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World Bank and WWF join
forces to conserve the world's forests

25 June 1997

UNITED NATIONS - In a positive new move for the conservation of the world's forests, the World Bank and WWF - World Wide Fund For Nature have announced a global alliance for forest conservation and sustainable use. Both organisations share concern for biodiversity, climate change, deforestation and forest degradation, and recognise the urgency of dealing with these problems. Both groups agree that their effectiveness would be greatly increased through a strategic partnership which takes advantage of common goals and skills.

In the alliance, the two organisations agree that:

A network of protected areas should be established across both developing and developed countries, which would include at least 10 per cent of each of the world's major forest types by the year 2000; and

Large areas of natural forest in developing countries and transitional economies should be brought under real sustainable management starting from a negligible amount today. The Bank and WWF will work with countries to sustainably manage a target of 100 million hectares of temperate and colder, northern forests as well as the same amount of tropical forest, by the year 2005.

During the United Nations General Assembly Special Session in New York, the World Bank announced that, to reach the agreed targets, the Bank, in partnership with WWF and other conservation organisations, will help client countries establish an additional 50 million hectares of new forest protected areas in its client countries, and bring an additional 200 million hectares of the world's forests under independent certification by the year 2005.

Despite lengthy consultations among governments and rising concern from the public since the Rio Earth Summit, deforestation has increased dramatically in the past five years.

Tropical forests disappear at the rate of nearly one per cent per year, with the annual deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon increasing 34 per cent since Rio. The Bank and WWF believe this partnership represents concrete steps that will produce measurable results and reverse the tide of deforestation.

The World Bank is the largest lender to developing countries for forest conservation and management. WWF is one of the world's leading conservation organisations, working in more than 100 countries. Within those countries, it has close working relationships with local communities, non-governmental agencies and the private sector. These qualities will allow the organisations to work jointly on the four key areas of the partnership: protected areas; forest certification; creating a coalition of interest groups involved in forest use and management; and developing and encouraging, new methods of forest management and conservation.

WWF's forests work is part of its 1,000-day Living Planet Campaign, designed to persuade the world to save earth's most outstanding habitats and wildlife.

© WWF
Outline of the agreement between the World Bank and WWF

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