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World Bank And WWF Join Forces To Conserve Earth's Forests

smoke stacks July 26th, 1997

United Nations- In a positive new move for the conservation of the world's forest, the World Bank and WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature have announced a global alliance for forest conservation and sustainable use. Both organizations share concern for biodiversity, climate change, deforestation and forest degradation, and recognize 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 organizations agree that:

  • a network of protected areas should be established across both developing and developed countries, which would include at least 10 percent 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 ha 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 organizations, 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 percent per year, with the annual deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon increasing 34 percent 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 organizations, working in more than 100 countries. Within those countries, it has close working relationships with local communities, nongovernmental agencies and the private sector. These qualities will allow the organizations 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.

    Outline of Agreement by World Bank and WWF to Conserve Earth's Forests

    • WWF and the Bank have agreed to work jointly to escalate and bring better focus to international efforts to deal with the ecological, economic and social consequences of ongoing deforestation and forest degradation in the world;

    • WWF and the Bank will promote the establishment of an ecologically representative network of protected areas, covering at least 10 percent of each of the world's forest types by the year 2000. In this context, the Bank has adopted a specific new targ et of the establishment of 50 million hectares of new forest protected areas in its client group of countries by 2005.

    • WWF and the Bank will cooperate to achieve the Bank's new target of the independent certification of 200 million hectares of well managed production forests by 2005 -- 100 million hectares in temperate and boreal forest regions, and 100 million hecta res in tropical forest regions.

    • Four specific programmes of activity will be shared, as the main means of collaborating on this project:

      1. identification and establishment of forest protected areas: utilizing WWF's field capability to define such areas; and the Bank's ability to invest in and develop new financial instruments to implement protection;

      2. independent certification of well-managed forests; private sector approaches: combined WWF/Bank initiatives on both the demand and the supply side of the international forest products market, aimed at promoting investment in, and purchase of, product s from well-managed forests;

      3. integrating policies, programmes, and interest groups: utilizing organizational networks and advantages to move forest countries beyond broad commitments to sustainability targets, towards geographically and technically specific forest managment agre ements;

      4. new products and instruments: joint programmes to promote new approaches to forests, such as transition funds aimed at helping local communities to invest in sustainability, and compensatory mechanisms with the same objective.

    • The two organizations will work on refinement of their collaborative programme, along the line outlined above, and with attention to developing joint priorities for both the focus and nature of activities to be shared, and also geographical location of such activities.

    • At this juncture, it would seem that the Bank and WWF could work more intensively together on the Amazon, the Congo Basin, New Guinea, Russia, and China.

    Fact Sheet

    • Almost half of the earth's original forest cover is gone, much of it destroyed within the past three decades. Seventy-five percent of the world's large intact forests in the temperate and tropical regions are now threatened. Between 50 and 90 percent of all land species on earth inhabit the world's forest. (Source: World Research Institute, 1997)

    • Of the 3,300 million hectares (8,000 million acres) of forests remaining on earth, only 6 percent are currently in legally protected areas. (Source: WWF, 1997)

    • WWF and the World Bank today are promoting the establishment of an ecologically representative network of protected areas, covering at lest 10 percent of each of the world's forest types by the year 2000. At least an additional 129 million hectares (319 million acres) of forests need to be included under protected area status to achieve the minimum of 10 percent. In this context, the World Bank's commitment today to help establish 50 million hectares (124 million acres) of new forest protected areas in its client countries is a highly significant contribution to global forest conservation.

    • So far this year, 20 governments have also committed to the target of the establishment of an ecologically representative network of protected areas, covering at least 10 percent of each of the world's forest types by the year 2000. They are: Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, the People's Republic of China, Colombia, Greece, Lithuania, Malawi, Mozambique, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Romania, the Russian Republic of Sakha, the Slovak Republic, Tunisia and Uzbekistan. The People's Republic of China announced its commitment on Monday, 23 June, 1997, during UNGASS. (Source: WWF Forests for Life Campaign, 1997)

    • In addition, the World Bank is supporting WWF's target for independent forest certification and has established its own target to achieve 200 million hectares of certified well-managed production forests by 2005 - 100 million hectares in temperate and boreal forest regions and 100 million hectares in tropical regions. This 200 million hectares represents over six percent of the world's forest.

    • WWF's forests work is part of its 1,000-day Living Planet Campaign, designed to persuade the global community to help save earth's most outstanding wildlife and wilderness areas. WWF is currently implementing 350 forest projects in over 50 countries.

    • Despite lengthy consultations among governments, and rising concern from the public since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, deforestation has increased dramatically in the past 5 years. Tropical forests are disappearing at the rate of nearly one percent per year, with the annual deforestation rate in the Brazilian Amazon increasing 34 percent since Rio.

    • Independent certification verifies that forest management practices are environmentally, socially and economically sound and allows consumers to purchase products from well-managed forests.

    • The World Bank is by far the largest individual source of development finance for forests and forestry. The average annual approvals of Bank lending for forest projects for the 5-year period of 1992-1996 was 356.7 million dollars. In addition, there is 23 million dollars in annual grant approvals from the Global Environment Facility for biodiversity projects in forest ecosystems.

    --End--
    For further information contact Lee Poston at WWF-US: +1 202 778-9536 or David Theis at the World Bank: +1 202 473-1955