WORLD
Global Crisis Reduces Wood Demand: UN Report
2009-03-16 01:22pm
The global economic turmoil has resulted in reduced demand for wood, shrinking investments in industries and forest management, according to this year's United Nations 'State of the World's Forests' report.
The double challenges posed by the financial crisis and climate change are highlighting the need for bolstered forest management and stepped-up investments in science and technology, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) publication said, voicing concern that the economic downturn could lead governments to water down ambitious 'green' targets.
The report says that countries in the early stages of development, which suffer from institutional weaknesses, struggle with forestry decisions, facing the difficult choice between short-term and long-term benefits. It says that in the coming decades, demand worldwide for wood products and environmental services will increase, with the use of wood as a source of energy on the rise, although this could be attributed to the recent economic downturn.
It also stated that there is a possibility that countries may focus their energies on reversing the economic downturn, diluting their green goals and putting off decisions on climate change mitigation and adaptation, including actions on slashing emissions from deforestation.
The report pointed to opportunities stemming from the financial turmoil, such as green development to spur tree-planting and increased investments in sustainable forest management.
The report was called alarming by environmental umbrella organisations Friends of the Earth International (FEI) and the Global Forest Coalition (GFC), who called on world governments to take immediate action to halt deforestation and forest degradation.
They said the report confirms that deforestation rates continue to be shockingly high in many countries despite increased awareness that forests, which host more than 70 percent of terrestrial biodiversity, play a key role not only in sustaining the livelihoods of more than one billion people but also in mitigating climate change.
The FEI and GFC pointed out that the FAO report notes that the expansion of large-scale monocultures of oil palm, soy and other crops for agrofuel production has been a key factor in the failure to halt deforestation.
The report also states that "the potential for large-scale commercial production of cellulosic biofuel will have unprecedented impacts on the forest sector."
The environmental groups say another driver for deforestation is illegal logging, as 20 percent of the world's timber supply comes from illegal sources. The FAO report notes that illegal logging could increase due to the global economic crisis, as it might cause a contraction of the formal forestry sector.
The FEI and GFC say that another worrying trend is the massive replacement of forests by large-scale tree plantations in many countries.
The coordinator of the Forest and Biodiversity Program of Friends of the Earth International, Isaac Rojas, says that plantations are not forests.
"All over the world, plantations destroy the lands and livelihoods of local communities and Indigenous Peoples, as well as biodiversity and water resources. They also store far less carbon than natural forests," he said.
And the managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition, Simone Lovera, said as they provide very little employment for rural people, tree plantations are also a major cause of rural depopulation and a further shifting agricultural frontier, thus causing the destruction of forests elsewhere.
"By actively promoting monoculture tree plantations, FAO itself is partly responsible for this global trend of replacing biologically diverse forests with straight rows of usually non-native trees," she said.
(c) NewsRoom 2009