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FORESTRY and USAID I. FORESTRY: THE CHALLENGE AND THE US INTEREST More than 1.6 billion people depend of forests for their livelihood, 1 billion depend almost entirely on the medicines that come from the forest ecosystem, and nearly 3 billion people depend on wood as their source of energy for heating and cooking. Although the international community identified guiding principles to maintain and sustainable manage natural forests at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, forest cover continues to decline at a staggering 14.6 million hectares per year and with an even greater area being degraded. The continuing loss and destruction of the world’s forests is a global environmental problem, with serious social, economic, and environmental costs. Forests are critically important for sustainable development because of the renewable resources they contain and the environmental services they provide. The loss includes not only commercial timber (globally valued at $125 billion per year) but also the food, medicine, fuel and raw materials which are also critical to the lives of many the world’s poorest people. The world’s forests serve an important role in the planet’s carbon cycle by storing a considerable portion of the global carbon stock. Forest burning and unmanaged forest fires cause carbon to be released back into the atmosphere, contributing directly to global greenhouse gas emissions. Destruction of forests can result, not only in the loss of commercially marketed forest products, but also increased pressures on scarce forest resources in meeting the growing demands of the poor and landless. In some countries forests are also at the center of both local and regional conflicts. Local conflicts arise due to competition over resources due to inequitable distribution and access and alternatives are unavailable. Such conflicts can escalate and lead to political instability. Illegal logging can also generate funds to support politically or culturally motivated rebel activities or support well-connected corrupt, anti-democratic elite. Loss of forests directly offset and undercut social and economic development investments due to environmental damages that result. Environmental services provided by forests include their role in protection of watersheds and reservoirs, preventing floods and mitigating global climate change. Healthy forests provide essential ecological services of both national and global significance, such as climate regulation, carbon sequestration, watershed protection, soil conservation, storage and recycling of organic matter and mineral nutrients and they provide habitats for a wide range of species. Thus loss of forest cover, due to land conversion, fragmentation, and degradation of forests affects all sectors of human society. This pattern of escalating loss has been very evident in recent years. In Asia for example, numerous countries have experienced floods of unprecedented severity, with large life and property losses due to clearing of forestlands on upland watersheds. The effects have also been negative on downstream communities that rely on lakes, reservoirs, and irrigation systems and the associated fisheries, due to siltation from the increase surface water run-off and soil erosion. Such impacts can affect the U.S as well, in terms of costs associated with environmental and economic refugees, disaster relief and reconstruction, and the economic repercussions of nations defaulting on loans as they cope with the impacts and loss of trade and negative impact on the global markets. The United States has a profound interest in the health and maintenance of global forests for several reasons. The U.S. is a major producer and consumer of forest products, adheres to high environmental principals and recognises the strategic role forests play in promoting political and economic stability, fair trade, and economic growth of developing countries. The U.S. is also the largest world importer of forest products, valued at $22 billion per year in 1997, mostly from 1 Canada, and the world's second largest forest products exporter, with exports (including paper products) totalling $17 billion in 1997. Illegal and destructive logging is a major factor in forest degradation. This directly affects U.S. producers who cannot compete with under-priced forest products, which have bypassed legal and sustainable production practices -- the U.S. has a vested interest in promoting sound forest management and protection world-wide. Over one-third of the U.S. wood exports market flows to non-oil producing developing countries. In addition, the U.S. relies on many tropical forested countries for major imports of food commodities – collectively valued at hundreds of millions of dollars annually – which are often dependent on water supplied from upland forested watersheds. The U.S. also imports tropical wood, food, medicinal plants, and natural products such as rubber, liquorice, Brazil nuts, and gum Arabic. Many U.S. companies also maintain substantial investment overseas and thus are linked to the economic health and welfare in those developing countries. In addition, developing countries represent the fastest growing export market for the U.S. and their purchasing power is affected by the health of their natural resource base and its loss. Forests are part of the broader landscape and exert a major role in protecting surrounding and downstream properties and agricultural communities. Thus their destruction has far-reaching implications that influence human livelihoods both directly and indirectly. For example, loss of upland forests can result in flash flooding and destruction of downstream infrastructure, decline in surface and ground water, and loss of topsoil and nutrients that thus limit agricultural production. II. EXPERIENCE AND IMPACT The USAID forest program history can be characterized by two phases. The first phase began in the mid-1970s when the program focused on addressing the demands for fuelwood, the principle source of heating and cooking energy in developing countries. The program strategy included promoting rural forestry in the form of communally and individually owned woodlots, and the establishment of large-scale plantations of fast-growing exotic species such as Australian eucalyptus or North American pine. Over time it became evident from the Agency’s work in the Sahel, that the exotic trees in the plantations did not perform as well as expected, as costs soared due to the lower than expected yields. The sustainability of this approach proved questionable as governments were unable to meet recurrent cost requirements and staffing levels were inadequate. Plantations were left without maintenance and protection once the USAID funding ran out. By the mid-1980s, USAID was able to evaluate its earlier attempts and concluded that future demands for fuelwood were thus unlikely to be achieved with large-scale planting schemes. Furthermore, not only were the fuelwood demands unfulfilled, but as a result of natural forest being cleared and converted to plantations, indigenous people were also losing a wide range of other forest products important to meeting household needs and contributing to the rural economy. The lessons learned, bolstered by scientific studies that illustrated the complexity of natural ecosystems and the resulting ecological damage and loss of biological diversity associated with simplified man-made habitats such as plantations, launched the second phase of forestry programming. This phase shifted focus to improving the management of natural forest ecosystems and conserving biological diversity by promoting local community participation in the use and management of natural forest areas. The program was expanded from its initial limited focus on wood production, to consider the multiple benefits of maintaining natural forests and to promote effort to support sustainable natural forest management and protection. 2 Today the Agency works to promote sustainable forest management on a global level by engaging a range of interest groups in planning and implementing forest programs. USAID works through collaborative partnerships with other Government agencies; non-Governmental, private, and voluntary organizations; and multilateral organizations in areas where deforestation is of major concern. The following is a summary of USAID’s recent experiences in protecting and sustaining forest cover in developing countries around the world. Tropical Forests: USAID implements 44 tropical forest programs in 70 countries located in three geographic regions: Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. In Latin America and the Caribbean Bureau had the highest total expenditure on forestry activities of any region in FY2001, at 42 percent of total USAID forestry spending. Programs such as the Bolivia Sustainable Forest Program (BOLFOR) and the Parks in Peril Program demonstrate USAID’s commitment to sustainable management of forest resources for rural economic empowerment, as well as protection and conservation of some of the world’s most important biodiversity-rich tropical forests. Central Africa and Madagascar’s rich tropical forests and biodiversity make the Africa region critically important to Agency efforts to manage and protect tropical forests. Africa, as a region, was responsible for 32 percent of the Agency’s FY 2001 forestry sector spending. In the Asia Near East region Mission offices have worked successfully to gain the recognition of communities’ rights to manage forests. The results of such rights include an increase in forest cover in Nepal, a decrease in illegal logging in the Philippines, and the protection of forests from fires in Indonesia. Temperate and Boreal Forests: Additionally, USAID forestry programs are working in the vast temperate and boreal forests of Europe and Eurasia. Russia’s forests comprise approximately 22% of the world’s forests making them critical globally for mitigating climate change impacts. USAID invests $2 million per year on the Forest Resources and Technologies (FOREST) project to address fire prevention, pest management, biomass energy potential and improvement of value-added processing for timber and non-timber forest products by regional enterprise associations in Siberia and Russia’s Far East, where forestry is a vital part of the economy. Bulgaria’s forest agencies are working with USAID in forest fire prevention and management activities to support programs that address fire prevention. In FY 2001, the Agency’s Mission in Bulgaria spent $250,000 on fire management support activities. The Mission has also spent almost $1 million annually in strengthening the management of forested protected areas in key watersheds. III. PROVEN APPROACHES The Agency’s approach in promoting development in the forest sector includes: building institutional capacity to support and promote sustainable forest use and management; transferring appropriate technologies related to the technical aspects of forestry including enterprise development and marketing; fostering education and awareness of local groups and individuals as well as policy makers; and supporting policy reform of natural resource policies to provide a legal, economic, and social environment supportive of local forest stewardship. Since the 1990s, several lessons have emerged in terms of project design; calculating costs and benefits; monitoring and assessing performance and impact, and the level of commitment required in achieving desired long-term results. Project Design: Because countries are at different stages of development, it is critical to first assess the country in terms of its biological and socioeconomic and political setting. Design interventions must be appropriate to meet the needs of each local and national setting, i.e., correspond to the specific stage of social, political, and economic development. In addition, it is important to review the full range of sectoral and non-sectoral policies that can affect forest management, identify changes necessary to enable project success, and assess the feasibility of achieving the changes. Project sites must be selected giving priority to areas where the value of 3 biological resources is high, where host government actions indicated a commitment to sustainable forest management, and where significant local participation and opportunities for sustainable economic return from natural resources exist. Costs and Benefits: Promoting a sense of ownership by maximizing local responsibility and authority for the management of natural resources, as well as ensuring a fair distribution of both the costs and benefits, is essential for success. An assessment of costs and benefits of forest management compared with other land use options is necessary for planning appropriate interventions. Benefits should be clearly linked to the conservation activity. Programs must address the fact that local participants encounter costs associated with their involvement: land is restricted from other uses, funds are needed to buy (materials and equipment), and labor is required to plant trees and to protect against encroachment. These must be offset with opportunities to generate early income. Possible ventures include sustainable timber (lumber, fuelwood, charcoal, pulpwood), non-timber products (nuts, honey, rattan, tree and plant nurseries), and tourist concessions. Monitoring and Assessing Impact: Monitoring is a critical element in evaluating the overall state of forests and effectiveness of interventions. Programs need to establish benchmarks, monitor change and measure impact to determine if adjustments are needed. Their impact, effectiveness, sustainability, and replicability should gauge the overall performance of programs. Impact can be measured at four levels: programmatic impacts (changes in knowledge, institutions, technical know-how, and economic policies that encourage environmentally responsible forestry use and management); impacts on practices (adoption of environmentally sound forest use and management practices); biophysical impacts (changes in tree cover, quality of soils, and diversity of plant and animal species in forest habitats); and socioeconomic impacts (changes in income, employment, and well-being of forest users and user groups). Level of Commitment: Forest programs must budget sufficient time and resources to ensure activity will be sustainable after funding supports ends…particularly when institutional capacity needs building and natural resource policies need reform. Also, community forestry programs require considerable effort over a period of years to set up new government structures, erode bureaucratic resistance, test technical approaches, organize existing (or form new) local groups, and build trust among farmers and communities. IV. PRIORITIES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS USAID supports forest conservation and sustainable management activities around the world. At the field or Mission level, the Agency supports activities that can be grouped into three broad categories: national or macro-level, project or forest-level, and addressing the underlying causes of deforestation. An illustrative list is provided below of the countries with on-going or recently completed activities in these categories. The Agency is also directing its future efforts to addressing global forestry issues and Mission support. The USAID Washington-based Forestry Team, managed within the Environment Office of the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade (EGAT) will lead this effort. National or Macro-level (legal and institutional) - Democracy and Governance: promoting grass-roots democracy through community-based forest management (Indonesia, Philippines, Nepal, Ecuador, Guatemala, Albania); Policy Reform: promoting economic and financial analysis to support policy reforms that recognize the value of forests in terms of both goods and services (Nicaragua, Indonesia, Uganda, Bolivia, Central America); and 4 - Institutional Strengthening: encouraging efforts to strengthen of national institutions, policies, laws and administrative mechanisms (Bolivia, Indonesia, Russia Far East). Project or Forest-level - - - - - Improved Forestry Practices: supporting the development of new technologies and practices such as reduced-impact logging, pest management, and watershed assessment using geospatial technologies (Brazil, Bolivia, Indonesia, Cameroon, Russia Far East) and applied research and demonstration (Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Russia Far East); Technical assistance and Training: providing technical assistance, training to facilitate transfer of appropriate and environmentally sound technology such as use of remote sensing data to monitor forest health and illegal logging, improved planning using forest inventory, economic analysis and mapping (Kenya, Tanzania, Indonesia, Cameroon, Eastern Europe and Eurasia); Forest Enterprises: strengthening forest-related enterprises and associations by promoting processing efficiency, better business practices, and improved marketing of wood and nontimber forest products(Russia Far East, Albania, Bolivia, Guatemala); Protected Areas: assisting governments and communities to designate, monitor, and manage areas such as biosphere and ecological reserves, national parks, wildlife refuges and multipleuse forests or extractive reserves (Indonesia, Bolivia, Brazil, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Madagascar, Guatemala, Mexico); Information and Communication: disseminating information and enhanced public and community education and training (South Africa, Ecuador, Panama, Kenya, Tanzania). Addressing Underlying Causes of Deforestation - - Threats and Land Conversion: addressing the underlying causes of forest fire (Mexico, Russia Far East, Siberia, Brazil, Bolivia), natural disaster (e.g., such as hurricanes -previously in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador), and land conversion or deforestation (e.g., alternatives to slash-and-burn, agricultural expansion, distorted economic and environmental policies, land tenure and land title disputes); Illegal Logging: helping to combat illegal logging through international meetings and workshops to discuss the problem, identify challenges and strategies to address the issue, and to raise public awareness (Atlanta, Washington). Global Forestry Issues and Mission Support - - - - New White House Forestry Initiative on Illegal Logging: A $50 million program that will focus on (a) destructive logging information and monitoring; (b) illegal trade policy; and (c) innovative conservation financing; International Investment: encouraging international investment for private and public capital which stimulates and rewards sound management practices and efficient forest resource use and social equity (e.g., help link communities and developing country timber and non-timber forest product industries to certified products markets); Conservation Finance: promoting creative funding mechanisms to support conservation and sustainable use of natural forests (e.g., debt-for-nature swaps and the Tropical Forest Conservation Act debt reduction program); Mission Support: serving as an information clearing house -- producing outreach materials on lessons learned, US policy, and forestry practices based on the latest research; International Dialogue: supporting USG international dialogue and negotiations both bilateral and multilateral channels, to increase sustainable forest use and management. 5 USAIDForesry-Paper-to-PPC-June01 6