In his opening remarks to the Eighth Session of the FAO Committee on Forest Development in the Tropics, held in Rome in mid-September 1987 (reported in "The World of Forestry"), FAO Deputy Director-General D.J. Walton drew a parallel between the situation in forestry today and that of agriculture in the 1970s, pointing out that only when policy-makers outside agriculture began to understand the social and economic costs of neglecting the sector did things begin to change for the better.
This same theme - raising the awareness of outside policy-makers to the importance of the forestry sector for sustainable development - runs through the interview with Mr Walton in this issue on the aims and results of last July's strategy meeting on tropical forestry in Bellagio, Italy. The aims of Bellagio, says Mr Walton, were advocacy and action. The result was a statement of support for the Tropical Forestry Action Plan and a call for all governments to integrate the forestry sector more fully into their national development plans and budgets.
So what's new about this, you may ask. It's what many foresters have been saying for years.
What's new is that most of the people at Bellagio were not foresters. They were government leaders, directors of development assistance and funding organizations, and heads of national planning and development agencies; decision-makers from outside the forestry sector. Brought together at the invitation of FAO, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank, the World Resources Institute and the Rockefeller Foundation, they concluded that forestry has not been given the attention it deserves in the developing world, and they agreed to meet again within a year's time to consider specific recommendations for action, which are now being prepared by an international task force.
In the meantime, steps are already under way by FAO and others to prepare a regional TFAP for Latin America add the Caribbean region, as described in the lead article of this issue. Here again, the need to carry the message to the highest political and planning levels is emphasized.
The organizations which sponsored the Bellagio meeting have produced an information booklet designed to inform those outside forestry about the TFAP process and foster their participation. The following four statements - "mini-editorials" - taken from this booklet eloquently describe what TFAP is all about.
"Deforestation and forest degradation can be arrested and ultimately reversed. Decades of experience have demonstrated successful ways to solve these problems and to fight rural poverty which underlies the tropical forest crisis."
Edouard Saouma, Director-General, FAO
"We hope this plan will stimulate financial commitments from developing and industrial country leaders, development assistance agencies and private sector for a greatly expanded and coordinated global effort to sustain tropical forest resources."
Barber B. Conable, President, World Bank
"Much of the environmental damage, decline in agricultural productivity and human suffering that developing countries are facing today could be reduced or avoided if decision-makers would only make a firm political commitment to forest conservation and development."
William Draper, Administrator, UNDP
"The Tropical Forestry Action Plan is not just about trees, but about people and their prospects for a better life. Society cannot afford further damage and degradation to the world's tropical forests."
James G. Speth, President, World Resources Institute
Not only the words, but their source as well, provides strong hope that the message of forestry for sustainable development in the tropics - and elsewhere in the developing world - will be heard and heeded in the months ahead.
