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Annual Report


GLOBAL FOCUS ON FORESTS

Trees "Both WWF and the World Bank are deeply concerned about the loss of biological diversity, about climate change, deforestation, and forest degradation, and recognize the urgent need for action," asserted Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud, Manager of WWF International's Forest Programme, in June at the launch of the two organizations' alliance. "WWF is already investing US$22 million a year in some 350 forest projects in about 100 countries, while the World Bank is the largest lender to developing countries for forest conservation and management, so together we should be able to make a difference."

text Under the alliance, unveiled at UNGASS, the World Bank adopted a target of establishing 50 million hectares of new protected forest areas in its client countries by the year 2005: currently the worldwide total is 200 million hectares. Additionally, both organizations agreed to work towards increasing the amount of forests independently certified as sustainably managed from today's figure of just over 4 million hectares to at least 100 million hectares of temperate forest and 100 million hectares of tropical forest, also by the year 2005.

"Strategic alliances are vital to achieving our targets," says Francis Sullivan, Director of WWF International's Global Forests Campaign. "For example, around the world WWF-backed buyers' groups are moving towards only buying wood and wood products from forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)." WWF was deeply involved in the establishment of the FSC, the body that developed definitions of sustainable management and monitors the other independent organizations that actually inspect and certify forests.

Based on its model pioneered in the United Kingdom, where 78 companies including the leading home improvement and supermarket chains are committed to dealing only in products from FSC-certified forests, WWF is setting up buyers' groups of timber importers, merchants, and retailers in 13 countries including Australia, Brazil, and the United States. Furthermore, an agreement on national standards for sustainable forest management compatible with FSC guidelines has been reached in Sweden with a broad range of industry stakeholders, including nongovernmental organizations, and a similar process is underway in Finland.

Typical of alliances with other conservation groups is WWF's work with the BioRegional Development Group (BDG), which over three years has revived the British charcoal industry by restoring traditional coppicing methods in neglected native woodlands. The BDG now supplies bagged barbecue charcoal, a substitute for unsustainably produced imports from the tropics, to B&Q's 280 home improvement stores, and to British Petroleum for sales at their petrol stations.

During 1997, WWF consolidated its joint forest programming with IUCN­The World Conservation Union. The organizations work together to implement a global forest strategy and have appointed a policy officer to coordinate their lobbying at international meetings, as well as publishing a joint newsletter, Arborvitć, and Issues in Forest Conservation papers.

The threat to the world's forests was highlighted by the publication by WWF and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre of the first digital map of the Earth's remaining forest cover. The map, the result of 20 years' research in more than 80 countries, revealed that only 6 per cent of the world's forests are protected, and that the remainder is diminishing rapidly. For example, the rate of destruction in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by more than one-third over the last five years to nearly 3.6 million hectares a year, while three-quarters of the United States' and Canada's 750 million hectares of remaining forest are seriously threatened.

These data have reinforced the need for a worldwide network of protected areas representing all the major forest types. WWF's call for protected-area pledges has not gone unanswered: the governments of Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, the People's Republic of China, Colombia, Greece, Lithuania, Malawi, Mozambique, New Zealand, Nicaragua, the Slovak Republic, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan have agreed to protect at least 10 per cent of their forests by the year 2000, with Romania committing 12 per cent, Australia 15 per cent, and the Russian Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) pledging 25 per cent ­ an area of 70 million hectares, representing 2 per cent of the world's entire forest cover.

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