Tropical deforestation solutions, ethics and religions

EAv cV3 THE WORLD BANK SECTOR POLICY AND RESEARCH STAFF Environment Department Tropical Deforestation Solutions, Ethics and Religions Robert Goodland January 1991 Environment Woddog Paper No. 43 Mthis paper ims been paped ; r - se.'ho views and the auth(a) and should not be atfibuted to the World Bank, to its affilmatedrgeol a rto any bividual au d K&g c thmir behaf i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Irt addition to the assistance provided by my World Bank colleagues, I want to thank John Haught, Dan Jansen, Mark Sagoff, Jean van der Tak, and Sue El Serafy for their most generous comments on the drafts. Much of section 2 to 4 are from George Ledec (1989). Much of Sections 7 and 9 are from Herman Daly and John Cobb's 1989 masterpiece "For the Common Good". I recommend Daly/Cobb for all people concerned with the global predicament, because the book is so optimistic, pragmatic and encouraging. I owe enormous thanks to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences for inviting me to the Vatican in May 1990 to present a prototype of this paper. The paper reports on findings that are particularly significant in the context of the overall woric program of the Environment Policy and Research Division. Departmental Working Papers are not formal publication of the World Bank. They present preliminary and unpolished results of country analysis or research that are circulated to encourage discussion and comment; citation and the use of such a paper should take account of iiis provisional character. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed in any manner to the World Bank, to its affiliated organizations, or to members of its Board of Executive Directors or the countries they represent. Because of the informality and to present the results of research with the least possible delay, the typescript has not been prepared in accordance with the procedures appropriate to formal printed texts, and the World Bank accepts no responsibility for errors. C4 ABSTRACT The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), an increasing number of citizens and foresters, and most environmentalists realize that most current use of tropical moist forest is unsustainable. Tropical forest biodiversity, the world's richest source, is being lost so fast that consumer boycotts and other trade contraints aim to reduce this irreversible damage. On the one hand, tropical moist deforestation benefits exceedingly few people, and then ephemerally. On the other hand, tropical deforestation permanently impoverishes, deracinates or sickens millions of people, impairs local and global environmental services, and exacerbates global environmental risks. The ethical implications of deforestation are outlined, together with a conspectus of solutions. These include: improvements in incentives and the economic calculus; improvements in conservation units; changes in colonization, timber and road projects; and particularly reduction of population growth. Agrarian reform, resourv use per capita, and the demand side also are outlined. Opportunities for the Vatican and the role of the Church are highlighted throughout. Tropical Deforestation -- Solutions, Ethics and Religions -- TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction .................................................. 1 Statement of the Problem...................................... 3 Conservation of Tropical Forests.............................. 9 3.1 National Conservation System.......................... 3 3.2 Environmental Institution Strenthening............... 3 Improved Utilization of Tropical Forests...................... 14 4.1 Colonization .......................................... 14 4.2 Forestry............................................. 14 4.3 Highways ........................................ 15 Agrarian Reform ............................................... 16 5.1 Land Tenure and Titling............................ 16 Economics ..................................................... 17 6.1 Perverse Incentives ................................... 17 6.2 Transport Costs ....................................... 17 6.3 Depletion of Non-Renewable............................ 18 Resource Use Per Capita ....................................... 19 7.1 Resource Use Per Capita............................... 19 7.2 Population Stbility.................................. 20 7.3 Population and Employment............................. 20 7.4 Resources Per Capita and Religions.................... 21 7.5 Institutional Stability.............................. 22 7.6 Empowerment of Women .................................. 24 Demand Management ............................................ 25 Ethics .......................................... . ...... ..... 27 9.1 Human Wants vs Non-Human Needs ........................ 27 9.2 The Limits to Habitat Loss............................ 28 9.3 Ethics and Income ..................................... . 28 9.4 Intergenerational Equity.............................. 29 Recommendations......... .. . ... 30 Conclusion.................................................... 33 Acronyms and Abbreviations .................................... 37 -References Cited and Further Reading......................... 38 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Tropical Timber Trade Restraints..................... 5 Figure 2: Sustainability Ranking of Forest Use................. 7 Figure 3: Biodiversity Conservation Methods.................... 11 Figure 4: How to Save Tropical Forests......................... 12 Figure 5: Acceptable Practice for Countries.................... 31 Figure 6: Acceptable Practice for Timber Corporations.......... 32 Figure 7: Suggestions for Religions............................ 40 LIST OF ANNEXES Annex 1: Sustainable Use of TNF Means Low Yield............... 53 Annex 2: The Tropical Timber Trade............................ 56 Annex 3: The Biocentric Ethical View......................... 58 Annex 4: Debt-for-Nature Swaps ................................ 59 Annex 5: Carbon-Sink Forests .................................. 60 Annex 6: Time and the Discount Rate........................... 61 Tropical Deforestation -- Solutions, Ethics and Religions -- 1. INTRODUCTIO "We must dare to be visionaries.... even as we strive to be prudent bankers." Barber Conable This paper discusses tropical deforestation, with emphasis on solutions and ethical implications, rather than on documenting the problem. Today's irreversible and increasing loss of biodiversity are the main reasons for writing this paper. The particular concern is because the main global repository of biodiversity -- tropical forest -- is being consumed unsustainably and fast. Tropical forests are thought to contain at least half of the world's animal and plant species, and on 6% of the world's land area. Boycotts and other actions (Figure 1) against the tropical timber trade and deforestation dramatize the vast difference of opinion within the world community concerning how such forests should be used. Figure 2 ranks all possible uses of tropical moist frest into an order of environmental sustainability. No one knows how many species populate the globe. Scientists do not know to the nearest two orders of magnitudel Taxonomists have inventoried oil:y i.7 -million species so far, but suspect that this may be only 2% of the total, which some feel may be as high as 100 million .?ecies. The most detailed and one of the highest estimates of the extinction rate is 150,000 species per year, or 17 species per hour (Diamond, 1990). We know fairly well that 62% of the world's primary tropical forest has been lost already, and that the rate of loss, today 1.8% p.a., increased at least 90% during the 1980s (Myers 1989). Tens of thousands of square miles are lost every year. In many countries all is lost (Bangladesh, El Salvador, Benin, Togo, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Peninsula Malaysia, Sri Lanka) or very nearly so. In other countries at current rates, only a few years remain until practically all primary forest will be depleted (China, Viet Nam, Laos, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mianmar/Burma, Philippines). Loss of this forest has many causes; these causes difter.in importance in different regions. In Amasonid, the chief causes are cattle ranching and unplanned settlement caused by road building, followed by slash-and-burn or shifting agriculture. In parts of Africa, logging trails accelerate agriculture and shifting cultivation. Othor causes are conversion for commercial agriculture such as rubber, oil palm, coffee, cacao, upland rice, beans; and deforestation due to cammercial logging, and particularly settlement along logging roads. In parts of.Central Africa and Southeast Asia... "the tropical timber industry, is the most important cause of primary rainforest destruction..." (Anderson, 1989). -2- Repetto (1990) ranks cismmercial logging as the top agent of devastation. The World Resources Institute ranks destructive commercial logging as the second direct cause of deforestation (Winterbottom, 1990). PAO's Chief Forester concludes: "Because exploitation has been uncontrolled, and management non-existent, marginal farmers, shifting cultivators and landless poor have followed in the wake of the loggers, completing the forest destruction" (Westoby, 1987). AO calculates that tropical (ie: dry + wet) forest is annually used 85% for fuelwood, 19% for local timber, and 5% as timber exports. However, most tropical forest trees cut down are not utilized at all; they are burned in situ in the process of land clearing. This paper does not deal with the drier end of the tropical forest spectrum where most of the fuelwood comes from. This paper focuses on the tropical moist forest which is much richer in biodiversity than the drier extreme. Globally, settlement along logging roads and peasant agriculture may be the main causes of tropical moist deforestation. -3- 2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem". There are four compelling reasons for concern with today's rapid, increasing and irreversible loss of biodiversity. The four reasons: 1) economic, 2) scientific, 3) esthetic, and 4) ethical, are detailed in many recent works (Caufield 1982, Ehrlich & Ehrlich 1981, Gondland 1990, Gradwohi & Greenberg 1988, Ledec & Goodland 1988, McDermott 1989, MacKinnon, MacKinnon & Thorsell 1986, McNeely 1990, Office of Technology Assessment 1984, Poore & Sayer 1989, Secrett 1986). Therefore, the four main reasons are only superficially repeated here. First, the economic reason is that many of the millions of species still to be discovered will have economic potential for agriculture, pest and disease control, animal husbandry, forestry, fisheries, human medicine and pharmaceuticals, industry, and tourism. In addit! n, the environmental services (eg: flood control, erosion control, maintenance of climatic stability) provided free by ecosystems in perpetuity with no start up or maintenance costs, are prohibitively costly to replace.by artificial means. As most trees are burned, tropical forest removal adds 2.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide (30% of the world's total) each year, thus increasing Greenhouse hypothesis risks. It is even more prohibitively costly to cure the greenhouse effects if they are allowed to arrive, but the effects can be prevented at vastly lower costs by control of forest burning and of deforestation, and by planting carbon-sink forests (Annex 5). Second, the scientific reason is that a rigorous scientific understanding of how species interact and operate as ecosystems is essential to -devising how- they may be used sustainably for human betterment. Such understanding can only be obtained by research on intact ecosystems, and on species in the wild. This anthropocentric, utilitarian approach buys time to ascertain how a stable population can live harmoniously and well. Thus, humanity can learn how to thrive as part of or within their environment. It is not simply that extinct genes might have been useful to us. Entire ecosystems could be sustainably managed, mediated by technology, revealed by science. Anecdotal evidence of sustainable amageunt abounds: forest dwellers, National Parks, rubber tapping, extractive reserves, agroforestry etc. "Science turns hopeful anecdotes into hopeful -aggregates" (Sagoff,pers.comm). Third, the esthetic reason for species conservation is that many wild species of plants and animals are unique sources of inspiration, joy, and wonder to humans because of their variety, intriguing appearance or - fascinating behavior. Now Patron Saint of Ecology, Saint Francis of Assisi's work is loved across the Earth for esthetic reasons. Some combine the ethical and the esthetic into a single religious reason, hence the great relevance to religions in general. .4- Pouth, the ethical reason is that an ircreasing number of people believe that humans do not have the right to extinguish other living beings at will--even those species not yet known to have anthropocentric value. This is related to intergenerationa'- and other equity considerations, noted in Section 9. To obliterate other species denies options and potential for future human generations. Some people believe non-human species in themselves possess intrinsic value or inherent worth. Thus, they merit respect, even if not actual rights. People feel that when you get down to the last of anything--whales, trees, whatever it is--then you do not have the right to exploit them any more. Actually, it is more serious than this because by the time you get down to the last of anything, it is too late to reestablish viable breeding populations. In fact, many species still alive today are #living dead" because they are not breeding (Janzen, 1986). -5- Figure 1: Tropical Timber Trade Restraints [Selected examples only) 1. West Germany,1988: 200 city councils stopped using tropical timber. 2. West Cra iy, January 1989: The Minister for Building announced that the Government has stopped using tropical timber. 3. West Germany, 1989: The Timber Importers Federation introduced a code of conduct for timber importers. 4. Netherlands, February 1989: almost half of all local gov-rnments stopped using tropical timbers. 5. European Parliament, July 1988: all member states to ban imports of Sarawak timber (later rejected by European Commission). 6. European Federation of Tropical Timber Trade Associations, February 1989: proposed a levy on tropical timber imports to the European Community in February 1989. 7. United Kingdom, 1987: Friends of the Earth tropical timber campaign; cautions consumers to avoid tropical timbers. 8. United Kingdom, February 1990: Prince Charles calls for boycott of tropical hardwoods from unsustainable sources. 9. United Kingdom,1988: 200 retailers stopped selling tropical wood products. 10. Japan,28 October 1989: Osaka Royal Hotel: Former US President Ronald Reagan raises possibility of boycott of Japanese products, mentioning tropical loging. 11. Hawaii, 1985: Ecoteurs firebombed a $250,000 wood-chipper which was chipping Kalapana-Kee-Au Rainforest without a permit and in violation of a court order. 12. Hawaii: 1990 (25 March): 1200 citizens peacefully protest True Geothermal Energy Company's (- Campbell-Soup -Co bulldozing 9000 acrea of the 27,000-acre Wao Kele 0 Puna tract on Big Island's Kilauea volcano, one of the last remaining tropical rain forests in the US; 133 people (+ 20 children) arrested. 13. ITTO, November 1989: Malaysia declined to adopt ITTO's proposal to label tropical1ogs as to the sustainability of their source. 14. Australia, April 1989: Federal Government considers banning importation of rainforest timbers. 15. India,1973: The Chipko women's tree hugging andolan (movement), founded by Chandi Prasad Bhatt and Sunderlal Barhuguna; awarded UNEP's 1988 top Environmental Distinction award (Weber,1987). 16. Indonesia, 1990: Scott Paper Corp. Chairman Barry Kotek cancels clearcutting of 850,000 ha of Irian Jaya forest for eucalyptus --pulp because, he said, of NGO pressure. 17. Irian Jaya, February 1990: Indoneatia's Forest and Environmental Ministers served two warning notices on PT Sintuni Utama (Marubeni Corp. subsidiary) for illegally chipping 137,000 ha of Bintuni Bay mangrove forests to supply 300,000 tons of chips annually. 18. Sarawak, February, 1990: Mitsubishi subsidiary Dalya's 90,000 ha concession blocked by Iban and Penan; many jailed. 19. USA, 1990: US Congress draft bill S-822 to prohibit Myanmar teak imports. -6- 20. Thailand, 10 January 1989: Prime Minister and Cabinet abolish all timber concessions and halt all logging nationwide. 21. ITTO, 16-23 May 1990: 8th meeting, Denpasar, Indonesia: Agreement on year 2000 as target for all tropical timbers in international trade to come from sustainably managed sources. -7 -7- Firure 2: Environmental Sustainability Ranking of Utilization of Trogical Rain Forest This ranking runs.in general from the top (preferred), gradually descending through all five overlapping categories, with the least desirable at the bottom. This is not an economic ranking. The actual mix of utilization adopted will be closely site-specific, given the enormous heterogeneity of tropical rain forests. The most rational land use pattern is likely to be as diverse as the environment on which it depends (from Goodland,1980). 1. Intact Forest 1.1 Biological reserve; scientific repository; gene-pool, germ-plasm storehouse; phytochemical and ethnobotanical resources. 1.2 Environmental protection services; climatic buffer, watershed protection, protection of downstream activities. 1.3 Indigenous peoples and reservations based on natural, legal, and moral criteria; also for knowledge of indigenes. 1.4 Collecting, gathering, tapping, game-and fish-culling. 1.5 National Park development; national and international tourism; recreation. 2. Utilization of Natural Forest 2.1 Dynamic sustained-yield management (as in Nigerian and Malaysian Shelterwood forestry). 2.2 Leaf protein, leaf chemicals, other chemicals. 2.3 Selective felling with careful removal. 2.4 Bole removal with slash, roots, stump, bark, and branches, left in situ, rather than whole-tree removal. 2.5 Enrichment planting, refining, liberation, reconstitution management, or directed regeneration. 1.6 Clear-cutting sall tracts, leaving regeneration foci in strips or environs. 3. Tree Plantation 3.1 Mixed species polyculture products (e.g. rubbers, oils, nuts, resins), rather than monoculture products. 3.2 Mixed species polyculture timber plus synergistic species and products; mixed species timber; oligoculture timber. 3.3 Monoculture timber: veneer, dimension lumber, plywood, Particle- board, timber, chips, fuel-wood, hogfuel. 4. --Agrt-Silvicnturas - 4.1 Multi-dimension forestry, 03-D" forestry of timber, products, synergists, browse, understorey components, or graze. 4.2 Polycropping and inter-cropping, e.g. rubber and synergists with understorey and annuals. 4.3 Taungya: annuals and perennials planted simultaneously, enventually becoming a tree plantation; chena. 4.4 Treed pasture: wood and products plus synergists, browse, and multispecies graze (legumes, forbs, grasses), -8- 4.5 Subsistence rotational gardens, e.g. Mayan home garden, Kandy garden, chinampa, etc., of trees, perennials and annuals, with small livestock, fishponds, etc. 5. Agriculture 5.1 Long fallows, small areas, multi-varieties of species, breed tolerance of pests and infertile soils, rotations. 5.2 Varzea management; naturally irrigated crops, Water Buffalo, capibara, turtles. 5.3 Perennial crops in preference to annuals; subsistence crops in preference to export and cash-crops (such as tobacco and sugar). 5.4 Oligotrophic exports (e.g. hydrocarbons, carbohydrates) in preference to eutrophic exports. 5.5 Multispecies pastures for mixed herbivores; e.g. small livestock and solitary stabled cattle 5.6 Oligoculture pasture for monospecific herbivores (extensive ranching for cattle export): the worst option under prevailing low- management practices. .9- 3. CONSERVATION O TRORICAL FORESTS "Of all environmental wounds that mankind inflicts on our planet, only extinction of a species is irreversible. We can clean up pollution.... we can reforest clear-cuts. But once a species is lost, it disappears from history" Russ Mittermeier 3.1 National Conservation System Figure 3 outlines options for biodiversity conservation. The most effective method is conservation of intact habitat. Establishment of a national system of protected areas is a necessary but not sufficient means of tropical forest conservation. Although a national conservation system does not address the fundamental causes of deforestation, it is essential for effective conservation. In some cases establishing conservation units has baen considerably more effective than other official effort& to control deforestation. For example, Costa Rica has one of the most effective national conservation networks, yet outside these protected tracts has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world. A national conservation system should conserve no less than 10% of the country's land area. All ecosystems should have a representative sample conserved in the system. The 10% goal should be larger in certain countries, such as Brazil, and has to be smaller if the nation has already destroyed its tropical forest. Many National Parks and other categories of conservation units need guards, patrols and fences: the World Bank routinely invests in setting up such needs. But this must be supplemented by getting all the park neighbors to value the park, rather than wanting to encroach on it or to convert it, as amplified by Janzen at this symposium (see de Camino,1987) Scientific research inside raises national pride: PhDs per hectare are more effective than kilometers of barbed wire. The national conservation system should also be complemented by surrounding buffer zones of sustainable use, such as forest dwellers reservations, extractive reserves, agroforestry, and multiple use areas. This strengthens the conservation of the park, conserves even more biodiversity outside the park, while at the same time decreases population pressures on the park. In many countries, the need is less for the creation of new parks, and more for the translation of "paper parks" which exist only on maps, into viable and effective conservation units. 3.2 Environmental Institution Strengthening Many tropical forest owning governments are losing governance. Power seems to be shifting away from elites in remote bureaucracies. Yet effective biodiversity conservation requires strong environmental institutions, both within the government, such as a Ministry of Environment, as well as outside, such as environmental non- governmental organizations (NGOs). Some governments use one or more NG0s as their environmental agency; some governments encourage an NGO to focus on one specific conservation unit. -10- Environmental NGOs are growing in numbers, membership, and effectiveness, partly filling the void abdicated by governments. For example, membership in the largest four environmental NGOs in the United States now approaches eight million, with annual revenues exceeding $165 million. NGO members voluntarily tax themselves to pay for what their governments evidently are not doing enough of. The Environmental Ministry often is the newest and weakest agency of the government. It usually needs strengthening and the World Bank concentrates in this area. For example, in March 1990 the World Bank invested in a US$117 million loan mainly to strengthen the new Environmental Ministry-equivalent in Brazil. The key role of the Environmental Ministry is to coordinate implementive ministries, especially those impacting on forest and biodiversity, such as the Ministries of Agriculture, and Public Works, Highways, Mining, and Energy. In addition, the implementive ministries also need their own in-house environmental units, both at headquarters, and on the sites of the more important projects. Forest dwellers or vulnerable ethnic minorities are capable of living within tropical moist forest without destroying it. In addition, their knowledge is exceptionally valuable for the world to learn sustainability, and use of the myriad species of tropical-forests. Many of these societies are under grave pressure from the dominant national society (Goodland, 1982). Some priests try to help such minorities and this help is valuable, for example, the Indian Missionary Council in Brazil. However, some branches of the Roman Catholic church do not encourage such priestly work. Religions could help forest dwellers and biodiversity by clearly promoting activities of forest dwellers' support organizations. This has the added benefit of decreasing poverty, and contributing to cultural pluralism. In some countries the trend has started, such as in Colombia where the Government returned 20 million ha of rainforest to the Amerindians in 1989, and the world's most active tribal advocacy group, Survival International, won the Alternate Nobel Prize ("Right Livelihood") in 1990. -11- Fijure 3: Biodiversity Conservation Otions [from Ledec & Goodland, 1988; Goodland, Ledec & Watson, 1985] MOST EFFECTIVE Single use Scientific reserves/ -wildland midlan e strict nature reserves management National parks Natural monuments Managed nature reserves Multiple use Protected landscapes in itu wildland Resource reserves management Anthropological reserves Multiple use management areas Areas* other than Converted land managed Alive for genetic diversity Whole Botanical gardens -organism zoos -Ex situ Sperm, egg, and embryo banks Organism Organ banks parts Seed and pollen banks Gene banks Tissue culture Dead Museums LEAST EFFECTIVE Notes The ranking applies to the genetic diversity found in wild species. It does not apply to variation within domesticated species, such as traditional crop varieties. -12- Figure 4: How to Save Tropical Forests (from Goodland, ed., 1990. See also: Cauffeld, 1982; Gradwoh1 & Greenberg, 1988; McDermott, 1989; McNeely, et al. 1990; Office of Technology Assessment, 1984; Poore and Sayer, 1989; Secrett, 1986] REDUCE DEMAND BOOST SUPPLY 1. Essential Preconditions Revamp orthodox economies; innovate Ensure there are adequate: Third World debt solutions (Citicorp conservation areas, national and conservation International re: parks, World Heritage Sites, Beni, Bolivia) ; promote economic Biosphere Reserves; zoos and incentives for environmentally prudent arboreta; gene, sperm, and behavior; assist vulnerable ethnic seed banks; museums, herba- minorities (e.g. jungle dwellers). ria; rehabilitation of Reduce war and its environmental degraded tracts; promote effects. peace; environmental educa- tion; promote legislation e.g. 'pro bono' tout ethics (e.g. Taylor, Sagoff, Regan, Singer). 2. Improve Development Projects Multilateral development banks and Plant rubber south of Amazon; bilateral development agencies (e.g. promote cocoa pollinators; USAID, CIDA, SIDA, DANIDA, ODA), reactivate Asian 'sleeping especially projects of forestry, rubber; encourage tropical rubber, oil palm, cocoa, alterna- agromultinationals to conserve tives to coca; Promote scientific samples of the ecosystems they tourism; debt-for-nature swaps. use (e.g. Hershey, Dole, Fire- stone, Cadbury, Coca-Cola, R.J. Reynolds "Camel Adven- ture", Del Monte, Nabisco, Kentucky Chicken). 3. Improve Land Settlement Deflect transmigration to alang Promote cerrado, grassland and grassland and Polonoroeste to savanna land settlements; up- cerrado savanna; promote family grade slums; family planning; planning; improve land tenure intensify existing agri- in existing settlements; demote culture; promote fluvial highways and cars in forest; transport and airships; promote carts and bicycles. promote agrarian reform outside forest regions. -13- 4. Reduce Shifting Cultivation Except for low population density, Tropical Forest Action Plan; jungle dwelling ethnic minorities, improve conventional land use; alternatives to shifting cultivation promote and improve fallows should be encouraged. and subsistence economies; Promote irrigation and fertilizers on existing agricultural land. 5. Demote Tropical Cattle Ranching Hamburger connection; ethics, Promote cattle on natural economics, employment, sustainability rangeland; promote non-cattle (extinctions); raise health issues, meat (capybara, agouti); Raise (e.g. cholesterol); Burger King, fish (rivers, ponds);encourage McDonalds. trends: red-to-white meat and poultry-to-fish, or some degree of vegetarianism; cows to pigs and goats. 6. Improve Tropical Timber Trade Tax tropical undressed log exports; Tree plantations near markets; consumer pressure against tropical buffer zones around conserva- lumber imports (e.g. Japan, USA, tion areas; agroforestry; re- EEC), promote sustainable forestry; cycle paper; promote value- reduce import incentives added to tropical wood exports. -14- 4. IMPROVED UTILIZATION OF TROPICAL FOREST "One thorn of experience is worth more than a whole forest of instructions" Mikhail Gorbachev 4.1 Colonization Colonization in tropical moist forest usually fails. Therefore such colonization increases poverty. After the first few harvests, yields decline, and pests and weeds increase to such an extent that the colonist finds it easier to cut down more forest than to struggle with the original plot. Slash-and-burn shifting agriculture is an appropriate system only when population densities are low, as for example with vulnerable ethnic minorities or indigenous peoples. When populations are not low, the overwhelming situation today, fallows are too short, forests disappear and farmers have to sell out to cattle ranchers or others, or abandon their plots for the nearest slum. Therefore, colonization should be directed only to areas fou. i suitable by previous agro-ecological zoning, to non- forest areas such as savannas where irrigation, fertilizers and biocides are more affordable, and where the environmental costs of conversion are much less. 4.2 Forestry Forest management prevents more destructive exploitation, and buys time for sustainability to be researched, for tropical timber plantations to mature, and for education of today's consumers regarding the benefits of intact forest. Therefore, controlled selective logging is much better than the alternatives. Although today's use of forest is unacceptable to many people and agencies (hence the boycotts listed in Figure 1), it is unnecessary to wait for proof of total theoretical sustainability before forest management is improved. There is enormous scope for improved practices (Figure 6), most of which are relatively easy and simple; this alone would shift forestry towards sustainability. Wyatt-Smith (1987) recently concluded that "...Modern timber exploitation methods and tropical moist forest conservation are no longer compatible and require separate consideration..." Similarly, the study commissioned by and published for the International Tropical Timber Organization found that tropical moist forests are managed sustainably only on one-fifth of one percent of their extent (Poore, 1988,1990), and conclude that such forests are not managed sustainably worldwide (Anderson,1989; Webb,1989). Oldfield (1989) corroborates this by calculating that less than 0.2% of tropical forests are managed to produce a sustainable harvest of timber. Therefore, improved tropical logging practices (Figures 5 and 6) by countries and by corporations, supplemented by a prompt transition to tree plantations, are essential to conserve forests and biodiversity, and to attain sustainability (Goodland, 1990). -15- 4.3 HihwbM. Highways and rural roads that pass through or near wildlands are critically important to the process of deforestation, because they facilitate access for land clearing, hunting, fires, logging, mining or other major disturbances. Therefore, a most effective way of controlling deforestation is to control road-building. Because most roads are to promote unsustainable forest colonization, they increase both poverty and loss of biodiversity. Where roads are to connect existing towns, then they should bypass wildlands, fragile slopes, and areas occupied by forest dwellers. Thorough assessment of all roads well before any decisions to construct is an essential and powerful mechanism for conserving forests. .16- 5. AGRARIA EPORM "Where there is no vision, the people perish". Proverbs 29:18. Grossly skewed land distribution and lack of secure land tenure, are pervasive (with few exceptions) in developing countries. This forces the poor into short term behavior, such as encroaching onto marginal lands, deforestation and cultivation of steep slopes. Therefore, improvement in agrarian reform reduces poverty, generally tends to conserve the environment, promotes resource use efficiency and intensification, while reducing extensification and waste. Since many even civilian governments are plutocracies, agrarian reform has never yet been adequate. Although I offer no solutions as to how agrarian reform can be promoted, I want to stress its importance and urgency. It is much more difficult for environmental prudence to prevail in grossly inequitable societies than in relatively equitable ones. 5.1 Land Tenure and TitliUg Inappropriate land use can be discouraged by means of agro- ecological zoning. This tool, neutral except to vested interests, identifies which areas are suitable for what forms of land use (for example: which tracts should be left as forest, which for annual crops, and which for perennials). Zoning is inexpensive to apply, much nowadays being completed by remote sensing, which also can be used to monitor compliance. Land titling in areas zoned for conservation should cease. Squatters rights or usucapion should be denied in inappropriate zones, but the squatters should receive plots in appropriately zoned areas. Governments should repeal all legal procedures requiring deforestation as a prequisite to obtain titles, or to access credit, or to demonstrate effective occupancy. Speeding the pace of titling on appropriate lands increases farmers' land tenure security, thereby encouraging longer term investments, such as tree planting. Dimensioning holdings to the size necessary to support the family sustainably at a reasonable standard of living promotes intensification and conservation. Parcelling 100 hectare lots to a single family, as is common in Amazonia, encourages extensification and inefficient use of resources. In addition, large family plots support far fewer families. Smaller plot size improves land distribution by making more land available for smallholders. Promotion of sustainable use of intact forest (Figure 2), particularly forest dwellers' reservations, extractive reserves and agroforestry, reduces deforestation pressures. Granting long-term forest concessions reduces deforestation and promotes efficiency in resource use. Such concessions should be revoked (and the concessionaires fined) if the land is abused. Most such fines are cheaper to pay by the concessionaires, rather than improving their logging. Raising fines, seizing corporate assets and imprisonment of corporate executives are remedies. -17- 6. ECONOMICS "I tried to become an economist all my life, but common sense kept butting in". Economics Nobellist James Mead In "Towards the year 2000", John Paul II calls for a new economic system ensuring a just distribution of natural resources which are God's property. Although possibly the single most important global need, there has been little progress in the economics of sustainability since then. Daly and Cobb's 1989 book is practically the first approximation. Although crucial to human survival, as well as to tropical forests and biodiversity, this need is not amplified further here. Hans Binswanger (1989) focuses on the economic aspects of the topic, while this paper focuses mainly on environmental and other non- economic aspects. Therefore, although I avoid repeating the economic aspects, I want to mention three economic topics: perverse incentives, transport, and depletion of non-renewable resources. These are important because ITTO (Poore et al.,1990) concludes that: "The inability of tropical foresters to suggest ways of valuing the goods and services from the forest, which are meaningful to their colleagues in national treasuries and planning ministries, has been a major factor in the continuing loss of these forests" (cf Leslie, 1987). Since forestry takes such a long time to mature the discount rate is influential: this is outlined in the Annex 6. 6.1 Perverse Incentives Taxing forest higher than pasture promotes deforestation. Land taxed commensurate with intensity of use and with employment created would absorb more people, while reducing the pressure on marginal lands and forests. Instead of tax incentives for deforestation, governments would conserve more by redirecting such incentives for forest conservation. In some countries, income tax laws virtually exempt agriculture (Binswanger, 1987), thereby making it a major tax shelter. In countries with high inflation, land is used as a speculative hedge against inflation. A capital gains tax or a tax on land transfers would reduce such tendencies. Governments should start to charge high enough taxes or auction logging rights to the highest bidder. 6.2 Transort Costs Transport is the major direct cost in forestry. In the case of the largest (temperate) rain forest in the United States, Congress spends $40 million every year from taxpayers mainly for the roads needed so that two corporations with 50 year concessions can export raw logs and pulp from Tongass, Alaska to Japan. Now, 300-year old trees are being sold for less than the price of a hamburger (US$2). The attraction of plantations is that transport costs are substantially lower because the product is concentrated, and the distance *o market is short. -18- The Tongass example shows that perverse subsidies allow logging old growth forest to be more profitable. Because logging roads are the main causes of unplanned settlement and forest destruction in many areas, they merit more careful control than in the past. In view of the extreme rapidity of irreversible loss of tropical forest (1.8% of the total tropical forest area in 1989, Myers 1989), the transition to sustainable use of the forest should be as immediate as possible. Business as usual until hardwood plantations planted today mature in say 20 years time would mean most of the remaining forest will be lost. 6.3 Depletion of Non-Renevable Resources This paper concentrates on renewable resources, such as forests, which should be harvested sustainably no faster than the rate at which the resource regenerates. This is the economic expression of "ethical stewardship" (Section.9), that we may use, but not deplete, and must hand- over to our descendents intact. Although not generally agreed, non- renewable resources, such as minerals, should be treated similarly. Since minerals do not regenerate, the receipts should be linked to renewable resources that do regenerate. El Serafy's (1988) elegant but parsimonious device is to divide mining receipts into an income and an investment component. The investment component must be invested in renewable assets, so that the income component can be consumed in perpetuity. The return on the renewable assets and the amount invested each year are set at the level such that when the mine is exhausted, then the renewable assets will be yielding an amount equal to the income component of the receipts. This prevents today's folly of an apparently rich country becoming bankrupt the day after its oil wells run dry. This also applies in the common case when a potentially renewable asset, such as a forest, is treated as a non- renewable and mined out. -19- 7. RESOURCE USE PER CAPITA "The population explosion will come to an and before very long. The only remaining question is whether it will be halted through the humane method of birth control, or by nature wiping out the surplus.... Today, anyone opposing birth control is unknowingly voting to have the human population size controlled by a massive increase in early deaths." Paul Ehrlich 7.1 Resource_Use Per Canit Human pressures on the biosphere -- pressures leading to deforestation and extinctions -- boil down to a single inevitable equation: population times per capita resource use. Society can have a large population at a lower standard of living, or a small population at a higher standard of living. The two main issues are first, that we want a sufficient standard of living (in my opinion, less than today's unsustainably affluent western society, but well above the starvation and squalid levels of most of the developing world). Second, that we must strive for a population size sustainable over the long term, not one which consumes fast for some generations and then runs out of food or other resources, or which fouls the global nest into uninhabitability. Therefore, it is imperative to reduce either population, or per capita resource use, or both. But today both are growing globally. We must stabilize population at as near today's levels as feasible, and reduce resource use per capita in unsustainably affluent countries. Although both are important, the high rates of energy and,resource consumption of the affluent poses more threats to the planet than does the poverty of the poor. Since per capita resource use is unacceptably low in the poorest countries, it must be raised. This implies population growth must decrease. Decrease in birth rates is greatly preferable to increase in death rates. There is no way per capita resource use can grow indefinitely if the population doubles every 30 years. Nearly 80% of the world's population lives in developing countries, which own 99% of the world's tropical forest. In the bygone era of an underpopulated world, larger families were beneficial and did not impact on the society. In today's overcrowded world, parents' decisions affect all society, not just parents. I agree with John Stuart Kill that unrestricted reproductive freedom imposes unacceptable social consequences. In addition, I feel an unwanted, starving, or poorly cared for child is worse than no child. Society has the responsibility to nurture all its members; but also has the correlative duty to limit the flow of new entrants to a rate such that each can have a reasonable chance of a decent existence (Daly and Cobb, 1989). I ,20- understand that, contrary to popular supposition, the Vatican does not directly advocate large families, but does so indirectly by opposing effective family planning. 7.2 Population Stability Population stability is the first factor to be tackled in any approach to the sustainability of practically anything nowadays. This is because consumption per capita has an irreducible biological minimum (eg: about 2000 calories/day) and a higher culturally acceptable minimum. Therefore, more people means more total consumption--whether of wood, food, or other natural resources--and more demand on the regenerative capacities of the forest. Since populations in tropical countries are growing much faster than in temperate countries (annual increases of circa 2.4% tropical vs 1.6% temperate), sustained yield from tropical forest will be even more difficult until populations stabilise. This can also be said of the sustainability of any resource use. But it is particularly important in forest management (selective logging) because, it is predicated on a much longer time frame than most alternatives. Although sustainability cannot be expressed in absolute numbers, best practice and improved technology (Figure 6) do not multiply yields convincingly. Human populations averaging 2.4% annual increase in tropical moist forest countries will double in 29 years and balloon more than 8 times in 90 years, or 64 times in the 180 years before sustainability of forest management can be confirmed! While this does not necessarily mean that deforestation will multiply 14-fold, it does mean that demand for food will mushroom, and pressures to clear forest will intensify. This makes sustainability even less probable. Stabilizing populations to live within the carrying capacity of their resources is arguably the most crucial lesson the whole world has to learn--and fast. The second population factor is that burgeoning populations are one of the main causes of deforestation. In the course of one lifetime-- yours and mine--the global population is rocketing from just over 2 billion to 8 billion, and is already more than halfway there. Yet some UN projections put the population at 14 billion in the next century. 1,000,000 new souls every year are impossible to cherish as they should be. People impoverished from whatever cause are forced into short term behavior, such as cutting forest -to obtain poor-quality agricultural land, which can only sustain a few years' harvests. Sustainability therefore means halting population growth and reducing poverty; employment has to be created for the poor. 7.3 Poulation and Em=loyment The third aspect of population is that neither forestry, nor plantations, create much employment, although both create more employment than cattle ranches (the main production system on deforested lands in tropical America). This argues for the promotion of forest industries, value added, furniture, etc. Tree plantation-based industries create more employment than any viable alternatives. Therefore, although forest management cannot be seen as the safety valve for all of the countries' restive poor, at least the income and employment can be sustainable and the people therein employed will not swell the local slums,, as happens when -21- other uses of (formerly) forested land (such as cattle ranches and annual subsistence crops) fail. 7.4 Resources Per Capita-and Religions This paper discusses solutions to deforestation and extinctions. The case is made that population times per capita resource use is a prime cause of these problems. This suggests two powerful solutions by which religions could exert a tremendously beneficial role. The first, on the resources-per-capita side of the equation, is already followed by close adherents of most religions: thrift and the stewardship of God's creation. Overconsumption by the affluent stresses global life support systems, denies resources otherwise available to share with the poor, damages health (eg: heart disease), but fails to increase welfare. Preaching thrift is rare and not very effective at present in affluent societies, but it is better than not preaching it. The small but growing "alternative lifestyle" movements practice thrift, which suggests scope and hope for more. Affluence here is related to poverty there, as emphasized by Paul VI in Populorum Progressio in 1967, and strengthened in Octogesima Adveniens of 1971, which warns us that over-exploitation is destroyin6 the earth. Our duty is clear and inescapable, we must side with the poor and not with the rich. We must cherish our environment where we fit best -- as advocates or as activists, and in our own lives with thrift and generosity, avoiding seeking the rents of others, as landlords do, Stewardship springs from impeccable religious fundamentals so there is no need to amplify them here, yet stewardship's connection with the environment which supports all creation is inadequately emphasized. I understand (imperfectly) that humans can use this bountiful and enthralling world that we have been lent, as temporary custodians, but that we must leave it in good order for our descendents. The Church successfully de- emphasized the "multiply, subdue and have dominion over the earth; 9 of Genesis 1:26, in favor of stewardship. We bear the responsibility to develop rather than to deplete, to use rather than to abuse, with prudence rather than with greed, and to pass the world on to our children in a better state than that in which we found it. Mere maintenance is stagnation. But the fact is that humanity fails even to maintain, let alone enhance our Earth. The second half of the population times resources per capita equation is more controversial for the Church than thrift and stewardship, but no less urgent. Children impact on society: society must manage that impact for the good of society as a whole. The starving must consume more resources per capita. Redistribution from the affluent is essential but not sufficient. There is no way a developing country's population growing at much more than 3% per year can provide a decent life for all. Housing, water supply, sanitation, schools, clothing, food, employment cannot be doubled indefinitely for every human generation. The Church could reduce unacceptable poverty and environmental damage by active promotion of population stability. Most methods are acceptable to all religions, such as delayed marriage age, spacing of children, adoption, breastfeeding (to promote lactational amenorrhoea), rhythm, pin pointing ovulation, -and abstinence. Envigoration of even these by the Church would reduce poverty, -22- unwanted children (40,000 children die of malnutrition and disease every day according to UNICEF), and environmental overstress. Vigorous promotion of natural methods will help, but will not be sufficient. All the statistics I have seen prove to me that "natural" family planning methods do not work adequately. If the Church cannot facilitate access to contraception, then could the Church leave it up to the families affected, without opposing such purely personal, secular choices? In the hierarchy of values in family planning, the Church endorsed smaller families at the Second Vatican Council, and teaches that the rhythm method is acceptable (although may not promote maternal health). But until the Church relaxes its ban on effective contraception, then many would construe the Church to be hindering, rather than helping achieve its own goal of smaller families. I realize that birth control is sensitive for Roman Catholics, and I do not wish to be churlish, nor lose your attention. Overpopulation is not only a Catholic problem. In the Church's hierarchy of sins, great distinction is drawn between venial and mortal. I accept a hierarchy between starvation, unwanted children, abandoned babies and infanticide at one end, versus prevention such as by contraception, at the other. A worse predicament is difficult to envisage: an undernourished pregnant mother with only sufficient milk for her current infant's suckling contemplating her imminent next birth. To the extent prevention is preferable to cure, then contraception is preferable to infanticide, abandonment of babies and starvation as is common today. I appreciate that decriminalization of an act does not necessarily make that act moral. Access to contraception is no longer illegal in most countries, but is still not sufficiently practiced to halt infanticide and abandonment of babies. 7.5 Institutional Stability To the extent that long-term forestry needs stability of population pressure on the forest over 90 to 180 years, or 2 to 4 human generations, long term security of operation or control is essential, whether by the state, by community ownership, or by cooperatives. Secure control is a prerequisite to all long term investments and particularly so for forestry use to become sustainable. Since there is no population stability now, and since if there were, it is uncertain to last 90-180 years, the more area coming under forest management and the less into clearly unsustainable uses, the better for the country, for the resource base, and for the people. Tree plantations "absorb" more people (create more employment per investment unit) than management of natural forest, in seed collection, germination, species trials, seedling care, nurseries, propagation, planting, weeding, thinning, fire and pest control, and other labor intensive activities. At the same time they often relieve pressures on the remaining forests. A key element is to educate people living outside the forest that long rotations are absolutely necessary to maintain fertility (de Camino,1987). The lesson must be that land in long rotations is not abandoned forest available for the taking. From the above, we can see that any sustainable forest management system must be supported by institutional stability rarely, if ever, achieved for long enough periods in the past. Institutional sustainability -23- does not seem to be politically likely under prevailing circumstances of weakening governance, burgeoning populations, and unprecedented debt. So whether selective logging can be made technically possible is firmly related to political feasibility. The most plausible claims for having approached sustainability (Ghana, Malaysia, Nigeria) were possible only because of rigorous military-type control by colonial regimes. These approaches vanished soon after decolonization (Goodland, 1990). Now, however, the situation is worsening fast. The era of big government is weakening world wide. Governance is slipping; instability is increasing. While the recent surge in NGOs has started to fill the vacuum created by government abdication is promising, few have track records more than a few decades, and NGOs do not yet seem to be strong enough to ensure tight management over a forest for the required length of time. The recent Nature Conservancy approach of outright purchase of tracts to be conserved in perpetuity works well, at least in North America. However, land costs there make most Nature Conservancy reserves very small. Some governments recognize that short leases encourage rapid depletion, and are promoting longer leases, some as long as 50 years, which are valuable to buy time and to postpone more destructive uses. Strong state control, leases of a few hundred years, permanent usufruct or permanent community tenure, or similarly long term arrangements are fundamental for sustainability to be achieved. Since such arrangements are rare now, longevity of institutions is one of the most important prerequisites for sustainability, and needs much more attention than in the past. Very long term stability of society, incentives, taxes, value-added and log export constraints also are necessary preconditions to sustainability. 7.6 Empoverment of Women Empowerment of women is fundamental to controlling population growth rate, and is more compassionate and humane than draconian coercion, as in China. Empowerment of women is essential to environmental sustainability, as well as being a key equity issue. The President of the World Bank recently emphasized that: "Women do two-thirds of the world's work. Their work produces 60 to 80% of Africa's food, 40% of Latin America's. Yet they earn only one-tenth of the world's income and own less than one percent of the world's property." Hence, women constitute an unacceptably large proportion of the poorest of the poor, and of the landless laborers, in addition to the burden of the double day: both job and housekeeping. Empowerment, and recognition of women's contributions, creates the choice to bear fewer children. Resolution of this impasse lies in education and in improvements in agriculture -- particularly reuniting nutrition with agriculture -- and in agrarian reform. Even modest increase in self-reliance and self-sufficiency buffer the family and augment equity. Educated women bear fever children. In Brazil, for example, uneducated women bear an average of 6.5 children; women with secondary education bear only 2.5. -24- Higher standards of living and lower birthrates reinforce one another. Neither is an independent variable. Literacy and poverty reduction decrease birthrates: as female literacy rises, young deaths decline. Population parallels illiteracy. Bearing fewer children must be made a reasonable choice for women; at the moment it is not. The wish for fewer children will increase when progress toward empowerment, equity, and literacy has been achieved. Fostering a coalition between groups that promote environment, women, and family planning would help greatly. Although it has been difficult to lend expensive money to developing countries for population activities, the World Bank plans to increase such investments by 170% over the next three years, from $100 million to $270 million annually. Failure to acknowledge, respect and register the role of women in economic activity is not just a sexist outrage. It is very bad economics too, according to Professor David Pearce (1990). Much economic activity lies outside the market sector, especially in developing countries, so is not captured by conventional economics. Although most of this informal or invisible sector is peopled by women, economics ignores them. Waring (1990) claims this economic invisibility of women is the result of a patriarchal ideological bias. The above suggests solutions. The first is the education of girls. Girls merit education equivalent to that now received by boys. Educated girls will demand -- and get -- expanded freedom of choice. 500,000 mothers die from pregnancy-related causes each year in developing countries (Howard, 1990). Second, there is no excuse for neglecting women's work in national accounts. National accountants resisted inclusion of environmental assets as wealth until recently (Ahmad, El Serafy & Lutz, 1989); now they should be encouraged to account for women's work. -25- 8.DEADN OE "Trend is not destiny" Rene Dubos This paper focusses on the supply side and on improving the management of tropical forests. But there is major scope to conserve forests and biodiversity by managing demand. Japan is the world's largest consumer of tropical timbers, importing about 30% annually, followed by the United States and the EEC. Tropical timber consumers could promote the transition to sustainability by managing their demand. Pressures discouraging (ab)use of tropical hardwoods for throwaways (eg: 25 billion pairs of waribashi chopsticks per year, and once-off concrete shuttering). Substitution of the $2 billion annual Kon-pane tropical hardwood plywood concrete formers discarded after a couple of uses, would be relatively inexpensive. Use of tropical hardwoods for chemical feedstock (eg: chipping tropical forest and mangroves for cellulose in Indonesia) clearly needs to be decreased by punitive taxation. Practically all Japanese wood used is imported, although 68% of Japan is forested. Most of the annual 3.8 billion cubic feet imported is solid wood (more than 50% of the world's supply of tropical timbers), mainly logs which support Japan's 18,000 wood mills. ITTO and others are discussing labelling of woods as to the sustainability of origin, and levying a surcharge to create a forest conservation fund. The even more important demand reduction need has been noted in the sections on economics and on population: overconsumption by the affluent. The greedy rich destroy more than the hungry poor. One car damagss the environment more than one poor person. Control of car populations is even more important than control of human populations; both are essential. While greed is difficult to prevent, at least consumers should pay the true cost of their consumption which is far from the case at present. To the extent tropical timber exports are not sustainable, which means they deplete natural capital, they should be taxed. This would promote efficiency, as well as decrease consumption. If a country elects to deplete its forest estate, which this paper strongly advises against, then use of El Serafy's method (Section 6.3) at least ensures the sustainability of income when the forest is mined out. Significant biodiversity is lost by trade in rare species. Ratification and implementation of the international CITES treaty would help, especially if reinforced by training of customs agents and raising fines and other penalties. While this would be useful in reducing trade in rare species, we do not fully know what species to place on such restricted lists. The "endangered species list" is more meaningful for depauperate temperate and other biotas, than for largely unknown tropical forest biotas. Even so, a list of all tropical endangered species commercially traded (eg: pets, skins, ornamental plants) would not be unmanageably long. -26- A step in the right direction was the 5 February 1990 jailing in Nuremburg of Walter Sensen, notorious and persistent trafficker in endangered species, for two years without parole. A few years ago, jail sentences for polluters were unheard of. At worst, the penalty for violating environmental laws was a minor fine: just another cost of doing business. A single environmental violation can, in some countries, become a compounded felony. It ceases to be a cost of doing business when it becomes the executive's own neck. NRDC points out that the protective wall between corporate actions and corporate executives is eroding. Jailing the presidents of a few corporations illegally and persistently destroying the environment, and seizing corporate assets, would get the message across. -27- 9. TICS * We didn't inherit this earth from our parents; we're borrowing it from our children..." The aim of this paper is to persuade readers to change their behavior, and to offer suggestions to the Church. Some, especially institutions, may be persuaded by the economic arguments; others, especially individuals, by the ethical arguments. There may not be much overlap between the two groups, so it is useful to include the ethical point of view as it is less usual than the economic. Deforestation and other changes to the environment is caused by economic development. Part of such change promotes human wellbeing, the goal of development. The difficulty arises in knowing how much wellbeing will be promoted from how much change to the environment; or when change to the environment becomes harm to the environment. Humans use the environment for food, shelter etc., thereby compete with nonhumans. With low human populations, this was not a major problem. The conflict arises because the trivial has become pervasive; today's vast human population transforms the environment so totally that entire physical.and biological components of global life support systems are irreversibly damaged; deforestation and the greenhouse risk is a case in point. 9.1 Human Wants vs Non-Human Needs Ethical dilemmas in economic development occur daily, specifically the conflict between human wants (not needs) and the needs of nonhumans. Burning forests to create cattle ranches, and clearcutting to provide tropical pulp are two common examples. The fact that similar changes occurred in Europe and North America are irrelevant because relatively few extinctions occurred, carbon dioxide had scarcely started to increase, and most land cleared for food is being used sustainably. Unless society makes a concerted effort now to conserve tropical forests while there are still some left, all accessible forest will be lost for ephemeral gains. The specific question then arises, how much tropical forest shoUld be conserved? Precise specifications are not needed because the limits are clear. On the one hand, no more tropical moist forest should be converted if the future use is not sustainable (eg: cattle ranching, clearcutting, most logging, subsistence agriculture, speculation). Forest extraction should not exceed regeneration. On the other hand, each tropical forest owning country should conserve at least 10% of their portion as inviolate conservation units, as adopted by IUCN (Section 3). The ethical point of view sees people better off because of their participation in and stewardship of the environment, rather than worse off as when they are separated from nature. Such separation occurs when the environment is destroyed for short term gains rather than managing it for long term habitat. -28- 9.2 The Limits to Habitat Loss The general question also needs addressing frontally to resolve the deforestation/species conservation problem. How much non-human habitat should humans (dis)appropriate? As an anthropocentric human, I believe some habitat can be taken over to support our species. As an ecologist, I know that taking over all habitat is impossible. Although we do not know precisely how much habitat has already been appropriated by humans, Vitousek calculated that in 1986 humans had appropriated 25% of net primary production (ie: photosynthate) for food, fuel, timber, etc. If only terrestrial net primary production is considered, the figure rises to 40%. This is frankly frightening. Within a single doubling time of the human population, about 40 years, we will have reached that impossible limit, assuming present resource use trends continue. In fact, the situation is worse than that. Economic development aims to increase per capita resource use, which means speeding the takeover of habitat. "Unless we awaken to the nearness of scale limits, then the greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion, and acid rain will be just a preview of disasters to come, not in the vague distant future but in the next generation" (Daly & Cobb,1989). As anthropocentric humans, we should urgently strive to avoid approaching such limits. The biocentric ethical view is outlined in Annex 3. 9.3 Ethics and Income Although ethics pervade both economic development and environment, we do not always acknowledge the ethical component of decisions. The relationship among growth, equality, and ethics is fundamental to environmental management in economic development. The equity dimension of growth is illustrated by reference to income. Just as it is impossible for everyone's income to be above average, so is it impossible for everyone's relative income to increase as a result of growth. In rich countries, well-being increases more with relative income, than with absolute income. Therefore, aggregate growth above sufficiency leads to self-cancelling effects on well-being. If aggregate growth tends not to improve well-being, then it is undesirable, even if it may be possible. Aggregate growth is undesirable because it augments throughput in the economic subsystem, hence strains the sources and sinks of the overall ecosystem. It strains sources in general, and common property sources in particular, since markets are imperfect. Throughput, or the "scale decision," is a social decision. The rate of takeover of habitats and the rate of drawdown of geological capital are decisions concerning sustainability, intergenerational equity, or justice; hence, the major need to integrate ethical criteria into economics and into societal decision-making in general. Although related, sustainability and intergenerational equity, may need two scales of value. In 1986, World Bank vice-president Shahid Husain highlighted the ethical component of economic development: "The discounting procedures we use to make judgments how fast we can, or should, deplete natural resources are basically moral value judgments. Explicitly or implicitly, we make a moral judgment when we say that this generation, or any generation, has the -29- right to make decisions for the future simply by having an adequate discount rate." 9.4 Intergenerational Equity Although it is impossible to predict with precision the likely interest of future generations, it is prudent to assume their need for natural resources (such as soil, water, air, forests, and biodiversity) will not be markedly less than ours. This is true even if major technological discoveries, which may not materialize soon enough, increase efficiency of resource use in agriculture and energy. Environmental life- support systems, both as a source of raw materials, such as clean air, and as a sink for our wastes, should be inherited intact by our descendents. This means harvesting must not exceed regeneration rates, and waste disposal must not exceed the assimilative capacity of the environment. For the present generation to exhaust, deplete, pollute, and extinguish forecloses options for future generations. This is inequitable as well as arrogant. Tropical forests, whales and coral reefs are examples of renewables that are often mined, rather than harvested sustainably. Non-renewable resources, such as minerals, should be recycled to the fullest extent possible. Mining is depletion, hence should not be counted as income, as noted in Section 6.3. -30- 10.RSM MZN "We will do the right thing: but only after exploring all other alternatives." John Maynard Keynes This paper shows how tropical moist deforestation and species extinctions can be prevented. This section amplifies how forest use can be improved by both sovereign forest-owning countries, as well as by the corporati(ns exploiting the forest. Recommendations to improve tropical moist forest management are tabulated below, and are divided into specifies first for countries (Figure 5), and next for corporations (Figure 6). Most of any additional expenditures could be financed from North to South by creative use of carbon sink forest incentives (Benchimol, 1989).The international trade in tropical wood is worth more than US$6 billion annually, yet practically none is invested in ensuring sustainability of supply. Corporations voluntarily fulfilling such criteria would be eligible to enter the forest sector. Governments should adopt criteria on which to permit the export of hardwood products. A corporation could promote itself by converting a "paper" park into a functioning conservation unit by an "adopt-a-park" approach. Corporations are capable of managing a conservation unit at the needed low level of inputs while they are managing long-term forest fallows. Planning the concession to surround or be adjacent to conservation units helps. In addition, corporations profiting from a tropical tree species should conserve the ecosystem supporting its wild relatives in perpetuity, wherever they are. For example, chocolate, coffee, oil palm, and rubber corporations would thus conserve tracts of relevant tropical forest. -31- Figure 5: Accentable Practice for Countries (selected examples only) 1) National goal of at least 10% of national territory in conservation status. 2) All (or at least 90%) of conservation units functional, rather than "paper parks"; a schedule for attaining 100% 3) National forestry and financial ministries actively researching and implementing debt-for-nature swaps, hardwood plantations, testing fast growing native species, and fostering carbon sink forests. 4) Governmental incentives favoring long term selective extractions. 5) Repeal of all incentives for cattle ranching in forest-induced pastures,for raw log exports, and for clearcutting (Binswanger,1989). 6) Government ratification of all relevant international environmental treaties, such as CITES, Ramsar, Ozone, Migratory Species, Amazonian Cooperation, World Cultural Heritage, Wildlife Preservation, and Law of the Sea. 7) Government committment to stabilize population growth rate as soon as possible; urgent reduction of high growth (3%) countries down to current world average (1.8%). 8) Government committment to ensure longevity of institutions, to the extent possible. 9) Government committment to to achieve national sustainability of natural resources, possibly by severance taxes at point of extraction. 10) Abolition of all incentives to clear moist forest for unsustainable uses or for land speculation, or as a criterion to access credit, or to prove ownership. 11) Promotion of incentives for intensification of' agriculture rather than forest conversion for extensification; 'remove tax on intact forest; tax extensive land use; secure land titles.. 12) Invite TFAP and ITTO to assess the speed needed fot the transition to plantations in each country; the size and nature of the plantations, and the logging improvements needed in the interim. 13) Raise stumpage fees or taxes to increase revenues to the forestry, agency and to discourage wasteful logging practices (Openshaw and Feinstein, 1989) -32- Figure 6: Acceptable Practice for Timber Corporations (Selected examples only) 1) Forceful promotion of thorough recycling at all stages of the industry and sector. 2) Proven track record of careful selective extractions. 3) Annual plating and management of an agreed area of tropical hardwood plantations, or defrayal of such costs when incurred for the corporation by state agencies. 4) Avowed corporate policy to shift from depletion to sustainability, and from extraction to sustainable plantations within an agreed time. 5) Maximum value-added domestic processing of forest industry. 6) Management of inviolate conservation cores protected by buffer zones of plantations and agroforestry. 7) Agreement to implement a schedule for the prompt restoration of areas previously degraded. 8) Effective policy to prioritize retraining of people displaced from unsustainable logging into careers with a future.. 9) Promotion of efficiency in wood product use eg: thinner "wafer" boards & veneer, thinner or less wrapping paper, less bleach, use of 'waste' such as sawdust. 10) Adoption of 'best practice' logging methods: use of river floating, aerial cableways, blimps and elephants for log extraction and transport; less damaging road and trail construction; avoidance of slopesxabove an agreed on degree, erodability and rainfall regime; use of more efficient sawmills and other processing - technologies. 11) Prevention of unplanned.activities along logging roads: by improving conditions outside the managed forest, by employing the locals in the managed forest or its value-added industries, and ,y . convincing the locals that it is in their own self-interest to prevent incompatible settlement or other practices; maintenance of control posts and patrols. 12) Redirect focus towards the huge areas of secondary forests, and to degraded forest where logging is less damagtng and can be cheaper than plantations; promote underplanting where possiblei -33- 11. * NCLU*O "Even God dare not appear to the poor except in the form of bread" Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Kany of the solutions here proposed are not readily available to religions. Therefore, this concluding section summarizes those solutions more directly available should religions so desire. The Church is in a powerful position to exert major leadership to solve these problems, especially for the nearly one billion Catholics. Specific suggestions are tabulated in Figure 7. The fact is that most nations owning tropical forests are Roman Catholic (eg: Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Ivory Coast, Philippines, Zaire). Most of the rest of the tropical forest owning nations have sizable Catholic communities. Catholicism need not preclude low fertility as proven by Italy's 1.3 births per woman -- the lowest in the world. Therefore, the Church could help conserve tropical forests by urging governments and their constituents to implement the measures tabulated in Figures 4 to 7. On the resources per capita question, religions could re-emphasize the important "stewardship of creation" concept for environmental conservation in both industrial and developing nations alike. In its unique access to children through religious education, the Church could become a powerful environmental educator, For affluent countries, the Church could promote the urgent need for thrift, prudence, and sufficiency on the one hand, and for redistribution on the other. Religions could preach against overconsumption, waste and greed, and for redirecting the difference to the poor. Overconsumption harms overconsumers directly via cancer, heart disease, land fills, and traffic jams, and harms the poor by decreasing finite resources to be shared. Thrift and sufficiency do not imply. extreme frugality. On the contrary, in many ways less is more, such as in fuel efficiency, energy conservation, and recycling. The Church also could consider modernizing the original function of the jubilee. Instead of debt cancellation every 50 years, the debt could be swapped for conservation, as outlined in Section 3.3, or for small families. To the extent that todAy's unprecedented indebtedness in most tropical forest owning nations accelerates depletion of forest and other resourdes, jubilee debt swaps will help. (Although the countervailing force -- less money to waste on perverse incentives and damaging projects -- may counteract the former tendency). -34- Religions could promote "debt-for-nature" jubilees in those few private commercial banks responsible for incurring such loans, which in any event are unlikely ever to be repaid in full. This would greatly help tropical forest conservation, and poverty in general, while increasing equity. Religions could also promote debt-for-conservation swaps in those banks in which they are shareholders. Note that there is no infringement on sovereignty: the forest remains fully in the hands of the original forest-owning nation. The indebted countries could take the initiative, and the Church could disseminate the potential for such swaps. For poor countries, religions could reduce poverty by promoting the sharing of the same resources over a stable or smaller population. Population policies are as -- if not more -- important in rich countries because the people consume and pollute so much. Family planning is important in poor countries because they are so ropulous. Even without reconsidering its opposition to artificial birth control, the Church could reduce poverty and conserve tropical biodiversity by emphasizing the urgent need for smaller families, later marriage etc. My personal opinion is that poverty, abandoned babies, unwanted children, starvation, massive deforestation, extinctions and irreversible environmental abuse are greater evils and dangers than freedom of choice for women. As in so many aspects, prevention is better than cure: infanticide and abortion can be reduced by facilitating access to contraception. Implementation of all the above is not sufficient. If the Church cannot facilitate access to contraception, then could it leave such choices to secular Governments and families? The Church deeply respects scholars and scientific knowledge, and integrates new knowledge for human benefit--ever since Galileo. Are we not at a similar threshold now? We have recovered from not being at the center of the universe. We have adjusted to being a tiny part of infinity. But we have yet to adjust to sustaining creation inside a finite planet. The Church could review its investment portfolio and divest itself from any environmentally unsound corporations, such as those burning Amazon forest for cattle ranches, or chipping tropical forests for cellulose slurry, or using tropical timbers for throw-away uses, or not following the corporate guidelines in Figure 6. Although not always fully appreciated by the governments concerned, Roman Catholic priests already greatly help forest dwellers, vulnerable ethnic minorities, such as Amerindians, and His Holiness makes it a special point to listen to them and emphasize his support in his statements in Oaxaca, Manaus, Quezaltenango, Huron & Fort Simpson, Ecuador, Cusco and Iquitos, in the last 10 years in the Americas alone (Juan Pablo II, 1985). In addition, His Holiness granted a special Vatican audience to Txukahamae Cacique Raoni of the Cayapo in 1989, and expressed concern for Amazonia and the ethnic minorities. On 6th May 1990, His Holiness beatified the first Amerindian, Saint Juan Diego, in Mexico. -35- The Church could intensify promotion of such priestly work, before such tribal societies are extinguished. Many forest dwellers are increasingly beleaguered nowadays as tropical forests are destroyed. Almost each month another tribe is attacked somewhere in the tropical forests. Today, the Penan of Sarawak, and the Yanomami of Northern Brazil are dying. This is a major opportunity because the Church only tolerates rather than actively encourages such priests in some tropical forest nations. Helping such tribal peoples to take charge of their own lives, to become aware of their rights, and to help them to get heard already is enormously powerful. This is a major opportunity for the Church to conserve tropical forests because these are among the only people able to live sustainably in the forests without destroying them. Time is running out. Time has already run out for the possibly 150,000 species extinguished every year. Environmental deterioration is not gradual and linear; after some unknown threshold is exceeded, parts may crash. I naively thought that when things got bad enough, we would rally round and do something about it. But things have g.tten bad enough, and we still are not doing much about it: world food consumption has exceeded production for the third consecutive year, extinction rates accelerate, greenhouse warming, ozone layer perforation, acid rain, and Chernobyl are dramatic warnings. Much more progress is urgently needed. But being an incrementalist, I am guardedly optimistic because the Roman Catholic Church and other religions perceive the problem and thousands of people voluntarily tax themselves for changes. Meanwhile, their governments dither. What is left of our divine planet is worth fighting for. If a dissident poet can jump from prison to presidency within a week, there must be hope yett -36- Figure 7: How Religions Can Conserve Biodiversity [Ranked suggestions] 1. Help to reduce abortion, infanticide, starvation, abandoned babies and unwanted children by promoting effective contraception. 2. Reinforce advocacy for small families. 3. Stress that the Earth is sacred; humans cannot live without a healthy environment. 4. Present major position statement on sustainability of natural resources, environmental stewardship of creation, and poverty. 5. Present major position statement on biodiversity, tropical forests, and forest dwellers. 6. Encourage priests to work with forest dwellers. 7. Intensify promotion of environmental education in schools. 8. Intensify promotion of environment through religious charities in developing countries. 9. Exert leadership by creating an ecumenical group focused on environment. (Religious Greenies?). 10. Divestment of the religion's investment portfolio in any environmentally questionable corporations. 11. Franciscan's, followers of the Patron Saint of Ecology, St. Francis of Assisi, to envigorate world leadership in environmental prudence. 12. Buy tropical timbers preferably from sustainable sources. 13. Religions to promote "debtfor-nature" jubilees. 14. Promote biodiversity on religious property. (Pere David*s Deer and Ginkgos were extinct outside religious preserves until rediscovered recently, see: Smil, Goodland and Toh, 1982). -37- ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS CI Conservation International, Washington, D.C. CITES UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species C02 Carbon dioxide cu.m. Cubic meter FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations ha Hectares IUCN International Union for the Conservation of Nature ITTO International Tropical Timber Organization a Meters MW Megawatts NFAP National Forestry Action Plan NGO Non-Governmental Organization NRDC Natural Resources Defense Council, USA. TFAP Tropical Forest Action Plan TMF Tropical Moist Forest UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNEP United Nations Environment Programme WRI World Resources Institute, WashinSton,DC. WF World Wildlife Foundation - 38 - GUIDE TO INFORMATION SOURCES 1. ECONKCS Ahmad, Binswanger, Daly N, Franke, Kohr, Meyerowitz, Oberndorfer, Openshaw,Potvin, Pearce, Repetto, Robinson, Seabrook, Sider. 2. ENVIRONMNTAL EFMCTS Arrhenius, Daly G, Daly H, Diamond, Jansen, Lyman, McBurney, Sedjo, Vitousek. 3. ENVIRONMENT AND RELIGIONS Badiner, Bratton, Cheng, Cobb (2), Dalton, Davies, Deutsch, Dwivedi, Ehrenfeld, Guha, Helfand, Jakowska, Jegen, John Paul, Juan Pablo II, Kay, LaBar, McDaniel, McDonagh, Philippines, Presbyterian Church, Przewozsy, Rosen, Skolimovski, Timerman, Ward, Zaidi. 4. ITHIS Akers, Anglemyer, Attfield, Bequele, Bookchin, Borelli, Bruno, Cahen, Callicot, Carpenter, Colvell, Gunn, Hanson, Hargrove, Magel, Marietta, Midgely, Nash, Norton, Roleton, Sagoff, Shearman, Smons, Regan, Seumour, Singer, Singh, Spiegel, Spitler, Stone, Taylor, Van Deever, Vesiland, Yambert. 5. FOREST DWELLERS (Vulnerable ethnic minorities) Goodland, Schwartz. 6. 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Natural anagement of Tropical Moist Forests. New Haven CT.,Yale School of Forestry 212p. Yambert, P. A. and Donow, C. F. 1986. Are we ready for ecology coamandments? Journal of Environmental Education, 17(4):13-15. Zaidi, I.H. 1986. On the ethics of man9s interaction with the environments an Islamic approach (107-126) in Hargrove (ed.) op.cit. Zimmerman, N.E. 1987. Feminism, deep ecology, and environmental ethics. Environmental Ethics 9(1):21-44. - 49 - Annex 1 SUSTAINABLE USE OF TM! MBANS LOW YIELD This annex presents the case that any sustainable use of tropical moist forest perforce means low yield, hence low financial and commercial, attraction. This means that population densities of sustainably managed forests will not be large. Forest dweller populations are sustainable partly because they are low. The sustainable resources per capita used by peasants living in the forest will be similarly low, as must be their population density. Such peasants find bare subsistence difficult, and much subsistence is not sustainable in such areas by such people. Sustainable yield means a larger area of forest would have to be logged to obtain to same amount of wood that can be extracted unsustainably from a smaller area. Sustainable use of tropical moist forest is here taken to mean any use of natural forest which indefinitely maintains the forest substantially unimpaired both in the environmental services it provides, as well as in its biological quality. Clearly, any harvest or extraction must not impair the potential for similar harvest in the future. Sustainability has several facets mainly depending on how the forest is used. The sustainability aspect focussed on here is that of hardwood supply. Demand management of wood (eg; more efficient wood stoves, more efficient veneers, wafer board, particle board, and waste recycling) is mentioned briefly. The four important issues of (1) the sustainability of forest dwelling peoples (such as Amerindians, Pygmies, and Penan), (2) the sustainability of extracted products (such as latex, oil,and anuts), (3) the sustainability of the environmental services provided by forest, and (4) the sustainability of biodiversity values -- are also not dealt with here. Analyses are needed of how sustainability can also be achieved in these important areas. Most of these valuable uses can be complementary to, rather than instead of, wood production. It seems likely that if wood production cat be sustainable, then many of these other values will also become sustainable. But it also is true that some selective logging seriously degrades non-timber forest values. The major scope for multiple use, which is not mutually exclusive, merits more emphasis than it has received. How can wood, the major product, be harvested from tropical moist forests on a sustainable basis? First, selective logging is smaller in area (64.5 million ha/yr) and much less damaging than clear cutting (Q7.5 million ha/yr) for cattle ranches, annual crops etc. Selective logging damages smaller areas and its environmental effects are far less sever4 than those caused by clearcutting. Highly selective extraction on long rotations with safeguards is the most sustainable commercial use so far devised for tropical forests. This may not bi theoretically sustainable, but it is preferable to the alternatives. Unfortunately it is not widespread. Because yields in all products are so low after the first bonanza logging, can we accept a low continuous yield from the beginning? But even selective logging without safeguards often leads to damage along logging trails and can lead to "commercial extinction", that is the extinction of a species from much of its range, although the genetic materials (seeds) still occur, usually on the periphery of its range (egt Virola surinamensis and Manilkara huberi in the Amazon). In addition, a substantial number of tropical timber species alive today are probably "the - 50 - living dead"; that is species for which living individuals can still be found, but where the population is not viable (is: not reproducing) (Janzen,1986). DETECTION OF SUSTAINABILITY: There is little agreement on what sustainability of wood products means, and how to detect it. Sustained yield tropical forestry can be achieved by first, longer than customary rotation (decreased perturbation frequency); second, highly selective extraction of a small number of trees per hectarej and third, tight control over long periods, usually by the state. Theoretically, sustainability in any agricultural system, whether rice or teak, can be proven only after a minimum of three harvests or so. Poore (1989) puts it wells "It is not yet possible to demonstrate conclusively that any natural tropical forest anywhere has been successfully managed for the sustainable production of timber. The reason for this is simple. The question cannot be answered with full rigor until a managed forest is in at least its third rotation." The first yield establishes the base line against which subsequent yield declines can be gauged. The second and subsequent harvests start to decline if this system is not sustainable. In the case of trees, harvests are not precisely measured, so minor yield declines in the second harvest are unlikely to be detected. This is further complicated because the trade accepts only a fraction of the available species today, but will accept more species at the time of the next harvest in a few decades. Growth rates of the fovest remaining after the first few selective harvests may not differ greatly. Holes opened in the canopy by tree removal accelerate tree growth nearby, whereas damage to seedlings, saplings and soils by falling trees, skidders and vehicles retards growth of affected areas. Detection of sustainability is difficult in the case of selective extraction, easier with slash-and-burn, and easiest with clearcutting. First, selective logging of say 10% by volume leaves 90% unharvested, so that only careful mensuration can detect changes. As much as half of the unharvested trees may have been damaged by the selective logging. Non-tree measures of sustainability also are difficult to analyse, such as the decrease in frequency of one of the dosen species of primates, or the decrease in fruit set of a species due to the decrease of a pollinator. When, as is usually the case, unplanned settlement follows logging trails, damage to the remaining intact forest is easy to detect. Second, in the case of slash-and-burn agriculture, where the forest is clearcut and burnt, then declines in crop yield (ies lack of sustainability) become obvious after three harvests or so. Since much of the harvest is annual, this means after three years sustainability or its lack can be detected. Of course, this situation is very different from. selective logging, particularly where slash-and-burn patches are clearcut rather than planted underneath intact trees. Where the clear cut patch is small and surrounded by intact forest, then organic matter, -autrients and propagules rain onto the plot, while conserving its humidity. Yields start to decline after three or four harvests, depending on site conditions, as the harvested crop is exported out of the ecosystem. Nutrient cycling is fundamentally important in sustainability. - 51 - Third, lack of sustainability is easier to detect in the most damaging exploitation, namely clearcutting. Regrowth, if the cut area was anything but a small clearing surrounded by intact forest, will not restore the original forest, except after many decades (some say centuries), again depending on site. The tightly closed nutrient cycle of the moist tropical forest is essential for two reasons. First, most (c.90%) of the nutrients in the ecosystem are stored in the biomass, not in the soils as in most temperate ecosystems, where cold halts chemical reactions (especially leaching) for several months of the year. Second, one of the few reliable generalizations is that practically all tropical soils still under lowland moist forest are among the poorest in the world. In fact many tropical forest soils are purer (more oligotrophic) than ground up window glass and purer than the rainwater falling on the forest. Rain in many forests is already a source of nutrients before it reaches the canopy, and much more of a nutrient source when it picks up nutrients from the upper parts of the canopy and feeds them to the lower parts of the ecosystem. As soon as the protective forest is cut exposing the soils to sun and rain, the soils become even more infertile. The nutrients in the biomass also are not uniformly distributed: less than 10% of the nutrients are in the wood itself; 90% are in the leaves etc. This clearly argues for the practice of leaving all the eutrophic slash, leaves, branches, and bark in the forest (ies removal only of the oligotrophic clean bole which consists almost entirely of C,H,and 0), which will help achieve sustainability from the nutrient budget point of view. This increases the risk of fire, but this is a minor cause when compared with the major increased risks from logging, trails and concomitant settlement. Leaving slash in the forest is a necessary but far from sufficient condition for sustainability, because logging trails, their settlement potential, and damage by skidders and falling trees are more decisive. The number of harvests to detect yield declines should thus not be less than three, and probably more. To err on the conservative side, let us assume that declines could indeed be detected in the third rotation, and that the tree species of interest mature to marketable age in 30 years for the faster growing commercial species (egs Cedrela, Cedrelinga, Schizolobium, and possibly Swietenia mahogany), and 60 years for the slower growing species. To the extent to which lack of sustainability (e.gt yield declines) can be detected only after three harvests or more, whatever sustained yield management of forest is tried, we will only be able to judge whether it is sustainable or not after at least 90 to 180 years. Until that time we can say only that the system being tried is more likely to be sustainable than other alternatives, except conservation units (such as national parks) and "extractive reserves" (nuts, rubber, fruits). Since organized tropical forestry began only 130 years ago, and tropical forests were not widely threatened until say 40 years ago, it is not surprising that sustainability became a goal only relatively recently. Meanwhile, as forest not under such selective management or other systems disappears to slash-and-burn or to cattle ranches, managed forest becomes more valuable and time has been bought for improvements to be introduced. Controlled selective logging conserves most of the values of intact forest and preserves options open for the future; most alternatives do not. - 52 - Accelerating the transition to sustainability will be onerous for the nations concerned as well as for the few multinational timber corporations. The transition can be eased in several ways, such as Edward Goldsmith's rent scheme (1980), Debt-for-Nature swaps, and Carbon-Sink Forests. Goldsmith's rent scheme is the most elegant and practicable. He proposes that countries wanting to conserve tropical forests should rent them from the sovereign owners, who retain total control. The rent ceases as soon as the owner decides that alternative uses (eg: deforestation) are more profitable than conservation. Clearly the rent has to be set at a judicious level, and some renters may find the recurrent nature of the cost unattractive. A variant could be to rent with an option to buy. In this case, so many years of rent accumulates until the forest is purchased for the sovereign owning nation to conserve the forest in perpetuity. Annex 2: THE TROPICAL TIMBER TRADE The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) of Yokohama promotes the commendable tenet that only wood from sustainable sources should be used. The nearest we come to this is forest management on long rotations, under tight control. Apart from this, the two other acceptable sources for tropical timbers are timber plantations, and exploiting the wood cleared from forest in the rare instances where such conversion is thoroughly justified. I refrain from exemplifying the latter, but can imagine a case where the area of forest lost is tiny and well conserved nearby, in exchange for an immensely powerful canyon-type hydroproject, instead of starting several nuclear power reactors, might be justifiable. Although plantations are few and mainly young, they can help satisfy demand for tropical hardwoods in the future. Tropical trees grown in humid climates in poor soils and in pure stands will inevitably be attacked by pests and diseases (egtinsects, fungi). Even Brazil's Jari project is now %ttacked by ants and phytophagous insects in spite of the dry season and the unpalatability of Gmelina. Plantations in areas with dry seasons short enough to control pests are likely to be more successful than plantations in per-humid areas. Boycotts and other restraints (Figure 1) show the frustration of the consumers over deforestation, extinctions and deracination of vulnerable ethnic minorities. The major risk of boycotts is that if forests now controlled to some extent by timber corporations cease to be profitable, then uncontrolled deforestation may increase. Tropical wood boycott organizers should specify what sources are accepted as sustainable. Boycotts are likely to be more effective where logging and logging trails are the prime causes of deforestation. Where much hardwood is burnt or left to rot, as in much of Amazonia, boycotts could be counter-productive, damaging the hardwood trade and promoting much less sustainable uses such as cattle ranches. Until plantations can be vastly augmented, only careful control and selective extraction will reduce current levels of damage in forests, if implemented as interim measures, and if more destructive uses halted. This will be difficult, but is preferable to the alternative of increasing and irreversible damage. Only those areas or corporations which have already planted trees of acceptable types :and areas should be permitted to continue transitional extraction (Figure 6). Meanwhile, management of intact forest must be improved while plantations reach maturity. Some fast-growing hardwood species are said to take less than 20 - 53 - years to mature, but more species need to be researched. While fast- growing species cannot substitute for slower growing hardwoods, they can satisfy some of the demand, thus buying time for hardwood plantations to mature. Fears of trade restrictions have almost doubled the price of 8.S. Asian logs in the last year; for example, average world prices for Malaysian sawn timber jumped from US$276 per cubic meter in 1987, to $422 in 1989. The tropical hardwood trade is unique in that it is the only major internationally traded terrestrial commodity extracted wild from the tropics, rather than being cultivated. Plantation hardwoods today are not much more profitable than forest extraction because forest logs are still allowed to be counted as basically free, and better (more expensive) practices are not insisted on. The time has long since vanished when we satisfied our desire for meat from hunting; it is now time to satisfy our need for tropical timbers from more sustainable sources than current today. Human demand for such timbers long ago surpassed sustainable supply. The irrational and so far irresistable response is to shorten rotations, to decrease selectivity, and to extract more than 10% of the standing timber at a time, hence descend into clear unsustainability. Although trees can grow faster in plantations, tree maturity is measured in decades rather than in months as in most conventional crops. Therefore, the case during the transition is good for highly selective, long rotation forestry until hardwood plantations become harvestable, for those businesses which have planted trees. Global demand management for tropical timber clearly has to be an important element in the equations to approach sustainability. Fast growing tropical trees such as eucalyptus, if necessary chemically treated to improve durability, are also a useful interim measure. Transition to Plantations: The plantations should be as heterogeneous as necessary to reduce pest and disease pressures, to mimic natural forest, as well as to hedge market bets. Since plantation productivity can be of the order of ten times greater than extraction from forest, since the plantation product is more uniform than from the forest, for a sophisticated market, since transport and other amageunt costs are lower in plantations than in forest, and fertilizer or at least limestone application costs are lower, plantations appear a more cost-effective supply than from sustainable forest management. Even this needs to be checked, because if extraction of.trees grown #free" of investment start-up costs in a forest is not very profitable, then tree plantations will be less profitable unless forest logging sustainability is insisted upon. In other words, forest logging is profitable because the loggers are not forced to manage sustainably. The costs of ensuring sustainability of forest logging would make timber plantations a more attractive choice.. Partly it is site specific and partly dependant on what externalities are included in the cost stream. The more heterogeneous the species mix and the age classes, the more biodiversity will be conserved in the plantations. This tradeoff should be made explicit because the timber trade prefers monoculture stands of even-aged trees. Costly plantation failures abound, due to 10ppropriate sites or species, and inability to manage until maturity. ecent indebtedness makes financial inventives for plantations even less likely. - 54 -. In choosing plantation sites, two are most attractive for planting tropical hardwoods. The best is the site well outside the moist forest now being destroyed, where there is sufficient dry season to retard pests, but not sufficient to retard growth significantly, and distant enough from the forest that forest pests have less chance of finding the plantation; not that sites with all these characteristics are easy to find. Since virtually all plantation pests will come out of the wild, they occur already (as non-pests, often on the species or relatives to be planted) so that the time to study them is now, not when a plantation makes them into a pest. Sites nearer markets or export corridors, and those nearer sources of limestone and other low cost fertilizer should get preference. If the logging corporations want to recuperate their reputation and help conserve the forest, then they will hire settlers now living in the forest to manage the plantations, and the intermediate buffer zones, thus helping relieve pressures on the forest. Since plantations can usefully be sited on degraded or abandoned land, most original inhabitants may have already left. The second best sites are those vast and expanding tracts of degraded land such as abandoned pasture, formerly clear-cut forest, secondary forest etc. Governments may want to offer incentives to plantations sited in such zones. Because they are simpler in structure and species, secondary forest management is an important need. If tree plantations decrease population pressures inside forest, and act as buffer zones around intact forest, then the plantation becomes that much more useful and attractive. There is much scope for the integrated management of plantations with conservation units. The economic benefits stream can be augmented by including the benefits of carbon absorption (the "carbon sink" forests), and all those environmental services provided by the plantation up to harvest such as climatic stabil sation, weather buffering, dry season water augmentation, erosion control, and reduction of flash floods. Since hardwood plantation are elow to mature, a range of plantations would be prudent. The faster-growing ones would relieve pressure until the slower ones mature. Chemical treatment of the softer woods prolongs durability. Annex 3: THE BIOCENTRIC ETRICAL VIEW The anthropocentric view--that human survival needs conservation of habitat, forest and species--is amplified in the main text. This section outlines the biocentric view. Today's economics is based on utilitarianism--economic humans behave with rational egoism--the value of resources derives from its instrumental value to humans. The biocentric view, however, holds that non-human species possess two further classes of value, namely intrinsic value and esthetic value. In addition, some ethicists claim that the inherent worth of non-human species creates a claim to be respected by humans. The good of non-human species is thus to be preserved as an end in itself, as well as for their own sake. Although much of this paper is too anthropocentric, the similarly important ethical and intrinsic value of non-human species must be acknowledged. Be under no illusion that incorporation of the ethical dimension into development will be easy. John Shad, chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, offered Harvard University - 55 - Business School 20 million U.S. dollars as a gift to introduce a course of business ethics. Harvard rejected the gift in 1988. Ethics is both agonizing and enthralling. The basic puint is to embrace diversity and tolerate logical extremes. I confess my uneasiness with those cool logicians who point out the inescapable need to eschew all pets (dogs, cats, goldfish, budgerigars) and all domestic animals (cows, sheep, pigs, horses, chickens). Singer (1975, 1985) and Regan (1987) prove to me that the intrinsic values of nonhuman species preclude their exclusively utilitarian use. We accept the rich environmental ethics spectrum or diversity of opinion ranging from one logical extreme (e.g., Singer and Regan); to vegans and vegetarians to people who eschew terrestrial carnivory, leather shodding, and fur cloaking; to people who effectively conserve many habitats and raise bundles of environmental financing solely for the right to cull a few species over a few days a year (e.g., National Wildlife Federation, Ducks Unlimited, Izaak Walton League). Our ethical colleagues have to analyze where they are comfortable on this spectrum. Some wear fur only if domestically bred rather than harvested from the wild. Gandhi made, presented, and wore leather sandals, but only from cows dying from old age. Wherever on this spectrum you fit, it won't be for long. Ethical values evolve. I believe the global society gradually and too slowly is improving ethicallys patchily and with reverses. Flogging your horse to. death, human slavery, spouse- and child-bashing were legal until relatively recently. Nowadays starvation, absolute poverty, extinction of species, and street people freezing to death, while lamentably legal, at least needle the conscience of society more than they did a century ago. Even child labor (Bequele & Boyden, 1987) and debt-peonage remain widespread. Some of our societal institutions seek to redress such evils. Other ethical grotesqueries remain less acknowledged; for example, the heinous imbalance on the one hand between education, nutrition, social security, health, potable water, etc., and on the other hand, sumptuary military expenditures. Just as the recently acknowledged environmental dimension of economics needs attention, so do the ethical components of both,economic and environmental concerns. The global commons is run along increasingly economic criteria. The time is overdue to complement this with environmental and ethical considerations. The tremendously encouraging consonance between the two occurs because the ethical and environmental solutions are almost always similar. Annex 4s DEBT-FOR-NATURE SWAPS These swaps massively leverage modest conservation funds, depending on the degree to which the forest owner's debt is discounted on secondary debt markets. Since the amounts needed for conservation are infinitesimal in comparison with the debt, such swaps need not be inflationary if restricted to special cases and topmost priorities. But deeply discounted debt on the external market when swapped becomes 100% debt in national currency, hence increasing liability, so this mechanism is not a panacea. Sovereignty issues are satisfied because the country retains total ownership. Since most remaining tropical moist forest is owned by deeply - 56 - indebted countries, there is much scope for debt-for-nature swaps. This major opportunity should be exploited without delay since it would benefit owning countries, and biodiversityt as well as the global commone (Potvin,1990). See also the debt-for-nature jubilee proposed in Section 11. Debt swaps for nature, small families and for poverty all have a place. Annex 5: CARBON-SINK YORESTS Today's relative price for polluting the atmosphere with carbon dioxide is zero which is clearly not optimal. Carbon-sink forest is a mechanism to buy time for the internalization of the world's most pervasive negative externality, atmospheric accumulation of carbon dioxide (the Greenhouse hypothesis).. Internalization of externalities is resisted by polluters, because external costs are not paid by polluters but spread out and paid by everyone and the environment. Burning tropical forests contributes.about 301 of global C02 accumulation. Growing trees sequester O2, while reducing pressures for deforestation. Since trees grow faster in the tropics and land is cheaper there, tropical tree plantations offset C02 accumulation and reduce greenhouse risks. The great value of this mechanism is its demonstration effect linking pollution to its reduction by environmental magement. But the overall effect is not as important as the precautions oulined in Sections 4 to 7. Carbon sink forests started voluntarily in 1988 when a new 180 MW coal-fired; utility in Connecticut agreed with the Government of Guatemala and others to plant the 15 million trees necessary to offset the estimated amount of C02 emissions expected over the utilities 40-year life. This was followed in April 1990 by the Government of the Netherlands who have budgeted 1,875 million -guilders (ca. 15 million pounds stg. ) to plant 250,000 ha of tropical tree plantations in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Colombia. The Government expects to plant 10,000 ha annually over 25 years, on burnt or cut rainforest land, starting in 1991. These carbon- sink forests will offset the 6 million tons of C02 to be emitted by, two new 600 BAW coal-fired electricity plants to be built by 1994 and 1997, between Amsterdam and Rotterdam. One reason adduced Is that the cost of planting trees in the tropics is less than one-twelfth of the cost in the Netherlands. 465 million hectares of tree plantations would stabilize global C02 levels and mitigate greenhouse risks for three to five decades (Sedjo, 1989). All carbon sink forests will buy time; it is clearly not necessary to plant 100% of this total. As the World Bank's Chief Economist, Vice President Stanley Fischer, put it in 1989t " the costs of inaction if the Greenhouse hypothesis .is proved correct, vastly exceed the coaste of action if the hypothesis is proved false." The most efficient, cost-effective means to reduce greenhouse risk in this context is to reduce burning and deforestation. The problem is many plutocrats promote deforestation, whereas few are against tree planting. I predict that major COI emitters will soon pay tropical countries to plant trees. Whether this is voluntary as noted above, or as part of some global C02 tax scheme, is up to our leaders, and all who elect them. If some of the carbon sink forests are - 57 - converted into houses, furniture and veneer, then the carbon is sequestered longer. The financial flows from carbon emmitting nations to owners of tropical space available for plantations, will have to be set high enough so that tropical countries find it profitable to accept the plantations promptly. Some researchers feel that even if greenhouse gas emissions cease overnight, the globe is set for climate change from the gases already released and on their way upwards. Annex 6: TIM AND THE DISCOUNT RATE The long time needed for trees to mature means the discount rate is more influential in forest management than in most alternative investments, but there is no agreement that discount rates should be adjusted. Today's high discount rate, commonly 10%, discourages investments in a 30-year forestry project in preference to a three year rice project. Since resources are limited, some method of discounting futures is needed. While it is true that high discount rates discourage investments with long term benefits and promote projects with high short term benefits and long term costs, this does not necessarily mean the rate should be lowered. Real interest rates, which might be taken as indicating the opportunity cost of capital, have for long periods been around two to four percent. A lower discount rate, as some advocate, would increase the scale or volume of investments in general, both environmentally damaging ones, as well as beneficial ones. Herman Daly (pers.comm, 1990) feels that we are relying on the discount rate as a policy tool for two dissimilar needs, namely scale of investments and allocation (the selection of priority or most profitable projects). The discount rate should be retained for allocative decisions, and another policy instrument devised for the much needed scale decision. Natural resource taxes, energy and severance taxes could be effective in maintaining scale at the desired level. Subsidies or grants may be in order to foster social values not currently promoted in the market. The question becomes where best to allocate such subsidies--to conserve forest (the obvious choice to me), to reduce the discount rate during the transition to sustainability, or to promote plantations? Grants during the transition could be considered, and are greatly in the interest of industrial countries for other reasono (see Carbon-Sink Forests, section 3.4).