MEDIA REPORTS
FORESTS, DESERTS
AND LAND
This page was updated
on: 01/13/10
2002
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DECEMBER 2002
MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR EDUCATION EFFORT
LAUNCHED TO CONSERVE ARID AREAS OF AFRICA
The United Nations has launched a
multi-million dollar project to help nomads and communities in three
African countries conserve and boost the prospects for native flowers,
shrubs and trees. The project is targeting dry and semi-arid lands in
Kenya, Botswana and Mali. It aims to educate local people, students and
scientists up to post-graduate level in the issues of land management and
indigenous species conservation.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the
UN Development Programme (UNDP) are implementing the project, with $9
million in funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and over $1
million from the Norwegian Agency for Development and Cooperation (NORAD).
It is envisioned that the project will evolve into an African Centre for
Arid Land Studies and Development where the knowledge gained can be
communicated to other students, researchers and local people living in
similar, often degraded, environments. The University of Oslo's Department
of Biology has played a key role in developing the project and will be
providing scientific and technical supervision to help underpin its aims.
Links to further information
UNEP information note, 26 November 2002
http://www.unep.org/Documents/Default.asp?DocumentID=271&ArticleID=3178
FSC CERTIFICATION SYSTEM CHALLENGED
The Rainforest Foundation has reported
flaws in the certification system used by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC),
which is responsible for auditing timber companies worldwide and for
certifying that wood and paper is produced in an environmentally and
socially acceptable way. According to the Rainforest Foundation's recently
released report, "Trading in Credibility: The Myth and Reality of the
Forest Stewardship Council," FSC's authorized auditors have a vested
commercial interest in certifying timber companies, regardless of whether
or not they comply with the body's strict requirements. It charges that
the FSC has allowed the certification of timber companies that have been
implicated in human rights abuses and logging in tropical rainforests that
contain endangered species, as well as companies that have falsely claimed
to comply with FSC's audit requirements. The report found "inherent
weaknesses" in the FSC's operational model, where certification bodies
function as intermediaries between the FSC and forest managers. As these
parties have direct economic relations, the mechanism is flawed, the
report found, and consumers of FSC labeled products have been misled about
the state of their forests of origin.
The Forest Stewardship Council rejected the
claim that its actions have allowed certification of parties that have
engaged in human right abuses or that its audit process is rife with
conflicts of interest and expressed confidence in its model of operation.
"While we welcome the Rainforest Foundation report for its extensive
research, we find that it cites many cases that have long been solved and
in some cases major rule changes in FSC have resulted," said FSC
spokesperson Carolina Hoyas. "FSC takes these issues extremely seriously,
will immediately follow up on any such allegation and take all steps
necessary to ensure that entities involved in human rights abuses have no
possibility of participating directly or indirectly in FSC's systems."
Certification bodies, Hoyas explained, are "reimbursed for the effort
whether a certificate is awarded or denied
The FSC is currently funded
through donations from private and public donors and independent of the
number of certifications it issues."
The Rainforest Foundation report calls for
fundamental reforms to re-establish credibility and reassure the public,
including the elimination of conflicts of interest in the audit process,
as well as the cancellation of contracts with all its authorized auditors.
Links to further information
Environment News Service, 20 November
2002
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2002/2002-11-20-10.asp
Forest Stewardship Council website
http://www.fscoax.org/principal.htm
Rainforest Foundation website
http://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org/rainhome.html
NOVEMBER 2002
GEF FUNDS NEW PHASE
OF DESERT MARGINS PROGRAMME IN AFRICA
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) launched
a new phase of the five year-old Desert Margins Programme on 11 November
2002. Key dryland areas and sites have been pinpointed in each of the nine
sub-Saharan African countries involved, namely Botswana, Burkina Faso,
Kenya, Mali, Namibia, Niger, Senegal, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Crucial
to the success of this $50 million scheme, which is backed by governments
and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), will be the gathering and
sharing of traditional, indigenous knowledge and the marrying of this
knowledge with modern, land management techniques.
The project aims to conserve the rich and unique plant life
that has evolved to survive in the dry and arid lands of these countries.
Experts believe that genetic diversity remaining in these desert margins
could be a veritable treasure trove harboring potentially promising drugs
and products for 21st century agriculture and industry. Rising
populations, witnessed across Africa in the past few decades, associated
with the gradual erosion of traditional values and cultivation methods in
favor of western or northern-style agricultural systems, have intensified
pressure on these desert-fringed lands and their biodiversity. Some
experts also point to the impacts of globalization, which has led to
unstable and often rock bottom prices for commodity crops, such as coffee
and tea. Poor farmers have been forced into increasingly fragile lands,
such as Africa's desert margin areas, to cultivate higher and higher
volumes in an attempt to compensate for the price falls.
Developing alternative livelihoods will be a key part of
the project. A pilot study in Bamako, Mali, has shown that planting banks
of trees for fodder, close to the city, has cut pressure on nearby forests
while boosting incomes. The fodder "banks" are producing 4.5 tonnes per
hectare giving an income of $630 a year in a country where the average
annual wage is $270. UNEP Executive Director, Klaus Töpfer said, "This new
phase of the Desert Margins Programme, with crucial support from the GEF,
is in line with the poverty reduction aims of the Plan of Implementation
agreed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development just over two months
ago. Land degradation, desertification and drought has also been
identified as a first priority for the environment component of the New
Partnership for Africa's Development."
Links to further information
Eric Falt, Spokesperson/Director of UNEP's Division of
Communications and Public Information, e-mail:
eric.falt@unep.org; or
Nick Nuttall, UNEP Head of Media, e-mail:
nick.nuttall@unep.org
OCTOBER 2002
GEF ADDS LAND DEGRADATION AS FOCAL AREA
The second Assembly of the Global
Environment Facility (GEF), which met in Beijing, China from 16-18 October 2002,
adopted a recommendation to designate land degradation as one of its focal
areas. Hama Arba Diallo, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to
Combat Desertification (CCD), commended the decision, noting that the
World Summit on Sustainable Development had hailed it as an important
step.
The decision has been under discussion for
several years and followed the recommendation the GEF Council on 15
October 2002. The GEF Council is expected to finally endorse this decision
in May 2003, following a report by the GEF Secretariat on the operational
modalities for the new focal area. The sixth Conference of the Parties to
the Convention to Combat Desertification is also expected to endorse this
recommendation in September 2003, after which country Parties may apply
directly for GEF funding. The GEF Assembly decision also declares the
GEF's availability to serve as a financial mechanism for the Convention,
should the Parties so decide. Negotiations for the third replenishment of
the GEF trust fund concluded in August 2002 with commitments for US$2.97
billion to cover GEF operations and activities from 2003-2006, including
the land degradation focal area.
Links to further information
GEF website
http://www.gefweb.org
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