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The broader development perspective
An
agenda for action
Management of the world's patrimony of forests in a rational and sustainable manner is one of the critical challenges facing the human race. It is essential to be realistic in tackling it.
The pressures leading to the loss of forests originate mainly from outside the forestry sector, and they are certain to continue in the medium-term future (see e.g. FAO, 1988b). The immediate need is for constructive interventions and support for actions that will reduce damage while laying the foundations for the stabilization and ultimate sustainable management of the remaining forests. Enough of such interventions have already been identified to provide an agenda for immediate and urgent action.
The broader development perspective
Forest depletion in the developing world is not fundamentally rooted in logging or even in clearing for agriculture. It is rooted in poverty, underdevelopment and population growth. It is the success in confronting these challenges that will ultimately determine the fate of the greater part of the world's forests.
Condemnation of developing countries for the way in which they are exploiting their forest resources is futile. The processes of encroachment and forest clearing are for all practical purposes unstoppable at the present levels of economic development in the great majority of the tropical countries. The best that can be expected, and it is well worth striving for, is that the processes be managed in a way that makes them less harmful and self-defeating by maintaining a sufficient presence of trees and woodland integrated within farming systems. At the same time, the forests of the tropics must increasingly be brought under effective management to reach the point where they constitute a sound land-use option that provides income for local people and is economically sustainable.
Industrialized countries have no grounds for moral superiority in environmental matters. They remain primarily responsible for ozone depletion, the threat of global warming, most of the use of irreplaceable fossil fuel resources and the depletion of fish stocks and other biological resources. In their climb to their present level of development, their own forest resources have been cleared and exploited as social and economic necessity dictated.
The industrialized countries cannot now expect to pull up the ladder by which they themselves have climbed to prosperity. In urging developing countries to conserve forest resources, they must be sensitive to charges of eco-colonialism or eco-bullying and must accept that they too not only must behave responsibly but also must bear a fair share of the costs of conserving the global environment.
It is also essential to recognize the fundamental differences in socioeconomic conditions between the industrialized and developing worlds. The industrialized world has reduced its rate of population growth; it is able to feed its people from a restricted area of sustainably managed land; it is able to provide the basic necessities of clean water, health care and education; it has secure and abundant energy supplies. Many of the industrialized countries have learned how to conserve and utilize their forest resources for sustainable yield of forest products (although there may still be some way to go before fully sustainable forest management is in place). All of these advances, which are taken for granted by the citizens of the industrialized world, are priority targets for the governments of most developing countries. For the majority of people living in the poorest countries, they are still distant dreams.
Clearing the forests will continue as long as people in the developing countries need to find new land to keep themselves from hunger. People and countries that cannot afford the transition to other fuels will continue to bum fuelwood and charcoal. The use of renewable sources of energy as such is to be encouraged; what is harmful is the lack of management of the resource. The same financial and economic pressures that drive the resource exploitation and export industries of the industrialized world will ensure that countries with forest resources will use them for their own internal use or to generate export earnings. The problem is to avoid exploitation of the forest resource and to ensure sound management.
Rising populations contribute to the pressure on the forest lands of the tropics. The world population is now 5 400 million. The forecast is for 6 250 million by the end of this century and 8 500 million by 2025. The major part of this increase will occur in the poorer countries and among the poorest people within them.
While population growth is obviously a cause of much of the pressure on forest lands, it also has to be seen as a symptom of the underlying economic and social position in which people find themselves. When educational and living standards rise the numbers of children decline; as an illustration, women with secondary education in Brazil have an average of 2.5 children while those with little education have an average of 6.5.
Family planning programmes have an obvious role. Many women want to have fewer children but are deprived of the means of doing so; family planning programmes will provide the means. But simply providing the means to limit families will not persuade people to do so unless they are convinced that this makes sense in the economic and social conditions in which they find themselves
In today's increasingly crowded and polluted world, no country can ignore what is happening elsewhere, particularly on or near its borders. The common future of humanity requires that countries act together. This requires understanding, compromise and mutual respect and assistance. Helping the countries of the developing world to make the demographic and economic transitions that will enable them to conserve and manage their forests is in everyone's interests, for the benefit of their own populations as well as the whole of humanity.
Forestry
in land use
Rural
development
Institutional
action
Planning
Forest conservation through management
The following actions and policy changes are all within the immediate power of governments and the sphere of the international agencies. If promoted in all zones they should ultimately lead to the sustainable, multipurpose management of natural forests and plantations, the rehabilitation of degraded forests and reforestation. They do not ask for present sacrifices to ensure benefits in the distant future; they make sense in the short term as well as in the long term.
Implementing these actions would do a great deal to defend the forests against the pressures upon them now. It would also set policy in the right direction to lead to stabilization, management and protection of the world's forest heritage.
- Harmonize regulations covering all forms of land use (especially forestry and agriculture) and the environment to ensure consistency in the move towards sustainability.
- Ensure that the conversion of forest land to agriculture is done within the framework of a land-use plan and that land converted to farming is suitable for sustainable agriculture.
- Develop integrated and sustainable land-use systems. Train extension service staff to promote the maintenance or establishment of trees and woodlots within farmland as part of sustainable agricultural systems.
- Increase agricultural productivity with appropriate technology to raise food production with less dependence on horizontal expansion at the expense of forests.
- Encourage off-farm sources of income and employment in rural areas, giving special attention to the landless and rural poor as beneficiaries of these opportunities.
- Develop forest policies that promote sustainable forest management in the broadest sense.
- Reform forestry legislation and regulations to provide a consistent and comprehensive framework for the long-term sustainability of forests and for the participation of people who depend on them for their management.
- Strengthen forestry services and staff capabilities (by training and motivation of staff through incentives, reorganization, etc. as appropriate) to provide advice and support for the implementation of sustainable management programmes that are economically feasible, socially acceptable and environmentally sound.
- Promote collaboration and coordination and a multidisciplinary approach among institutions involved in all aspects of land use.
- Provide training to all involved m rural development (including foresters and agricultural staff) in participatory planning and management, with emphasis on the linkages between forest management and sustainable development.
- Support the drawing up and implementation of forest action plans in all countries, with due emphasis on the sustainable management of natural forests and the systematic integration of actions to maintain biodiversity and to ensure forest protection.
Forest conservation through management
- Encourage the creation and protection of conservation areas in forest ecosystems, especially primary forests.
- Carry out research into technical, social and economic aspects of sustainable forest management. Special attention should be devoted to developing countries and particularly to traditional methods, with emphasis on research into the implementation of participatory approaches, the identification of user needs, methods for the valuation of all forest goods and services and environmentally appropriate techniques for tree planting and harvesting.
- Promote systems of harvesting that ensure the continued supply of forest goods and services and maintain biodiversity.
- Promote long-term management contracts in public forests to enforce environmentally sound forestry practices and to develop partnership arrangements involving local communities, concessionaires, traders in forest products and other interest groups.
- Encourage the broad participation of rural people in drawing up and implementing forest management plans for common property resources, and provide adequate incentives and technical support to encourage collective responsibility and initiatives by local groups.
- Promote the regeneration and management of degraded forest lands in collaboration with local communities to meet their needs and goals, providing assistance and training where required.
All these activities require information, technical skills, political commitment and funding. It is up to the industrialized world to ensure that the burden of providing what is required does not rest entirely on the shoulders of the developing countries. Securing the future of the world's forests is a truly global task in which humanity as a whole must collaborate if progress is to be made and success is eventually to be achieved.