Rape of the Environment

The Value of Forests

Ten thousand years ago, at the end of the last major ice age, well over 50% of the world's land surface was covered with forests. Roughly half this vast forest was tropical, with the rest divided more or less equally between the cooler temperate forests and the boreal forests of the cold north.

Today, although about 30% of the globe is still covered with trees, only a fifth of that original primeval forest remains intact. These ancient forests survive in some of the last remote places on earth - Siberia, northern Canada, Papua New Guinea, Amazonia, and the Congo Basin in West and Central Africa. But even these remnants are increasingly threatened by uncontrolled logging, oil and mineral exploitation, road and dam building, industrial development and the impact of poor, often land-less farmers who are forced to clear the forests to survive.

As recently as fifty years ago, 15% of the earth's land surface was covered in tropical rainforests; today less than half is left. Worldwide, almost half a million hectares of forest are destroyed or seriously degraded each week. Large-scale forest destruction is often followed by climate disruption, which, in drier countries with poor soils often leads to desertification. Once a desert forms or expands it is difficult to restore the land and make it productive again. This problem of growing deserts now affects over 100 countries worldwide and is almost always associated with forest destruction.

Apart from their economic importance as sources of timber, forests are also important reservoirs of biological diversity - biodiversity for short - the technical term that describes the millions of plants and animals with which we share the planet. Many scientists believe that the world's forests are home to between 50% and 90% of all the planet's plant and animal species.

With the destruction of forests and other natural areas, the planet is experiencing the greatest extinction of plants and animals since the disappearance of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. However, this time we are responsible. If current trends continue, 25% of the world's species could become extinct or be reduced to tiny fragment populations by the middle of the next century. Nobody knows exactly how many species there are on earth - estimates run between 10 and 100 million - but what we do know is that, to date, scientists have only classified a million or so. In other words species are disappearing before we even know they exist! And who knows what natural wonders are being lost forever as a result of greed and ignorance.

The renowned Harvard University professor E.O. Wilson in his recent book The Diversity of Life gives countless examples to show why we should be concerned about the extinction of species.

The recent controversy over the logging of old-growth temperate rainforests in the Pacific north-west of the United States and Canada illustrates the dilemma. The focus for the conflict between environmentalists and loggers in the US was the endangered spotted owl (Strix occidentalis). Loggers and their supporters drove cars with bumper stickers reading "I like spotted owl pie" and "Eat an owl, save a logger" and the head of public relations for a major industry group likened "preservationists" to "subversive elements.... the same people who opposed the Vietnam War and are in favour of abortion". Conservationists, on the other hand, took direct action to blockade logging roads and spiked trees to prevent chain saws cutting through them. The loggers on their side wanted to continue cutting the last remnants of primeval forest (90% had already been felled), while the environmentalists were determined to protect an endangered species. The major local industry around the owl's range was affected, the financial stakes were high, and the confrontation was emotional. "Are we really expected to sacrifice thousands of jobs for a handful of birds?" asked the loggers. "Must we deprive future generations of a race of birds for a few more years of timber?" asked environmentalists.

However, this focus on a single species clouded an arguably more important issue, the rapid destruction of an entire habitat with thousands of other plants and animals, the majority still unclassified by scientists. As it turned out, a rather unimpressive yew tree was to further illustrate the importance of conserving forests, not just to guarantee timber supplies but also to ensure a wide range of other goods and services into the future. The Pacific or western yew had been largely ignored as it was of no commercial value for timber and was therefore considered a weed species to be eliminated from the logger's point of view. We now know that this humble looking tree contains taxol, one of the most potent anti-cancer substances ever found.

The debate therefore, should not be just about whether to log or not, it should be about how to optimise the benefits from the forest now and into the future. In other words, how to manage the forest sustainably.

As Wilson puts it, "...when the entire habitat is destroyed, almost all of the species are destroyed. Not just eagles and pandas disappear but also the smallest invisible players that make up the foundation of the ecosystem", and guarantee the future of life on earth.

The Founding of the World Wildlife Foundation

In 1960, Sir Julian Huxley went to East Africa and was shocked by what he saw. On his return he wrote a series of articles for The Observer newspaper in which he warned the British public that natural areas were being destroyed and animals hunted at such a rate that much of the region's wildlife could disappear within the next 20 years. This alerted members of the public and the scientific community to the fact that there was a growing environmental crisis and that nature conservation was a serious issue not just a hobby, because species extinction is forever. The following year WWF was founded to raise funds for projects specifically designed to save endangered species from extinction.

WWF and Forests

From the beginning WWF has always given special importance to forest conservation. In the early days the emphasis was on conserving species and their immediate surroundings, what ecologists call their habitat. So, forests were valued as habitats for important wildlife species such as lions, tigers and rhinos. In 1973 WWF collaborated with the Indian government to establish nine tiger reserves all associated with different forest types. However, at that time very few projects were set up to protect trees or forests for their own sake, or for their ecological or commercial importance.

One notable exception was a project established in 1967 to survey and conserve the Yaheb nut tree (Cordeauxia edulis). This small tree, found in the Horn of Africa, is much prized for its nuts, which are an important food for the people living in these semi-desert regions. The project can be seen as an early forerunner of many of WWF's present forest conservation projects, which emphasise the value of non-timber forest products to indigenous and local people, as well as recognising the crucial role of forests at the global level.

In the 1970s the importance of conserving whole ecosystems was recognised, and in 1975 WWF launched its first worldwide tropical rainforest campaign, raising money and arranging for dozens of representative tropical rainforest areas in Central and West Africa, South-East

Asia, and Latin America to be managed as national parks or forest reserves.

The 1980s saw the emphasis gradually shift again from a relatively narrow focus on nature to a broader approach that began to link people and their needs to conservation. An increasing number of people-oriented projects were developed and a more sophisticated understanding of the often subtle connections between people and forests emerged. In many of these new projects the focus was on learning from the forest management systems and traditional knowledge of indigenous people. Several of these initiatives resulted in the formation of alliances between conservationists and indigenous peoples' groups, particularly when faced with the growing threat to forests from commercial logging interests.

In the early 1990s, following the publication of Forests in Trouble - a WWF report on the status of temperate and boreal forests worldwide - it became clear that there was a global crisis facing forests and that there were just as many problems occurring in the developed countries of the North as there were in the developing world. The destruction was not just happening in the tropical rainforests, it was spreading everywhere. We now know that the world's forests - temperate, boreal, and tropical - are faced with two critical problems:

Deforestation

Natural forests, especially old growth and semi-natural areas, are being cleared and replaced with roads, dams, buildings, mines and agriculture. Loss of Forest Quality

Even where the forest area remains constant or is expanding, as in some parts of Europe, degradation often occurs. Natural forests are weakened as a result of human influences, including pollution, climate change, the increased incidence of fire or their replacement by intensively managed forests or plantations that have lower levels of biodiversity.

Causes of Destruction

The underlying causes of forest destruction and degradation are varied and often occur far away from the forest itself. Key issues include: unsustainable levels of consumption; the effects of national debt; pressure for increased trade and development; poverty; patterns of land ownership; growing populations; and social relationships including gender relations. These underlying causes are often ignored in explanations of why forests are being destroyed rather than managed sustainably. It is more usual to blame forest destruction on poor farmers in the South rather than examine in any detail the effects of political and economic activities at the international level.

Consumption

Today, a fifth of the world's population, mostly in North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australasia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and the oil-rich countries of the Middle East, consumes 80% of the world's resources. This fact has important impacts on forests, directly through the use of timber and pulp, and also through the exploitation of other resources such as oil and minerals which encourage forest clearance.

Debt

Debt remains a crushing problem for many poor countries, and currently exceeds US$1 trillion. Of the 17 most indebted countries, 14 have tropical forests, including Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, Zaire, Indonesia and the Philippines. In practice many countries pay off their debts by cashing in their natural resources such as timber. Often timber is sold below market value in order to undercut the competition and earn the foreign currency required to pay the debt.

Trade and Development

International competition for markets can lead to the undervaluing of forest products and frequently the longer-term environmental and social costs of logging operations are ignored. The World Trade Organisation (WTO), which exists to promote and monitor free trade, does not allow countries to discriminate against imported goods on environmental grounds, effectively removing incentives to improve environmental performance in either production systems or import controls. The expansion of global trading relationships has also encouraged the growth of massive trans-national corporations, which dominate the timber trade, controlling 80-90% of the commerce in forest products. The role of multilateral development banks (MDBs) and bilateral aid agencies in promoting forest destruction is well known. For example, the World Bank has funded the Indonesian transmigration programme resettling hundreds of thousands of people in areas previously only sparsely inhabited by indigenous tribes. This has resulted in the destruction of huge tracts of lowland rainforest. MDBs have also funded numerous major dam projects around the world, many of which have resulted in the flooding of thousands of hectares of forest land.

Poverty

Unemployment encourages forest loss, through illegal timber felling, smuggling of forest products and other illegal activities such as mining. Economic policies in the North and unequal terms of trade have tended to increase rather than alleviate poverty. People without any hope or future have little incentive to manage forest resources well, and often have no other choice but to exploit them unsustainably, for short-term survival.

Population

There is no simple relationship between "overpopulation" and forest loss. Indeed the most significant links between population and environmental degradation are those of consumption and pollution by people in the rich countries. Although over the next few years population growth looks set to increase tenfold, the countries of the North will still remain the major consumers. At present rates the average US citizen consumes forty times more than the average citizen in Asia or Africa. Nevertheless there are cases where population growth in the South has had a damaging effect on forests, for example as a result of agricultural expansion and increased firewood and timber harvesting.

Land Ownership

Pressures are increased in many countries because most of the productive land is owned by a few people, thus forcing the poor and the land-less to clear forests for farming. In Peru, 93% of the agricultural land is owned by 10% of landowners and in Brazil 60% of families are land-less. Unequal land ownership patterns are not confined to developing countries. For example, in the UK the wealthiest 1% of the population owns over 50% of all privately owned land. The problem is seldom related to the total number of people so much as the number of people without access to agricultural land.

Social Relationships

Social relationships, and especially the position of women in society, play a key role in shaping attitudes towards forests. In many developing countries women have the most direct involvement in forests, gathering fuel-wood, collecting animal feed and leaf litter from the forest floor for composting, and often clearing forest areas to create new fields. However, they are often the last to be consulted or involved when governments or aid agencies develop strategies for improving forest management. This can lead to conflicts within the communities involved and a lack of support for tree-planting schemes and other well-intentioned development projects.

The most direct cause of forest degradation and loss today is the activities of the international timber trade. Recent research carried out by WWF International's Forest Team, published in the book Bad Harvest, reveals that logging is the single most important cause of loss and forest degradation around the world. Of the 233 most important centres of plant diversity worldwide, 79% are at immediate risk. More than half these sites are directly threatened as a result of commercial logging. Currently, only 6% of the world's 5,000 million hectares of forest are formally protected. However, we know that there are many protected areas that no longer have trees, due to agricultural encroachment, overgrazing and illegal logging.

Bad Harvest

For many years the timber trade has claimed that it plays a negligible role in forest loss, and that most deforestation is caused by agricultural clearance or fuel-wood collection. Population growth rather than commercial exploitation has been blamed as the underlying problem. Our research has led us to the opposite conclusion.

Taking the survival of biodiversity as a major criterion, WWF has shown that the timber trade is currently the most important cause of loss and forest degradation around the world. This conclusion is based on a number of factors.

Following centuries of exploitation, most forest ecosystems are severely threatened. Surviving areas of natural or semi-natural forest are extremely important for ensuring the survival of countless plants and animals. The earth currently has large areas of recently cleared forest and middle-age forest. Far less common, especially in the North but increasingly also in the South, are old-growth forests. These forests, containing a high proportion of trees more than a hundred years old, are home to many plants and animals that can only live in forests that have been relatively undisturbed for hundreds of years. It is precisely these old-growth forests that are targeted by loggers. There is no accident in the overlap between forests rich in wildlife and forests with large-scale timber operations. These old forests contain the oldest and therefore in many cases the biggest and most commercially valuable trees.

The timber trade is also responsible for a dramatic reduction in the quality of many forests. From the perspective of biodiversity there is often little to choose between replacing a natural forest with a plantation and losing it altogether. In either case the majority of the native wildlife species cannot survive. So any analysis of the timber trade's impact must consider the biological quality of the forest that remains after their operations have been completed.

Previous emphasis on problems in tropical rainforests has obscured the events in other forests. When the WWF study looked at all forests, the role of the timber trade immediately grew in significance. In almost all temperate and boreal countries possessing substantial areas of old-growth forest, the timber trade is now undoubtedly the primary cause of forest loss.

In addition, industry assessments of the volumes of timber entering international trade tend to rely on official government figures. In fact, in some countries with severe deforestation, the timber recorded by the Ministry of Forests is only a small proportion of the actual fellings and exports. Huge quantities of illegal timber enter the international trade, with or without the knowledge and complicity of importers. Countries where illegal logging is having an important but largely unquantified impact on natural forests include (not a complete list): Kenya, Zaire, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, and the Russian Federation. Until recently, 80% of the mahogany leaving Brazil was exported illegally. As time goes on, the relative impact of the timber trade increases. Natural forest has been reduced to fragments in many countries. As the area of high quality natural forest declines, the proportion that is damaged by the timber trade continues to grow.

The actions of the national and international timber trade are now critical to the survival of most of the world's biologically richest forests and therefore to the majority of the planet's plants and animals.

The Way Forward

The next few years will decide whether or not we enter the next millennium with a full range of rich and diverse forest ecosystems. Although the situation is grave, there are some optimistic signs. A growing section of the timber trade is prepared to take environmental issues seriously and to work with conservation organisations to change the way it does business. Developments such as the founding of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the establishment of Buyers Groups, consisting of companies committed to only buying and selling wood products that come from forests independently certified as "well-managed", point the way forward.

WWF's Forest Programme

Today, WWF's Forest Programme supports more than 350 field projects aimed at conserving all types of forests, including tropical rainforests, temperate woodlands and the conifer forests of the cold northern latitudes. In addition to these field projects, WWF's Forest Unit at the headquarters in Switzerland co-ordinates the international policy work for the organisation as a whole.

In response to the WWF Mission, WWF's Forest Network has agreed the following overarching goal for the WWF Network's forest conservation work:

"To halt and reverse the loss and degradation of forests and all kinds of woodlands (especially old-growth forests) by the year 2000."

The world's forests (tropical, temperate, and boreal) remain under extreme threat. Despite the fine words and commitments made by governments at the Earth Summit (UNCED) in June 1992, the last three-and-a-half years have seen increased levels of forest loss in many tropical countries. Worse still, it is becoming clear that the stable or expanding forest area in temperate and boreal countries has been disguising a rapid decline in quality in many of these forests and, of late, increasing clear-felling in parts of Canada and Siberia. Intensive forest practices, especially the conversion of natural forests to plantations and clearance for agriculture, have set many species on the road to extinction. The mass extinction of plants and animals will become reality unless urgent changes in forest management are implemented. New threats, including the current enthusiasm for genetic engineering (clonal propagation), further reduces biodiversity and, as a result, the resilience of forest ecosystems.

Forest Programme Strategy

To meet this challenge the Forest Programme, which includes the WWF Forests For Life Campaign, and which is guided by the Forest Advisory Group, has developed the following strategic objectives which inform both the WWF and IUCN networks' policy and field programmes around the world.

• Establishment of an ecologically representative network of protected areas (covering at least 10% of the world's forest area by the year 2000).

• Achievement of environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable forest management outside protected areas.

• Development and implementation of ecologically and socially appropriate forest restoration programmes.

• Reduction of forest damage from global change (includes terrestrial pollution and climate change).

• Use of forest goods and services (including soil and watershed protection) at levels that do not damage the environment, including the elimination of wasteful consumption.

Campaign Targets

In addition to the activities carried out by the Forest Network to achieve the above objectives, there are two targets, agreed by the Forest Advisory Group, which are being promoted through the global Forests for Life Campaign:

Conclusion

In view of the increasing rate of deforestation in the tropics and the loss of quality in temperate and boreal forests, it is necessary to take urgent measures to maintain and, where necessary, restore the forests of the world so that they can meet a wide range of human and non-human needs. Forest management systems must be based on the principle of sustainability, i.e. management must be environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable. A prerequisite for maintaining the multiple functions of forests is the conservation of biodiversity at the genetic, species, and ecosystem levels. In future, the emphasis should shift from a (narrow) production focus to collaborative approaches to forest management that will ensure the conservation of biodiversity and the maintenance of the forests' environmental functions, as these are the basis upon which any human use of forests depends.

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