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ENVIRONMENT: Beware the 'Silent Forests', Warns World Bank
By Sonny Inbaraj
BANGKOK, Nov 10, 2004 (IPS) - The threat that East Asia's rich biodiversity
faces, with 95 percent of its forests already lost because of
uncontrolled logging and wildlife being decimated at alarming rates, may
well create what the World Bank calls 'silent forests', completely
devoid of animals.
In a report released Wednesday, ahead of next week's World
Conservation Congress to be held in the Thai capital between Nov. 17-25,
the World Bank pointed out that the region's impressive economic growth
has brought about environmental degradation at alarming rates.
''Economic growth in the East Asia-Pacific has increased demand for
natural resources such as land for non-timber forest resources,'' said
the Bank's report entitled 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Langur'.
''As a result, the region has lost 95 percent of its primary
forests; individual countries have lost 70 to 90 percent of their
original wilderness; and deforestation continues to accelerate the
seemingly inexorable fragmentation and loss of terrestrial and aquatic
habitats,'' it pointed out.
East Asian economic growth is expected to reach more than seven
percent in 2004 but has already peaked in the first half of the year,
the World Bank said Tuesday in its latest twice-yearly update on the region.
In an upbeat assessment of economic progress and the spread of
democracy since the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, the Bank said
that developing East Asian economies should grow at nearly 8 percent
this year - more than a percentage point higher that the rate predicted
a year ago.
''The region's dynamism is creating more personal wealth and higher
standards of living than ever before; but economic growth has, as
elsewhere, brought about environmental degradation,'' said the Bank's
biodiversity report.
As a result of this, the Bank warned, the region is failing to
strike a balance between economic growth and environmental protection.
But what also worries the international financial institution is
that the East Asia-Pacific is also a key supplier to the international
wildlife market, both legal and illegal - besides being a centre for the
consumption of wildlife derivates ranging from tiger bone medicines to
shark fin cuisine.
''Our concern is that the wildlife trade undermines the hundreds of
millions of dollars we have poured into conservation,'' said Tony
Whitten, the World Bank's senior biodiversity specialist for East Asia
and Pacific.
''This illicit trade certainly empties forests. There's the 'silent
forest' syndrome that we have to deal with - which means that even if we
conserve forests, there might not be wildlife in them if we don't put a
handle on the illegal wildlife trade,'' added Whitten.
Over the 1999-2004 period, the World Bank has committed a total of
300 million U.S. dollars in new funds to biodiversity in the region. Of
this investment, 82 percent has been used to support projects focusing
exclusively on biodiversity conservation, while 18 percent are for
raising awareness among the general public - with the Bank working with
'non-traditional allies'.
In 1995, the World Bank and the World Conservation Union, known by
its acronym IUCN, signed an aide memoiré to develop a wide range of
collaborative work at both the policy and operational levels. World
Bank-IUCN joint work now stretches all over the world from staff
exchanges and joint programmes to advisory groups.
Created in 1948, the IUCN brings together 81 states, 114 government
agencies, 800 plus non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and some 10,000
scientists and experts from 181 countries.
Up to 3,500 environmentalists, scientists, businessmen and
government officials are expected to attend the World Conservation
Congress - which is being billed as the largest conservation meeting ever.
Also invited are corporate heavyweights Shell and BP, said Denise
Jeanmonod, the communications coordinator of IUCN Asia.
''This would put the environmental performance of big business in
the spotlight,'' she said.
Nonetheless the IUCN Congress is not without controversy.
Asian forests are being destroyed at a staggering rate and the
finger of blame is now pointing at China - a party to the IUCN. Not
satisfied with legal imports, China's hunger for wood has also caused a
boom in illegal logging.
''One cause for declining forest cover regionally is increased
demand from China,'' said the World Bank's biodiversity report.
''Already a net wood importer, China is turning increasingly to
international sources of raw material - a process that continues, and
one which threatens the integrity of forests through the East
Asia-Pacific,'' added the Bank.
China's entry to the World Trade Organisation has also driven
tariffs for most timber imports down to zero, fueling imports as well as
a rapidly expanding export industry in everything from pulp and paper to
furniture and decorations, most of it destined to the United States and
the European Union.
Conservationists are even more concerned about the destruction of
tropical rain forests in South-east Asia, whose rich biodiversity make
them the ''lungs of the earth''.
The lowland forests of Indonesia, for example, are being
systematically destroyed by international companies and illegal loggers
supported by corrupt military and provincial government officials, adds
the World Bank report.
''Indonesia is the world's most biologically diverse country.
However, one to two million hectares of forest are still being lost
annually to illegal logging and encroachment, and the many and varied
attempts to stem this haemorrhage to any significant extent have so far
failed,'' stated the World Bank report. (END)
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