On February 10 1997, an "International Citizen Declaration Against a Global Forests Convention" was issued by environmental groups such as Greenpeace, WWF-International and Friends of the Earth. This declaration, which allegedly represents the views of millions of people, constitutes a 180 degree change in position from earlier NGOs' positions. It conveys a relatively widespread conventional wisdom among environmental groups that a Global Forests Convention would be detrimental to the world's forests.

Not surprisingly, most of the arguments now advanced by environmental groups to oppose a legally binding agreement on forests lack substance. They are in fact a reflection of the improvisation with which they have been drawn, and of the growing inability of these groups to positively influence decision making regarding international forestry.

Let's take for example the suggestion that the Biodiversity Convention and other existing agreements and initiatives would be more appropriate to address global forestry issues than institutions under a Global Forests Convention. This can be seriously questioned because there is currently a very high institutional fragmentation regarding global forestry. Biodiversity is only one dimension of sustainable forestry so that it is far from obvious that the Biodiversity Convention is the right forum to address sustainable forestry at the global level. Regarding other existing agreements and organisations, the main actors in the forestry field are the Tropical Forest Action Programme and the International Tropical Timber Organisation. It would be absurd for environmental groups to suggest that these are adequate, as they often have been extremely critical of the work of these organisations in the forestry sector. They have for years publicly and strongly opposed the development of the Tropical Forestry Action Plan led by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. They have also been radically opposed to the International Tropical Timber Organisation as a forum addressing global forestry issues, highlighting its narrow focus on internationally traded tropical timber.

One is thus left wondering which existing agreement or organisation would, as
environmental NGOs suggest, have its operations impeded by a Global Forests Convention. Or conversely, what existing agreements with legally enforcing power are in place to deal with at least some key components of international forestry. Let us not loose sight of the fact that the Tropical Forest Action Programme and the International Tropical Timber Organisation refer only to tropical forests, that is, mainly, the forests of developing countries. And that both the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on Climate Change refer to very specific issues regarding forests, while encompassing many other subjects not directly related to forests. Deforestation and forest degradation, for example, represent only about 10 per cent of the greenhouse effect. The international institutional setting regarding forests is far from satisfactory: the institutional status quo cannot be conducive of substantial progress towards global forest sustainability.

Another area where the position of environmental NGOs defies any reason is that of voluntary timber certification. Environmental NGOs argue that a Global Forests Convention would not be suitable because it would threaten timber certification. It can however be argued that timber certification, and not a Global Forests Convention, constitutes the most dangerous diversion from the real forestry problems that must urgently be addressed. The impact on sustainable forest management of the voluntary certification / labelling of forest products is uncertain and likely to be, at best, marginal. This was confirmed by the conclusions of the International Conference on Certification and Labelling of Products from Sustainably Managed Forests held last summer in Australia and by a number of studies and academic publications. It could not be otherwise, since a combination of instruments and policies are needed to achieve sustainable forest management world-wide, particularly on an equitable basis for both industrialised and developing countries. Sustainable forest management can obviously take place without any certification of timber, which clearly indicates that certification is a rather subsidiary instrument.

The problem is that certain NGOs have become extremely attached to certification. This is partly in defence of the ill-perceived power attached to their control of the process; partly for the political need to show their constituency that they are finally doing something allegedly effective to improve forest management; and partly for financial reasons. WWF receives, for example, very substantial grants from the European Commission to develop certification while the Forest Stewardship Council (see below) does not only get grants but charges for its labels. As most environmental NGOs systematically claim that certification is a key to achieving sustainable forestry, it has become very difficult for them to acknowledge the shortcomings of their analyses. In the meantime, more appropriate policies to achieve sustainable forestry are not vigorously implemented, particularly in the tropics, which is having the most detrimental consequences for forest and biodiversity conservation.

Let's now turn to the timber certification initiative most cherished by environmental groups--the Forest Stewardship Council. This Council, which is to a large extent a creation of WWF, has already demonstrated a serious lack of professionalism and a blatant inability to handle the task it has assigned itself. This is illustrated in the two following examples. First, a Dutch investment scheme in Costa Rica--Flor y Fauna--was able to claim that their teak plantations were sustainably managed according to a certification program operated by the New York based Rainforest Alliance following the Forest Stewardship Council standards, and despite a clear violation of these same standards. The company involved further claimed, in conjunction with WWF, that they would yield a highly attractive financial return, thanks to the combination of absurdly speculative prices and fantastical timber yields of 50 cubic meters per hectare and per year (against about 10 cubic meters in the real world). It was the Dutch Advertising Standards Committee, and not the Forest Stewardship Council, that had to halt the deceitful and fraudulent claims. WWF-Netherlands did not intervene either, most probably because it is a partner of the Flor y Fauna teak venture. The Forest Stewardship Council has proved unable to rule on the case, which has become a dramatic demonstration of its lack of professional competence and of the conflict of interest posed by the presence of WWF on its board of directors.

A second example where incompetence of the Forest Stewardship Council has transpired is that of the certification that was granted by the Swiss Société Générale de Surveillance to a French/German company, Isoroy, operating in Gabon (Central Africa). The absence of legal protection of the certified forests (violating a most basic principle of sustainable forest management) was not enough to prevent certification from being granted. Gabonese local environmental groups found out, however, that the company was operating into one of the few legally protected forest reserves of Gabon and that the certificate had been issued without them being properly consulted. They consequently asked for cancellation of the certificate and "deaccreditation" of the Société Générale de Surveillance as a certifying body. The Forest Stewardship Council has now decided to proceed with an internal review. While the attention focused on the Isoroy case, one obviously did not investigate what effective actions could be taken to save the tropical forests in Gabon, demonstrating that certification is more a distraction than anything else.

Like with timber certification, the world's forests could do pretty well without the series of blunders made by the Forest Stewardship Council in its short existence. Conversely, allowing increased influence of that body--which isn't accountable to any governments, parliaments or international agreement--is likely to translate into further deforestation and biodiversity depletion.

Regarding timing and the alleged importance of delaying the negotiation of a treaty on forests, it must be stressed that environmental groups usually emphasize that governments are slow and not active enough to achieve sustainability, especially in light of current alarming deforestation trends. In 1990, NGOs from around the world supported the urgent development of a new legally-binding forests convention. Now, they argue that delaying the negotiation of a Global Forests Convention to at least the year 2000 (statement on April 10 at the Commission on Sustainable Development) is going to be positive for the world's forests. Is this delay for the purpose of letting initiatives such as the Forest Stewardship Council further develop their dubious activities? Or is it for the purpose of pursuing some other hidden agendas? The NGOs' arguments don't make much sense and are mostly a reflection of the self-interests involved. As Patrick Moore--a founding member of Greenpeace and the Forest Alliance of British Columbia (one of the few NGOs not supporting the "International Citizen Declaration Against a Global Forests Convention")--said on February 14, "this is not the time to delay; this is the time to move forward boldly and to get on with the urgent task of negotiating an agreement on forests."

Hard work is needed to save the world's forests and obstruction to a legally-binding treaty is not going to help forest management and conservation--i.e. , the cause environmental groups are supposed to defend. There is an urgent need to stop current piecemeal approaches to international forestry. There is an urgent need for a vast renewed effort to curb the destruction of natural forests in the tropics, which are still disappearing at the alarming rate of 12.9 million hectares per year. There is an urgent need to stop the laissez-faire policy of timber certification, which gives the illusion of a shortcut to sustainable forest management. There is an urgent need to conduct in-depth reforms in the international institutional framework regarding forests. And yes, there is an urgent need for countries to commit themselves, in a legally binding manner, to the implementation of sustainable forest management.

© 1997 Jean-Pierre Kiekens

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