Tropical forests unprotected, survey finds

Nations cited as examples
In contrast, significant advances have been made in Malaysia, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil, it said.

Brazil, which has the largest percentage of the world’s tropical forests, requires landowners to maintain 80 percent of the forested areas in the Amazon. Logging is permitted in the forest reserve, but companies must file management plans to show their logging is carried out in a sustainable manner, with minimal damage to the forest.

The report recommends that governments and industry create more economic incentives for landowners and forest users; more international aid to help implement better management and enforcement programs on the ground; and legislation at the national level to protect tropical forests.

“This report says much has been done but much more needs to be done. It is good news but it is very fragile,” co-author Duncan Poore said. “It is a starting point. It shows where things ought to go. But there is no knowing if they will.”

Poore praised Malaysia for its long-standing legal framework for managing forests in a sustainable way and said Bolivia, Peru, Congo Republic, Gabon and Ghana had made good progress.

Plans not same as practices
But he said there was a large discrepancy between management plans and management practice that sometimes allowed illegal logging to lay waste large areas of pristine forest.

“There has been a huge increase in the amount of illegal logging -- which undermines the price of timber that is legally and sustainably logged,” Poore told Reuters.

“The only way to get proper policing is to persuade governments that their forests are worth protecting,” Poore said. “They must make forests managed sustainably for timber worth more than clearing them for crops.”

“Targeted aid could be used to that end. The key is to make sustainably logged timber financially competitive with alternatives and to stamp down on illegal practices.”

The survey will be released formally at the 40th Session of the International Tropical Timber Council, which meets from May 29 through June 2 in the Yucatan Peninsula city of Merida.

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