Volume 9, Issue 1 April - June 1997
Address by HRH Prince Michael of Kent, to Pre-Earth
Summit Forestry Gathering, 30 May 1997, Old Parliament Building,
Athens, Greece
(return)
On behalf of the World Wide Fund for Nature, I would like to welcome you to the Pre-Earth Summit Forest Gathering. Many of you may think that this is the first time that this kind of event has been organised. In fact, this is the fourth gathering which has been held to focus attention on the world's forests. All four events would not have been possible without the wisdom, energy and vision of the Bahá'í International Community, and in Athens we have to thank the Bahá'í Office for the Environment for their support. On behalf of WWF, I would also like to draw to your attention the support which Mrs. Lemos has provided to allow me to be with you today and to Mr. Anagnostopoulos, who has worked tirelessly behind the scenes with WWF Greece to provide us with such conducive surroundings for this auspicious occasion.
I would like to start by giving you a sense of the state of the world's forests. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United nations has recently released figures showing that the area under tropical forest is being reduced by over 17 million hectares a year, a 50% increase on deforestation rates at the beginning of the decade. Brazil is an example in point, where it was recently announced through the Brazilian Space Agency that the annual deforestation rate in the Amazon had increased by 34% since 1992.
But forests outside the tropics are also under threat. The quality of temperate and boreal forests, is also in rapid decline. The area of these forests may be slightly on the increase, but year-on-year the health and quality of these forests decreases. The United States for instance continues to lose over 300,000 hectares of natural forest a year, which is over twice the size of greater London. To give you an example within Europe, the EC's forest health studies have shown a decrease in the health of Europe's forests every year since the records began.
Last year, WWF completed one of its most ambitious mapping projects ever; to produce the WWF World Forest map. Hundreds of digitised data maps were compiled for WWF by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge to produce, for the first time, an accurate and up-to-date map showing the current extent of the world's forests. This map shows that there is currently 3,300 million hectares of forest left, representing about half of what would have existed 10,000 years ago.
WCMC has also collated all the current information on the area of forest which is officially protected. The shocking results are that 94% of the world's forests are unprotected, and are therefore at risk. These findings were presented on a poster map published by WWF in September 1996, and launched at the second meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests in Geneva. Many people think it is astonishing that so little of the world's forests are in fact officially protected.
Back in 1992, at the Parks for Life Congress held in Caracas, governments recommended that an ecologically representative minimum of 10% of each type of vegetation should be permanently and properly protected. So, there is still a long way to go to meet these recommendations, from a forest conservation perspective.
Since early 1995, governments have been meeting through the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests. They have completed their fourth and final meeting, and the results have been reported to the Commission on Sustainable Development meeting, held in New York last month. Having followed these discussions, I really do wonder if many governments and their negotiators feel the same sort of urgency that I do to conserve the world's forest resources. Concrete commitments to act now to bring ongoing forest loss to a halt are few and far between, despite agreement about the importance the world's forests have for survival of life on earth.
WWF has been extremely concerned about the state of the world's forests for many years. WWF currently manages over 300 forest projects in 50 countries, working to find new and innovative ways of allowing local communities and indigenous peoples to gain control of the techniques and resources necessary to ensure that forests are protected for future generations.
But, to respond to the enormity of the task, WWF established the Forests for Life Campaign in late 1995. The Campaign has two targets: the first relates to forest protection, the second to forest management and the timber trade. To take the second target first, WWF has helped to establish an internationally recognised system for checking that forests and woodlands, natural or planted, are well managed, using strict, environmental and socio-economic guidelines. The organisation, called the Forest Stewardship Council or FSC is based in Mexico and is now fully functioning. Three million hectares of forest and plantation in nearly 20 countries have been approved or "certified". Products from these areas are now being sold around the world. This just goes to prove that forests in any part of the world, North or South, rich or poor can be well managed, provided the political will is there.
But the main focus of this event is to see more forest properly protected. Put simply, we wish to see an increase in the extent of properly protected forest areas around the world. Current protection levels are inadequate to ensure that biodiversity and ecological processes can be maintained.
It was for these reasons that WWF asked his Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh to write personally to over 50 Heads of Government last year, asking them to support WWF's forest policies and targets, as laid out in the WWF/IUCN Forest Policy Book. Dr. Claude Martin, WWF International's Director General wrote to a further 70 Heads of Government with a similar message.
The Policy Book details how forest loss and degradation can be stopped and presents WWF's Forest Goal: to halt and reverse the loss and degradation of forests and all kinds of woodlands by the year 2000. Although this sounds like an almost impossible task, it may actually be necessary if future generations are not to be denied access to forests for their well being. As many of you will know, WWF has a proven track record of working on the ground to protect forest resources, by working with local communities and government agencies. This is why WWF has asked governments to make a Pledge to support the target.
WWF has received a very good response with many of the world's leaders giving enthusiastic replies to the letters. WWF has been following up to determine which governments are in a position to support and implement our forest protected area targets. At the last Forests for Life event held in London on 26th February this year, a total of sixteen governments pledged to implement the target. This included Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Lithuania, Malawi, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Romania, Russian Republic of Sakha, Slovak Republic, Tunisia and Uzbekistan.
It is with great pleasure that I can publicly acknowledge the scale and importance of these Pledges which have been made. Today we will hear from other countries wishing to make the Pledge to the protected areas target. I am very pleased that so many people have been interested to hear which countries wish to be protecting their forests. I only hope that this positive news will catalyse two things:
- Those governments which have made commitments
will now move rapidly to implement them and bring real protection
for the representative network of protected areas without delay.
- Those governments which are yet to make a Pledge are encouraged to do so without delay, for the benefit of present and future generations.
