Howdy,
On Monday, April 18 a high profile panel, which included in its roster
such notables as the head of the UN Environment Program and a former Prime
Minister of Sweden, released its findings on the state of the globe's
forests. In its report 'Our Forests...Our Future' the World Commission on
Forests and Sustainable Development acknowledged that the situation is
already very grave and without radical change will soon be beyond help.
However, the Commission also emphasised that it is not yet too late to
halt and even reverse the devestation of the better part of the planet's
remaining forests.
Refreshingly, in a sharp departure from the neoliberal approach which has
become characteristic of other development agents such as the World Bank
and the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the Forest Commission does
not envisage a significant expansion of the role of transnational firms.
To the contrary 'Our Forests' enjoins greater intervention by the public
sector - and on behalf of citizens, not business enterprises. Thus Emil
Salim, one of the co-chairs of the Commission, notes : "We estimate that
one billion of the world's poorest people in about 30 heavily deforested
countries would be alleviated from poverty if given government support for
managing neighboring public forest land and sharing the benefits within
their communities." 'Our Forests' outlines several measures intended to
ensure that forest-dwellers themselves are able to shape the agenda of
their governments.
While commendable such an orientation is open to challenge as quixotic.
For one, the US has already revealed that it will press for liberalisation
of wood products at the World Trade Organization negotiations in Seattle
this fall; if successful this will further reduce the scope of government
action on forests permitted under WTO disciplines. For another, the World
Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) routinely sanction the clearing
of forest to make room for cashcropping agribusiness which can obtain the
foreign exchange necessary for nations to pay off their foreign debt.
Some might question the extent to which the people-empowering protocols
proposed by the Forest Commission will have meaning in many of the target
states, such as those in the Saharan region, given the degree of political
oppression in these countries.
Apparently anticipating these difficulties the Commission stresses the
need to "get the price of forests right." A chill went through me on first
seeing this phrase as it is an infamous slogan of the Structural
Adjustment Programs of the IMF. However, the precept appears to be
understood in very different ways by the twain : to the IMF it implies
removing subsidies to domestic production and tariffs on foreign items so
as to destroy import-substitution in the developing world and reduce these
countries to exporters of raw materials; to the Commission the phrase
means assessing forests at their true (monetary) value rather than merely
for their timber yield.
The Commission proposes to accomplish this by adopting a comparator akin
to the "Genuine Progress Index" being pioneered in Nova Scotia by Ron
Colman (and internationally by New Zealander Marilyn Waring.) The proposed
"Forest Capital Index" would take into account the multiplicity of
benefits provided by standing woodlands : climate regulation; provision of
biodiversity; preservation of soil integrity and so on.
Understood in this way it would be obvious to policymakers that the
reckless cutting of forests is simply uneconomic and therefore contrary
their interests. Presumably this would increase political will to oppose
the transnational corporations and institutions which see the natural
world as insignificant until liquidated as market capital for
international trade. Said institutions could hardly be expected to simply
roll over and play dead on this issue - particularly as it would set a
precedent for the treatment of other renewable resources - but at the
least a Forest Capital Index would strengthen the hand of sustainability
proponents.
Ultimately I am opposed to reducing all things - especially biota - to
money equivalents. Nonetheless I feel that we are such a pass that urgent
action is required if we are merely to survive beyond the next few
decades. Under these circumstances I support the introduction of this kind
of intermediary regime where money - the only language that power speaks -
is used as the medium to convey the concept that humanity is destroying
the earth. If this allows us to ameliorate the destruction we will thus
obtain precious time in which to strive for a more thoroughgoing
transformation in values.
---Antoni