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To: |
"Oriental Birding" <> |
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Subject: |
[OB] Coruption and Forst Destruction |
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From: |
"K. David Bishop" <> |
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Date: |
Wed, 31 May 2000 17:38:18 -0700 |
31st May 2000
Dear Orient Birders,
I was sufficiently horrified to read the following article which just came my
way.Given its import I thought it should recieve the maximum exposure. Please
pass it on to others who might find it of interest.
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Forest corruption report covered up
Governments, big business, World Bank and IMF named in investigation
The European Commission: special report
Paul Brown, Environment correspondent
Monday May 29, 2000
A devastating report about the destruction of tropical forests by
multinational companies has been suppressed for three years by the European
commission and World Wide Fund for Nature.
The report named companies prepared to bribe and bully their way to
lucrative logging concessions. It also blamed the International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank for inducing countries to sell their forests for a quick
cash return to pay off debts to western countries.
The European commission, which paid the researchers nearly £200,000 for
the work, was fearful of the repercussions if they named names and asked for a
second version with the names taken out - but even this version was watered
down.
A third version still makes clear that EU funds being poured into
developing countries to ensure forests are carefully managed are frequently
being wasted. Forest laws were enacted but no action taken.
The well-respected authors from the World Resources Institute and WWF
said they were so disturbed by what they found that they recommended a
moratorium on all further logging in 11 countries - Cameroon, Gabon, Congo
(Brazzaville), Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea and the Democratic
Republic of Congo in central Africa; Belize, Surinam and Guyana in the
Caribbean rim; and Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the South
Pacific rim. This should last until bribery scandals had been investigated and
proper environmental standards enforced, they said.
They also recommended an end to EU aid until these issues were addressed
- but no action has been taken. The report says: "The new investments [by Asian
multinational companies] have been concentrated in countries with generally
weak or outdated environmental and social laws and little enforcement capacity.
The governments of these countries are easy pickings to foreign investors as
they have weak forest services, poor monitoring capacity, inefficient tax
collection and auditing capacity, and in some cases widespread bribery and
corruption.
"Many of the countries are suffering severe economic difficulties with
large foreign debts, high inflation and unemployment. In the majority of
countries studied, decision making is controlled by a small group of powerful
people or clans within the government that look at primary forests of their
country as a short-term source of personal revenue, not as a productive
ecosystem which can generate social, economic and ecological benefits on the
long term for the entire country and its people."
Corruption
The Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Cameroon and Belize were all named
as suffering large-scale corruption.
"In some countries administrative procedures facilitate widespread
corruption. Senior officials in countries such as Papua New Guinea have been
shown to be taking decisions to award logging rights in exchange for bribes."
The report says although European companies have in the past indulged in
bad practices the scale of the new incursions was much larger and that: "The
logging itself is often very careless, with high collateral damage to the
surrounding forest. The roads built to extract the timber often hundreds of
kilometres long create access to frontier areas that facilitate the entry of
commercial hunts, farmers, miners and others who cause further environmental
damage." The companies frequently end up in violent clashes with local people
and native tribes.
It blames the main donors to these countries - the World Bank, Japan, the
EU, France, Germany, the UK and the US - for failing to enforce their own rules
to promote forest conservation and responsible management. In fact the World
Bank and IMF make things worse by imposing monetary reform on the countries,
the report says. These countries are urged to allow in multinational companies
and governments are urged to sell their forests for cash to pay back debts.
The report says if substantial action is not taken soon by governments,
donor agencies and investors, as well as environmental and social pressure
groups, much of the remaining virgin primary forests in the Caribbean rim,
Central Africa and Pacific will be lost within five to 10 years, due to the
expansion of unsustainable logging operations.
The original report was completed in 1997 and the EU cleared a
twice-revised version for publication, printing 5,000 copies. Its press launch
in July last year was blocked by the WWF, some of whose employees had carried
out the research. The organisation feared that some of the governments
concerned, particularly Malaysia, would close down WWF offices.
A weaker version of the report has now been prepared and, because the
European commission refused to foot the bill, the WWF pulped the original 5,000
copies and has paid to print 2,000 of the latest version. The organisation
claimed in a statement to the Guardian that it had to correct some
"inaccuracies" and hopes this new version will be published in July.
Expert authors
The Guardian has seen the first three versions of the report - including
the original draft that details the names of companies and individuals involved
in bribery scandals. The main authors of the report are Nigel Sizer, an expert
for the World Resources Institute in Washington and Dominiek Plouvier, a
forestry consultant who works for WWF in Belgium. All their work was
peer-reviewed in the countries concerned and by other forestry experts before
being submitted.
Mr Sizer said: "Of course I was deeply disappointed that the report was
not published. A few things were corrected in the peer review process. We were
very careful about the conclusions we drew in the report. The commission was
concerned and asked some of the names to be removed but I stand by everything
that appeared in the drafts. My reputation and that of the Institute depends on
getting things right. Lack of accuracy was not the reason the report was
withheld."
A commission spokesman said: "We asked originally for some of the names
to be removed and for some revisions but were satisfied with the later versions
of the report. It was WWF that intervened to prevent publication last year. The
new version of the report has now been delivered by them and will be
distributed to interested parties when a list had been drawn up." Officials of
the commission would now consider the report's findings.
WWF's senior forest officer, Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud, said WWF had been
anxious to name names but was concerned that many of the companies were Asian
and the organisation did not want to appear to be Asian-bashing. After the
Asian financial crisis the report was held up for updating.
Papua New Guinea
If the forests were sustainably managed and harvested, it is estimated
that the annual income to the country could be as much as £2bn. However massive
corruption in the issue of timber permits, failure to monitor exports, and low
royalties and taxes have reduced government returns. Environmental and social
impacts have been serious and well documented.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
Happy birding
K. David Bishop
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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