Commission calls for forest profit-sharing
Commission calls for forest profit-sharing
JAKARTA (JP): A group of environmental experts is calling on governments in Asia that still have vast forestry resources to establish a mechanism by which people living in or near forests would share in the profits made by timber companies.
The World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development at the end of their week-long meeting yesterday said that local people should benefit from their forests.
"Through a system of titling tribal and community forest lands, local communities should be given a fair share of forest benefits such as profits earned by forest companies and those using forest genetic materials in the pharmaceutical industry," the commission said in their statement yesterday.
The commission was set up in 1994 to address the issues of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, such as deforestation, degradation of the environment and their impact on human welfare.
The commission includes 23 experts in various fields from politics and sociology to economics. It is jointly chaired by former Swedish Prime Minister Ola Ullsten and Indonesia's former environmental minister Emil Salim.
This week's meeting in Jakarta was a follow-up to an earlier meeting in Geneva in June 1995.
The meeting opened with a two-day public hearing involving some 300 participants from Asia representing forestry activists, timber companies, governments and non-governmental organizations. This was followed by a two-day tour of the forests of East Kalimantan and a two-day commission meeting.
The commission said that the public hearing also explored ways of making sure that government policies directly involve local peoples in the management of forest resources.
Along with the wide ranging NGO and commercial interests, the hearing discussed how at the same time these forests can contribute to environmental stability.
The commission acknowledged the paradox between environmental conservation and government policies to exploit forest resources as a means of poverty alleviation along with the day-to-day interests of local people themselves.
Despite the conflicting concerns, the commission said "there are possibilities for integrating conservation and developmental objectives in ways that will cater to local peoples' needs, commercial interests and conservationist concerns for protection of environmental benefits."
The commission also met with tribal representatives from India, Indonesia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines.
"It has listened to their frank descriptions of the ways in which either national legislation, inappropriate forest laws or the activities of large industrial companies have had a negative impact on their families, in extreme cases resulting in violations of human rights," it said.
It is hoped the commission can become a forum for dialog on these issues, the statement added. (mds)