According to the World Commission on Environment and Development,
sustainable development is: "Development that meets the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs." Back
16
According to World Bank Forests Advisor, Gerhard Dieterle, "Illegal
logging can be `need-based' for subsistence, or `greed-based'
for profit."| "Forest laws must be reformed to recognise
the needs of the forest-dependent poor. Otherwise, their enforcement
is the worst form of violation of equity and justice." (World
Bank: Weak Forest Governance Costs US$15 Billion A Year. News
Release No:2007/86/SDN) Back
17
For more information please see: http://www.globalwitness.org/pages/en/ifm.html Back
18
For more information please see: http://www.fern.org/media/documents/document_4249_4250.pdf Back
19
For more information please see: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10102008/transcript1.html Back
20
For more information please see: http://www.iisd.ca/ymb/climate/eidcc/html/ymbvol154num1e.html Back
21
For more information please see: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTFORESTS/Resources/SustainingForests.pdf Back
22
According to the European Commission: "Public funding is
the most appropriate way to take forward a number of essential
activities-in particular capacity building, technical support
for forest governance and developing the necessary technical know-how
to monitor and enforce commitments. Public funding is also the
most realistic tool with which to provide incentives for combating
deforestation over the period 2013 to 2020." Back
23
For more information please see: COM(2008) 645/3 "Communication
on addressing the challenges of deforestation and forest degradation
to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss"
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2008:0645:FIN:EN:PDF Back
24
For more information please see: "Stern, N. Key Elements
of a Global Deal on Climate Change" (2008) Back
25
Please see, for example, the documentation relating to projects
in India, Brazil, Ecuador and Uganda at www.sinkswatch.org and
www.carbontradewatch.org Back
26
According to the European Commission: "Recognition of forestry
credits in the EU emissions trading system (ETS) would not be
realistic at the present time. Emissions from deforestation are
roughly three times higher than the amount of emissions regulated
under the EU ETS. As the EU ETS is currently the only major operational
trading system in the world, allowing companies to buy avoided
deforestation credits would result in serious imbalances between
supply and demand in the scheme. There are also unresolved monitoring,
reporting, verification and liability questions. Forestry credits
are temporary and will then have to be replaced after a certain
period. This means that, if a company goes out of business, somebody
would have to take on this liability to guarantee environmental
integrity." Back
27
Projects under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism
must demonstrate carbon dioxide reductions that would not have
happened under business-as-usual circumstances. Back
28
For more information please see: http://www.occ.gov.uk/activities/eliasch/Full_report_eliasch_review(1).pdf Back
29
For more information please see: Brendan G Mackey, Heather Keith,
Sandra L Berry and David B Lindenmayer, Green Carbon-The role
of natural forests in carbon storage, 2008 Back
30
For more information please see: World Bank Inspection Panel Investigation
Report No. 40746-ZR, 31 August 2007 Back
31
For more information please see: CIRAD, the World Bank and CIFOR,
"Forests in Post-Conflict Democratic Republic of Congo. Analysis
of a Priority Agenda; 2007 Back
32
For further information please see:
www.eia-global.org/lacey/P6.EIA.LaceyReport.pdf Back
33
VPAs include inter alia FLEGT licensing schemes whereby timber
harvested in the partner country will be issued with a legality
licence for export to Europe. For more information please see
Council Regulation 2173/2005 Back
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