Executive Summary:
Public Hearings
Highlights of Panel One:
Sustainable Use and Management of Forests

Canadian Aboriginals
U.S. and Canadian Logging Communities
Mexican Ejiditarios
Industry
Evening Meeting

Environmental Groups
Aboriginals from the U.S. and Canada
Mexican Ejiditarios
U.S. Government
Day Three Focusing on Trade and Finance Issues
Commission Deliberations

Overview
Saikeeng Nation
Temagami
The Comprehensive Land Use Planning Council
The Wendaban Stewardship Authority (WSA)
Winapatei

 Executive Summary:

The World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development (WCFSD) is an independent body of experts that was established after the Earth Summit of June 1992 to examine the problems of the deteriorating status of the world's forests. The Commission is holding five regional public hearings around the world to hear the views of different "stakeholder" groups on these issues. The Secretariat and the Commission will produce interim reports, and a final report will be issued in mid-1997.

The North American hearing was the second of the five regional hearings, following the model of the 1980's Brundtland Commission, planned by the WCFSD. The Sustainable Development Institute was invited to attend all meetings and speaking events along with the panel of experts. The Commission aimed to examine three areas: the sustainable use and management of forests; trade and export of forest-related products, and financial mechanisms and instruments needed for sustainable development.

The North America hearing focused on Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The abundance of Canadian stakeholders tended to dominate the hearing and detracted from the concerns over forests and sustainable development in Mexico and the U.S.. However, despite the smaller numbers of Mexicans and U.S. participants, an overwhelming message emerged that greater local and community-based control over forest resources may lead to wiser and more sustainable use and management of forests. Less decisive conclusions were reached on the other two areas of focus.

It was the intent of the Commissioners to have the participants address several questions in each panel that might indicate areas where international agreements might be strengthened, or recommendations might be formulated for the development of wiser use of diminishing global forest resources. These questions included: [see background papers]

These questions were pushed aside as participants displayed emotional outbursts either for or against exploitation of the forest. The classic dichotomy between logging communities and environmentalists was drawn out at length. Although many of the stakeholders present were there to air their opinions, others were able to see ways that common ground could be forged between stakeholder groups. For many, the solution posed was to increase local autonomy on decision making for forest use through establishing effective mechanisms for ongoing dialogue and consultative processes that include all the stakeholders, but give priority to those who are most heavily dependent on and committed to the long term sustainability of the forests and forest resources.

The Commissioners met with a panel of experts that included a scientific advisory board which is developing an extensive report on the synergistic effects of deforestation on climate change. Economist David Pearce is developing a section of the report on the economics of forest loss and need for better natural resource accounting. A report on the second green revolution as a solution to the timber supply crisis will also be included. A section on community roles and partnerships will also be drafted by an outside expert.

The Commission and the panel of experts heard from the Sierra Club of Canada, from the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, independent scientists, and the aboriginal or first nations groups. The Commission also took field trips, and travelled to one area where conflict over forest resources has escalated in recent months to gain an in-depth understanding of this particular situation in Canada.

The Commission has begun to outline the areas of emphasis of its final report. Commissioners stressed the need for new institutional mechanisms or shifts in large institutions to change the current patterns of forest exploitation. In particular, there is a consensus on the need to strengthen the role of civil society in protecting the world's forests. The report outline in its current form fails to adequately address some of the Commission's key concerns: the role of trade in forest loss and degradation; the underlying causes of deforestation; the issues of tenure reform; and the problems of disparities in wealth not between North and South but between the rich and poor within both developing and developed countries. The format of public hearings has prevented an in-depth treatment of these areas. It is expected that the subsequent hearings will develop mechanisms to examine these issues through seminars or panels at the public hearings.

Other criticism is that the report fails to consider the specific roles that multilateral lending and private sector investment play in contributing to or preventing forest loss. More consultation on these areas would be important for the value of the report.

This report is divided into three sections. The first section gives the highlights from the public hearing and other meetings. The second section addresses considerations for the formulation of the final Commission report; the third section describes the field trips taken by the Commissioners and lessons learned.

Clearly there is a need to set priorities on the issues the Commission is attempting to address. One priority agreed upon is the definition of public interest in respect to forests. The Commission is examining how effective the rules are in defining public interest. The Sustainable Development Institute highlights several points that it sees as priorities for the WCFSD to address in its report. These comments are found at the end of section two.

Public Hearings (back to contents)

The Commission held its public hearing in the formal atmosphere of the Grand Ballroom of the Fort Garry Place Conference Centre in downtown Winnipeg. Sitting ranged along a dais raised above floor level, almost as if they were at a Politburo meeting according to one disgruntled Commission member, the group listened patiently to a variety of comments and complaints from a broad cross-section of Mexican, U.S., and Canadian "stakeholders."

Before the public session even began, the Commission heard a blistering attack on Canadian forest policy from Elizabeth May, director of the Sierra Club in Canada and author of a forthcoming polemic entitled The Cutting Edge. Accusing the Canadian government of practicing "voodoo forestry" and publishing badly misleading statistics, May claimed that 90 percent of all logging in Canada is of the clear-cut variety, and that 90 percent of the area being logged has not previously been cut.

Cutting limits are set way too high, she said. The industry bases its claims of sustainable harvesting practices what is known as the Annual Allowable Cut (AAC). Every company claims that it is cutting under the AAC, thus it is sustainably harvesting. But there is no evidence that the AAC is based on any kind of forest resource inventory. May said this kind of forestry is "sustainable" until the forest is all gone. She described the kind of stumpage fee that promotes the irresponsibility of this type of forestry but blames the provincial governments. She says the industries are just doing what they do best, making money. And she asked, "Why wouldn't a company take advantage of a government which is so supine?" The federal government can't enforce its laws without help from the provincial governments, so it is quite clearly the provincial governments that are not responding to the need to slow down in the "greatest bargain basement sale of forest resources in history," as she put it.

The Canadian forest service has become little more than a public relations arm for the forest-products industry, May continued, and even if the national government wanted to shape and promote sustainable forest management (SFM) policies more aggressively, opposition from the provincial level would prevent effective actions from being implemented. (in private, Ms. May expressed to us the view that of all provincial governments, only British Columbia has recently shown a glimmer of sense about forest policy; the Commission's host government of Manitoba she finds one of Canada's worst offenders.)

Regarding a question of a global forest convention to address the problems of forests, May delivered a sharp assessment of the likely outcome. Particularly because Canada is a leading proponent of a global forest convention, May pointed out that the Canadians are some of the worst offenders of their own forest principles. It would be highly unlikely that a global convention would improve their standards but rather legitimize the current practice. Across Canada, the provinces all agree to standards of forest practices at the lowest common denominator which means accepting Alberta's standards (Alberta has the worst record). The criteria and indicators even without social and environmental considerations would not be enforceable. The Canadians are pushing a standards association that is process-oriented and means nothing about sustainability of the forest practices. May asserted, the only voluntary eco-labeling standards that have any credibility are those of the Forest Stewardship Council which are rejected by Canada. The situation of Canada may serve as a microcosm for the sort of results a global forest convention might have on the global forests.

May's recommendations for Canada: (1) tenure reform: treating MNCs as tenants not landlords; (2) local community control: especially for the First Nations; (3) transparency and public access to information; (4) ecological tax reform; (4) job creation for those suffering form the transition out of intensive forestry.

Such attitudes echoed many expressed at a two-day gathering of Canadian NGO representatives that preceded the Commission hearing. Reporting the results of this meeting, a spokesperson sharply accused the Canadian government of tolerating overcutting, misrepresenting facts, and falsely alleging leadership in promoting forest protection and sustainable management. "The Canadian government has given away our forests to the national and multinational timber companies," she said. Because of overcapacity and technological innovation, she added, these companies "need to accelerate the cut to maintain job levels." NGO recommendations included reforms in taxes and stumpage fees, implementation in Canada of forest provisions within the biodiversity and global climate treaties, accountability, transparency, and so forth. "Tell the truth in the report," she urged the Commission. "Do not be taken in by government lies and propaganda."

This report was followed by the opening plenary in which Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon said that since one in every forty jobs in Manitoba is directly or indirectly tied to the forest industry, the province inherently must be a pioneer in moving in the direction of sustainable forest management (SFM). A member of the national parliament added that his nation is in the vanguard of achieving a "common global vision" of SFM, and especially wants a global forest convention to replace the scattered fragments that currently constitute international forest policy. Filmon's statement was countered by a polite, small group of student protestors who silently held up signs. Filmon referred to the students as "extremists" attempting to obstruct sustainable development, a remark that won applause from the timber companies and logging communities represented in the audience.

During the plenary discussion period, Canadian First Nation representatives softly deplored the lack of federal and provincial communication with indigenous communities about forest rights. "Sustainable forest management is not sustainable unless indigenous rights are respected," said one speaker. "Sure, jobs are good," said another. "But we have to protect Mother Earth." A succession of loggers and logging labor unionists then came to the mikes, united in protest that the Commission was not sufficiently addressing their needs and concerns.

After lunch the hearing broke into three parallel sessions concerned with topics of: Sustainable, Equitable Use and Management of Forests; Forest Product Trade and the Environment; and Financial Mechanisms. Most of the participants followed the first panel which met again in the plenary hall.

Highlights of Panel One: Sustainable Use and Management of Forests (back to contents)

Canadian Aboriginals

The first statement of the day came from the Pine Creek First Nation : "I am holding an Eagle feather for patience because I see how desperate the situation is, and I know I need patience. I brought seven herbs from the forest to demonstrate the value of the unknown herbs and medicinal plants that grow in forests. Harvest for profit is against what our creator wanted. Our creator never intended us to use our forest like this."

Harry Bombay from the National Aboriginal Forestry Association said that participation of local communities in forest management is the only way to protect forests for their social, cultural, AND economic needs. Forest management has gone on in Canada for centuries. Aboriginal peoples do not have the secure benefits they should have. They have watched from the reservations as the forests have been exploited for short term profit. Meanwhile the long term health of the forests has declined and the ability of the people protect any of the forest for sustainable management has been removed. The situation is that the government dictates laws but the provinces make the management decisions.

He said that neither the Candian federal government nor the provincial government wants to deal with the aboriginal people in the context of sustainable management of the forest resources on their lands. For cultural reasons the aboriginal peoples need certain herbs and medicines found in the forests, but in addition to that their cultural identity comes form their relationship with nature and the forests. Suicides have escalated in recent decades because these aboriginal peoples lack a purpose in relation to the modern environment. Aboriginals have unique rights in Canadian society, but they need the rights to manage their lands. Aboriginal people have special needs in trade as well that need to be recognized. And the aboriginals have unique traditional forest related knowledge which is rapidly eroding. Steps must be taken to coordinate policy of national and provincial governments and to look at ways in which aboriginals can be brought into the planning and decision making processes surrounding forest management and use.

U.S. and Canadian Logging Communities (back to contents)

Individuals from logging communities of both Canada and the U.S. expressed their exasperation with environmentalists and the government for shutting down companies when it was clear that there was plenty of forest left. Others talked about the process of clear cutting as "mimicking Mother Nature", and of the importance of cutting to prevent losses that might occur otherwise from fires. Industry and U.S. and Canadian forest service representatives described why clear cutting is superior to any other technique for temperate and boreal forests.

Mexican Ejiditarios (back to contents)

Another statement came from the coordinator of an ejido in Oaxaca, Mexico: He said that the state control of forests has decreased in recent years. He spoke about the ejido communities in Mexico and described how eighty percent of the forests are owned by ejido communities who by law cannot sell them. However, most of the ejido communities do not participate in conservation nor do they use the forest resources but rather rent them to companies. Why? Because these communities lack access to financial resources; lack the technical capacity; lack organization. How could these problems be resolved? How could these communities benefit from their resources? What would it take to have their involvement in the forest and land resource use planning?

Industry (back to contents)

A statement from the American Pulp and Paper Association expressed the need for corporate codes of conduct designed by industry for industry. The spokesman accused the Commission of listening to one-side only because he had heard that Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club had spoken that morning in an exclusive breakfast meeting and opportunity for "brainwashing". (May pointed out subsequently that the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association was scheduled to speak to the Commissioners the following morning and told him that she thought he should give the Commissioners more credit.)

Evening Meeting (back to contents)

In the evening of the first day, former Premier Mike Harcourt gave a presentation of the work he has done in British Columbia to resolve conflict over forest use among communities and he showed a very slick slideshow of the results thus far in using GIS mapping and long range planning with industry, logging communities, first nations and environmentalists.

Highlights from Public Hearings (back to contents)

During the working sessions on the second and third days, speakers were required to register in advance so that they could not immediately respond to attacks or information that they disagreed with. This technique brought a more reasonable tone to the interventions. There was no limit to the number of times each group present could intervene, so there was a lot of repetition.

The second morning began with a breakfast presentation to the Commissioners from the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association (CPPA). The speaker commended the role of the CPPA in Canada. When it came to the questions, he was very quick to pass them off to one of his colleagues. He read his speech with a smooth and convincing style, but said very little in answers to questions. And he made a questionable claim about the pulp industry's standrads in Canada being endorsed by the OECD. He also made a sweeping statement about the Canadian Standards Association process which had met for its last meeting several days prior, stating that the process had been endorsed by a wide cross-section of aboriginal groups and NGOs. According to NAFA, the aboriginal group which participated in the process, they and other NGOs had participated to push for the inclusion of social indicators, but the participants were not all pleased with the outcome.

Environmental Groups (back to contents)

In the public hearing, Brock Evans representing the U.S.-based National Audubon Society gave several reasons why the world's forests need attention and suggested some solutions: (1) forests are far more complex than we always thought. (2) Just replanting trees is not enough; (3) Forests are far too important to leave to foresters alone; (4) Only regulations and laws that protect the forest have worked. If you fly over Idaho, British Columbia or Montana, Evans continued, you can see that what is being practiced is NOT sustainable forestry.

Vicky Husband of the Sierra Club Canada emphasized the need for tenure reform and community involvement and the need to focus energy on the transition problems of communities moving out of forestry. Likewise Marran Smith from Sierra Club said that local control over forest resources is a solution. Community-based management of forests can provide stability by managing forests on a long term cycle focusing on maintaining quality of the forests rather than quantity of trees.

A student group called Save the Christmas Mountains gave a memorable skit with each of the students dressed as a different stakeholder and each of them speaking in a different language told the tale of a forest.

First they explained that they are struggling to save the last remaining old growth in New Brunswick. They emphasized that they want to see a process of dialogue which is already beginning among the First Nations in the area and loggers. The skit made the point that forests are complex and need to be protected for more than just the interests of the various stakeholders but for the flora, the wildlife, and ecological functions. Three characters dressed as government and industry officials came to the front and pretended to be assessing the forest. Then a young woman dressed as a flower came up and said in French how important the forest was to her; a young woman followed dressed as water and spoke in Spanish of what would happen to her if the forests were cut; then a fox spoke of his forest needs; a selective logger spoke of his needs and they all had a stake in the forests' continued existence. Then another character came on and invoked them to conflict and they all began arguing until a First Nation character tells them to stop and sit down and work out their differences so that they can come to a solution between them all. The skit brought some life to the hearing. Commissioner Haem Muntingh told them that they gave him hope.

Aboriginals from the U.S. and Canada (back to contents)

Don Montanic of the Inter-Tribal Timber Council based in Oregon said that they have acquired 16.5 million acres of Indian lands and are attempting to manage it sustainably. In his experience, it is necessary to establish funding mechanisms that are more accessible to local groups. In particular, he would like to see a process that allows aboriginals to submit a two-page, one stop application to the government so that they can carry out these kinds of management practices more easily. The current system is so bureaucratic that the money never gets to where it is needed.

Next, Sam Etapp from the Cree Nation spoke eloquently about the history of the Cree and how difficult it is to transform a way of life. He said the Cree have a sacred way of living which manages the forests in a way that is enmeshed in culture of respect for nature. He recounted that in Northern Quebec, the Cree were involved in designing and passing a comprehensive land management plan which gave full decision making authority to the Cree, but was then made irrelevant after the plan was completed. Cree input has been dismissed as unscientific. Cree knowledge has been crucial to survival and sustenance of land. Cree can help with forest development. But they have reservations about the approaches of industry. The government told them to negotiate with the industry and the industry told them they have to negotiate with the government over the protection of the traditional lands of the Cree. There is a basic lack of responsibility, a lack of interest in dealing with the Cree because they don't want to exploit the forest.

Mexican Ejiditarios (back to contents)

Rosendo Caro of the National Union of Communal Forestry Organizations based in Michoacan, Mexico said that the use of forest resources is not and should not be limited to the extraction of wood.

James Ehnes has been studying the comparison of ecological impacts from fires and clear cutting and found the results are far from clear. He has studied the policies and sees the gap between policy and practice as significant. He thinks the national policies need to be implemented rather than searching for justification of current destructive practices. Another doctoral student had compared policies in Karnataka and British Columbia. He was looking at property laws and the recognition of communal ownership of forest lands in both places as key to sustainable forest management.

U.S. Government (back to contents)

Turning from Canadian to U.S. issues, Gerald Rose of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources talked about what is happening in Minnesota: Management that balances economic, environmental, and social considerations. The forestry department needs the communities to support environmental quality. Collaboration with communities is very important. Building local capacity to manage forests is a key component of their work through education, technical assistance, and support for incentives. All of this is a collaborative process to develop ongoing dialogue through regular round tables with an aim to guiding and empowering communities.

Michael Kilgore, Director of the Minnesota Resource Council spoke in the same vein. Again and again involving local communities and devolving authority or developing partnerships with local people is an important theme that emerged at the hearing.

Day Three Focusing on Trade and Finance Issues (back to contents)

On the third morning, Donald Ludwig, a mathematician at the University of British Columbia, gave an entertaining breakfast speech. He stated the mathematical certainty that it is impossible to predict what will happen without more information, and there can be no more information without more time to observe the impact of current practices. So the best we can do is wait 500 years and see. Or we can begin to embrace some of the philosophy that is found among the aboriginals that respect nature and all its living things. He presented a paper with an historical look at forest management in various places. His conclusions included not taking advice from economists, trying to make information about what is happening accessible to the broader public, institute sensible national accounting that considers the loss of natural resources, and supporting the poorest first.

While the day was meant to address the other panels on Trade and Export of Forest-Related Products and Financial Mechanisms, many of the interventions were in respect to the problems of management and sustainable use. Of interest was the intervention from a representative of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo regarding the need for technical assistance for forest management of forest resources and involvement of campesinos and indigenous groups. Greg Christensen of the United Paperworks International Union talked about the need to control population so that there is enough forest to supply everyone's demands.

These public meetings attracted a fuller attendance of the Commissioners than the Asia hearing. Some felt that there was insufficient attention to Mexican issues; as a consequence of a side meeting to discuss this Commission co-Chair Ola Ullsten invited a Mexican delegation to attend the upcoming Commission meeting in Costa Rica and make a full presentation. Some also felt that the public discussion focussed too much on the polarization between loggers and environmentalists, with insufficient input from governments as well as from local communities. Few NGO representatives from the U.S. were on hand. As in the instance of the Asia hearing, it is difficult to get wide regional representation.

Commission Deliberations (back to contents)

The Commission and its panel of experts met privately on the Sunday before the public hearing, and on several occasions later in the week, to discuss the draft outline for the Commission's final report. The meeting was held at the office of the International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD), which organized the public hearing, private meetings, and subsequent field trip.

Many of the Commission's comments reflected interest in addressing the people dimension of forests. Commissioner Kamla Chowdry stressed the point, stating:

• Indigenous and tribal peoples are talked about but there is no place in the initial draft that attempts to describe how the forest-dependent people can be reached.
• New institutional mechanisms or shifts in institutions will be required for change in the current patterns of forest exploitation and there is need to comment on how and specifically on what kind of NGOs and governments are needed and what kind of new institutions are needed.

Manuel Rodriguez-Becerra, a new Commissioner who is also co- chair of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF), said the first draft lacks a cross-sectoral approach. He felt (1) that the underlying causes of deforestation get lost in the report's structure; (2) that the issue of trade is not adequately addressed, e.g. to what extent does trade have an impact on deforestation and how trade pressures relate to deforestation; and (3) clarification of land tenure systems is not emphasized. Land tenure across Latin America is dominated by the wealthy. One major contribution of the WCFSD would be to point out the problems of wealth within and outside of developing countries. (This is something that the IPF and the CSD will not take action on.) The WCFSD should focus on the rich and the poor (within both developing and developed countries) and NOT on the North and South.

For Commissioner co-chair Emil Salim, it is crucial that this report address issues that are not being covered in other forest fora. His main point was that the WCFSD is responsible to civil society, i.e. to the people, less than to the UN.

George Woodwell emphasized the need to prioritize issues. And raised the question of who defines the public interest. What is the public interest became a major question in the subsequent field trips. In his opinion the main purpose of the WCFSD is to evaluate how effective are the rules in defending public interest. The WCFSD is trying to define and redefine the values in the public interest. Some questions: (1) Do we have enough forests? We will never have enough. (2) How do you balance an equitable ratio of resources not simply of economic value but of resources? (3) What can be done as the population expands? (4) What is the role of the government in all of this?

Jim McNeill noted that while the draft document deals with poverty and deforestation, the role of the rich in providing "perverse subsidies," and of governments, which actively encourage unsustainable forest practices, warrant further attention. Commissioner Haem Muntingh echoed this point, noting governments' well documented abuse of political powers in Indonesia, Burma, Latin America.

John Spears, Commission executive director, urged the consideration of the macro picture. He emphasized investing in the South: he said that the North can help conserve boreal and temperate forests by intensifying and expanding timber estate (plantation) production. He refers specifically to a Norwegian study which concluded that if only 7% of the world's forests were devoted to intensive wood production in New Zealand, Uruguay, and Chile, all the world's pulp, paper, fiber, and timber needs could be met by the year 2050. In the same breath he talked about the need to address the poverty of local communities and the need to counter the link between poverty and deforestation through community approaches to reforestation.

The Commission's final report is due to be published in Fall 1997. Since current drafts are in flux and inputs are being received from many quarters, at this stage we offer general comments rather than specific suggestions about detailed passages in the current draft. Our general comments are these:

• Care needs to be taken to ensure that the report portrays stakeholder communities (containing logging as well as other local, poor, and indigenous groups) as actors emerging as managers of forest resources rather than as those responsible for forest degradation and deforestation. Solutions to forest loss are to be found not in the "protection" of these communities, but rather in their empowerment through local control over decision making regarding the use of local forest resources. At the Winnipeg public hearing this argument emerged again and again as a theme from logging communities (the more reasonable ones), environmentalists, and the first nations. They could assist the forest departments in managing and protecting forests for limited harvest given the chance, and they are willing to sit down with the industry to come up with workable management plans, given political will to adhere to plans worked out by different stakeholders.
• It is important for the report to consider the impacts of the globalization of the economy and of the timber trade, and particularly the increasing concentration of wealth from forest resources.
• Consumption by countries both developing and developed is an area that should be explored or at least mentioned; particularly with regard to alternatives to pulp and paper and wooden building materials. Plantations are not the only answer.
• An important factor is the extent to which major donor agencies have exacerbated social and environmental problems in their efforts to support development and achieve "structural adjustment." Many donor agencies are currently revising their policies and approaches in order to better serve the interests of the "public" and the sustainable management and use of forests throughout the world. But these issues are not sufficiently embraced in early outlines of the report. Nor were they much discussed at the Asia meeting, or in Winnipeg with regard to Mexico. This is an area that will be very important to address in Latin America and Africa.
• At present there is no clear mechanism for reviewing or discussing the views of the stakeholders expressed at the hearing to incorporate them into the report. In this regard we note Commissioner Margaret Taylor's comment on the responsibility of the Commission to do something with the information they are getting from the people speaking at the public hearing.
• The addition of Manuel Rodriguez-Becerra to the Commission lends insight into how the Commission's work fits into the current international forest policy arena, and how it may or may not overlap with the process of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Forests. It is particularly important for the Commission to exercise its autonomy by covering areas of the subject (e.g. corruption, a full discussion of the pros and cons of a global forest convention) that the IPF will not to be addressing under its current form. (Commissioner Angela Cropper stressed this point, noting that it is "very much the essential rationale" of the Commission to express the voices of the "little people" who have no access to the IPF.)
• The Commission is clearly composed of independent, extremely well-qualified and well-positioned individuals with strong if sometimes greatly differing opinions on the matters of forests and sustainable development. Its principal challenge will be to produce a good but also challenging report that invites attention and implementation.

Overview (back to contents)

The field trips associated with the North America Regional Hearing were well-planned, balanced, thoughtfully arranged to give a clear sense of the issues that the Commission was dealing with. The IISD must be commended for an excellent job for all the hard work that went into planning these trips. These trips were an incomparable improvement over the trip in Asia. There were three options for field trips on Thursday, and almost all of the Commissioners and panelists continued on the next day to Temagami.

Saikeeng Nation (back to contents)

The visit to the Saikeeng Nation, located about 90 minutes by car from Winnipeg, offered a vivid appreciation of the spirituality of the First Nations and of their respect for living things and nature as a whole. Until recently, the ritual of the sweat house, along with many other aboriginal rituals, was banned by the Canadian government. By the time the ban was lifted, the communities had to lost knowledge of some of these rituals. By finding elders in other Nations they could relearn the ceremonies. In the purification ceremony, which can be done as often as once daily, there are certain rocks and leaves and other tools that have to be procured. And there is only one man in each band (tribe) that knows how to tie the water drum which is beaten during the ceremony.

Before collecting the young cedar branches for their ceremonies, the participants pray to the trees and likewise the stones they collect are by praying. The fires are built with prayers. Tobacco is offered to the Creator by throwing it onto the fire before entering the sweat house. Everything is done in a ritual. There is a big fire outside the sweat lodge where the "grandfather stones" are heated. There is a small fire to burn cedar leaves where everything is purified. Cedar leaves are placed in a single file line around the edge of the little fire pit and in a sacred line leading directly the sweat lodge, and around the fire pit inside the lodge. This line is not to be crossed over by women. It represents the umbilical cord. The fire is life. The sweat lodge is the womb. So this ceremony in a sense is the rebirth experience. The participants beat the drums which is supposed to be the mother's heartbeat. The whole ceremony is meant to bring you back the purity and honesty of yourself at birth.

During the visit to the Saikeeng Nation we also learned of the four hydro dams along the river, the pulp and paper mill and the nuclear power plant that are now upstream and have abruptly halted the traditional ways of fishing and trapping, and collecting wild rice from the river's edge. The Nation is trying to work out a comprehensive watershed management plan together with the government, power authorities, industry, and the local communities. The visit certainly gave me an appreciation of the struggle the first Nations have been facing over the past generations to retain their cultural identity and perpetuate their way of life.

Being welcomed the way we were certainly gives one an appreciation of the warmth and acceptance of the Nation, their openness for dialogue, and their fundamentally different approach from industries toward the environment. It seems their culture is based on principles of non-confrontation, which explains why they have fared so badly in negotiating control over their resources. The First Nations have gotten the short end of the stick in every instance and neither the national nor the provincial governments will defend their interests.

Traditionally the Nations had divisions and were not necessarily communicating. The government wants them to speak with one voice which is not realistic. Governments need to create mechanisms for local consultation and put the decision making authority over local resources into local consultative processes. Anyway, it is encouraging that the local chief really cares about creating such mechanisms and has put a lot of initiative into this approach.

We also visited a high school on the reservation. The youth that we visited is the future and they are learning their traditional language as a second language. Their way of life is changing. The communities are going through an identity crisis and they are having trouble bridging the old and the new. But the hope is in those young people that can bridge the two worlds and take what is good from each and manage to support the continued strengthening of traditions while addressing the modern concerns and issues in a sensible way.

Temagami (back to contents)

Temagami is located in Northeastern Ontario and we had to take an early morning flight and bus ride to reach it. The Commission's visit offered a chance to listen first hand to stakeholders discussing the situation in Temagami, where there has been conflict over the planning of resource exploitation, including mining, timber extraction for lumber, and extraction for pulp and paper factories. The area is unique in possessing some of the last old growth red and white pine in the North America. Red and white pine only grow in three places in the world, and are difficult to cultivate in nurseries. It was agreed that a portion, 30%, of the region be set aside as a protected area for wilderness ecotourism with some access for other uses. The remaining area was allocated to various industries.

 The Commission tried to focus on three questions throughout:

• How should the broader public interest be defined?
• What kind of decision making authority should local processes have?
• How the loss of political will influenced the outcome of the process?

Environmental groups, local communities, First Nations, the town council of Temagami and the industries had come into conflict over how the area was to be used. The Ministry of Natural Resources of Ontario helped these groups to set up a council to work out their differences. These various stakeholder groups worked out a plan over five years. The plan was a compromise for all parties but something that they could all accept, except for the First Nations. The First Nations dropped out of the process after the first year and a half because the terms of a treaty with the government had never been formally presented and signed and the First Nation of Teme-Augama Anishnabe felt their claims on the land were not being properly respected.

The Wendaban Stewardship Authority (WSA) (back to contents)

In May 1991, the Ontario and Teme-Augama Anishnabai governments agreed to create a stewardship council to determine land use for an area of Ontario covering 40,000 ha. The WSA made an assessment of all the possible uses of land in the area and determined that the WSA, in an ongoing process of dialogue guide the process in partnership with the government of managing resources based on local decision making processes that do not rule out any uses but will together decide what uses make socioeconomic and ecological sense. The WSA worked together with the Comprehensive Planning Council but it seems that the concept of working together with the local community to make decisions about land use was not politically favorable to the Ontario government.

Unraveling what happened to this process could be one of the most interesting and important things to examine in the Temagami conflict and beyond. Bringing partnership between government and local communities in an ongoing elected board of representatives from the community, which fully reflects the concerns of both the aboriginals and the government as well as the other parts of the community, is a model that should be held up. Interestingly, the WSA made an assessment of the area that recommended that forest areas be granted to the first nations (and other communities) on a concessional basis for small scale extraction, but the Ministry found that most of the land had already been allocated to big industry.

The sawmill community was also concerned about access and allocation. They need a steady flow of wood--but much of the wood is going to Ottawa and other places outside of the area. Decisions about allocation are made on a regional basis rather than a local basis. I think this is an element that the Commission should look at in other areas as well and find out to what degree it would be politically and economically possible to see a transition toward local involvement in planning for resource allocation. (Certainly the case of Mexico proves that this can happen in developing countries as well. One of the Mexicans told me that the ejido communities that are functioning well are doing well economically despite the economic crisis because they own their resources and the economy has not affected their operations. What has affected them is that the international price for Mexican timber has fallen due to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). At any rate, local control might also ensure some protection against economic pressures.)

Although the Council process of Temagami was broadly embraced, by the time the plan was finished the provincial government had changed and did not accept agreed-upon the land use and forest management plan. The Ministry of Natural Resources claimed that they accepted it but made two small changes to the plan. If so, these two small changes were enough to spark the flames of conflict again. From analyzing the documents laying out the plans of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the plan from the Comprehensive Council of Temagami, the following summary can be made:

• An agreement was arrived at through the process of the comprehensive planning council, but after a change in government, there was a departure from the agreement. The government wants to substitute certain protected areas for others and open two headwaters areas that were agreed on by the council as protected to exploitation. One area would be open to mining but not forestry and one would be open to forestry but not mining. These areas have some old growth red and white pine.
• Half a million hectares or 2.5% of the total area are to be protected.
• Fifty percent of the surface area of the area of old growth red and white pine are to be logged.
• The headwaters which were protected under the Council's plan are to be open to development in an amount of area of 500 square miles.
• The areas to be "protected" are not very strong. Likely to be forty percent less than the amount agreed upon by the Comprehensive council.
• A large amount will be logged (clear cut).
• Despite the fact that the Council was set up to be advisory to the Ministry, the Ministry has not accepted the process, throwing the whole process into disarray and attracting extremists to enter the picture.

In The Globe and Mail, Tuesday, October 15, 1996, "Definition at hearing of forest dispute: Loggers dismiss 'old-growth' label" Mr. Hodgson, Temagami's town clerk, is quoted as saying, "It's not old growth forest -- everyone who lives within 100 miles of here knows it's not old-growth forest. Environmentalists are equally adamant that it is old growth and are quoted in the same article as saying, "The ministry itself has called it old growth." They are both referring to one of the headwaters area called Owain Lake. Old growth is not really the question but what the impact of the logging of trees that range in age from 120 years to 200 years old would be on the ecosystem. Furthermore, these are some of the last remaining stands of red and white pine in North America. What other alternatives can be found for logging communities than cutting these areas?

The logging communities resent the outsiders and feel the environmentalists are using this conflict as a fundraising event to make money for their "city-slicker" environmental groups with their "fancy legal wheeling and dealing". The truth seems to be that there is some old growth. The area was logged at the end of the nineteenth century so technically, since red and white pine can grow to be four hundred years old, these trees are not old growth. But they could be if they were left to grow. [In the areas where we saw old growth red and white pine, on first Nation land where we camped, it seems that it is more difficult to judge the age of these varieties than the old growth of the Northwest which are truly enormous and splendid. The 300 year old red pine I saw did not have such a large diameter.]

Anyway, this is where the conflict stands. We took a trip out to meet the town council of Temagami First Nations, industry, and local communities. But when we arrived, the town council heads told us that for different reasons, the various groups had declined to meet with the Commission. They said that they would try to present a fair picture of the situation without taking sides, but within a few minutes after they started talking it was clear that they were angry with the environmentalists, as outsiders that have no business interfering, as city slickers that don't care about people, using the old growth argument as a fundraising technique and all the rest. They also claimed that the Ministry of Natural Resources had made very small changes that shouldn't affect the outcome of the Comprehensive Council plan. In other words the decision the MNR made was favorable to industry and to the logging community, but not to the environmentalists or first nations. The Temagami township council said that environmental lawyers are arguing out the case in court with lies for their own financial gain. The logging communities feel it is unfair. They feel the lawyers are lying and manipulating the media.

The township then attacked Charles Caccia, a Canadian parliamentarian who sits on the Commission. They confronted him with a quote he made in parliament that, "Temagami is a jewel and not a warehouse ready for liquidation and should not be treated as such." The township asserted that Temagami is a jewel and will not be liquidated. Their final blow was that if the world (especially environmentalists) wants to set aside land then it will have to make some choices and will have to stop consuming wood products.

Winapatei (back to contents)

At Winapatei, the Commission had a chance to meet with most of the groups that had sat on the Council for five years and worked out an agreement that they all could live with. They were bitter that the Ministry had not accepted their recommendations after all the hard work.

At the bottom of it is the two headwaters areas that were protected under the Council plan and now are open to mining in one and logging in the other. The Ministry, local environmental groups, First Nations, Earth Roots (one of the radical environmental groups), and local community members who had sat on the council were present at the meeting. They tried to spell out what had gone wrong.

Main Points (back to contents)

This meeting at Winapatei was possibly the most interesting meeting of any during the hearing. Here you heard the arguments plainly. Those present were sharing reasonable points of view, even though the local community and environmentalists were upset with the Ministry for rejecting their plan. The Ministry was claiming that it had not rejected the plan, but had changed it a little with care to compensating for the loss of protected area by exchanging the protected headwaters for an area along the lake (which is disputed First Nation land.) This measure on the part of the Ministry was not adequate in the eyes of the Council members. So, in the end the people were demanding that their decisions from the council, reached by consensus should be adequately considered, and respected by the Ministry, if not take priority over the Ministry decisions over land.

The First Nations wanted to see the Wendaban Stewardship Authority put into effect. They said the only way to manage and sustain these resources is by putting them under local control. Overwhelmingly, the local groups were saying local decision making of resource use can work as long as there is a political commitment to see it through. The government changed and then the plan was changed without sitting with the council to work out a consensus. The Ministry allowed the companies to start operating before all parties were in agreement with the plan. The changes were unacceptable to some of the stakeholders. The extremists moved in because they saw it was wrong to start cutting the old growth before it was fully weighed by the Council. Provincial governments have to be more sensitive to such difficult and unique efforts as the council.

In this case, if the WSA and the Council had decision making authority as well as an advisory role, might they have had the authority to push through a good plan? How could this problem be transferred into other contexts? It appears that the government changed the plan without adequate consultation with the council. Why did they fail to consider the value of the five year process of dialogue? What were the motivations of the MNR to change the plan without consulting with the council? It seems that the government wanted less regulation and more economic development, and more priority "sustained yields" which are probably not sustainable anyway.

The field trip really helped to crystallize many of the thoughts and views expressed during the public hearing. In order to make wise use of forests and forest resources on a sustainable basis, greater authority must be vested in the local communities in partnership with governments that commit themselves to support ongoing processes of dialogue. How the process of dialogue can be guided to ensure fairness among stakeholders with different levels of power remains a question to be explored.

The Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), a non-governmental, non-profit organization funded through the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, has been studying the trends in policy among the major donor agencies, including the World Bank, that support the role of communities in managing forests and natural resources. SDI identified a number of the newer projects that have a major community forestry component and emphasize village level development. We selected the newer projects because they also should reflect the participatory policies introduced in recent years by donor agencies and we are interested to see how these policies are being implemented on the ground. SDI's main purpose is to improve the understanding of the pivotal role of local communities in sustaining environmental quality and economic development. Thus the participatory policy of these major donors is of particular interest to us.

I paid a ten day visit to India, in February 1996, to gain a sense of what is happening at the village level in the state of Madhya Pradesh where a statewide World Bank Project has adopted Joint Forest Management to combat increasing crisis of forest resource degradation.

National parks, wildlife reserves and other types of protected areas are a crucial means of conserving biological diversity. Local communities living within or adjacent to these areas have been excluded from the management plans in the past. The ensuing conflict of interest between the local people and the typically underfunded park management has caused people to question this traditional approach to conservation. In recent years, there has been a growing recognition that the management plans for protected area systems must include local people. This shift in approach has come from the discovery that the park management cannot work through policing by the park staff alone. Without attention to the underlying causes for continued exploitation of forest resources by local communities, the protected area systems will ultimately be diminished to a point of no return.

In tropical Southeast Asian protected areas, where the local communities are relying on the forests as a source of livelihood, removing access to the forest by setting park boundaries cannot succeed in eliminating forest exploitation without the creation of alternative income generation. Apart from the fact that the national park staff cannot police the hundreds of thousands of hectares of park, there is a need for regional and spatial planning in these areas where park systems have been set aside. Thus the concept of integrated conservation and development projects applies to the local and regional level, and attempts to find a balance between the needs for the conservation of biodiversity and economic development.

The Kerinci Seblat National Park is one of the largest reserves in Indonesia, spanning four provinces across the southern part of Sumatra. The area was identified in the 1980's as an important area for wildlife and biodiversity. Much of the area had been set aside from Dutch colonial times. In the past fifty years since independence, settlers have been pouring into the richly forested area from all over Sumatra and from Java. In the mid-1980's, the World Wide Fund for Nature together with the Indonesian government, set aside this area to become a national park. In 1988 WWF established an office worked with the provincial, regional and local government to develop park boundaries. In 1992, due to increasing encroachment, the boundaries were redrawn. By this time, the site had been proposed to become a World Bank and Global Environment Facility pilot project for the integrated conservation and development project concept.

In the state of Orissa, in Eastern India, village-based forest protection committees are taking matters of forest management and conservation into their own hands. This community forest protection in Orissa is fundamentally a decentralized grassroots movement initiated by small villages to protect local natural forests from further degradation. In many places in Orissa, communities, on their own accord, are forging unions or federations representing hundreds of villages to protect and regenerate forests, and even push for policy reforms. Orissa may have the most progressive forest policy of any Indian state; yet, inconsistencies in state forest policy and incentives for forest commercialization present obstacles for practical implementation of sound and equitable management. The vitality of these village-based movements demonstrates that implementation of sound forest management practices by forest communities is leading the policy transformation in this region; it is the forest department that needs to catch up with the local communities managing forests and not vice versa.

In a recent visit to the vast state of Orissa, Claudia D'Andrea, Program Associate of the Sustainable Development Institute investigated the rising phenomenon of the formation of unions or federations by visiting with four non-governmental organizations involved at various levels with some of the communities organizing themselves into very large federations. Ms. D'Andrea visited the grassroots organization People's Institute for Participatory Action Research (PIPAR) active in the Dhenkanal district of Orissa with the highest number of forest protection committees in the state; the Bhubaneshwar-based Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (RCDC) active in Western Orissa and the neighboring state of Eastern Madhya Pradesh; Vasundhara Institute, a forestry sector support organization active at both policy level and on the ground near to the state's capital; and OXFAM (India) Trust, which works all over the state but supports some activities of the Movement for Trees and Living Beings, known as BOJBP, one of the oldest and most conservation-oriented of the federation movements.

After the Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero, a special organizing committee was set up to establish an independent global commission addressing the problems of the deteriorating status of the world's forests. The idea for an independent commission developed out of a proposal from Ambassador Ola Ullsten of Sweden at the Global Forest Meeting held in Bandung, Indonesia in 1992. The goal of the Commission is to examine the use of the world's forests in the context of sustainable development. The WCFSD was launched by the InterAction Council of Former Heads of State in June 1995. A series of five regional Public Hearings are to be held around the world to identify the regional and international institutional, legal, and policy reforms that will lead to more equitable and sustainable forest management. The first of these five hearings was recently held in Jakarta, Indonesia for the Asia region. The next regional meeting will be held in Winnipeg, Canada, September 29 through October 5, 1996, and will address the problems of forests and sustainable development in North America and Mexico, the NAFTA region. Subsequent meetings will be held for the Latin American region, in Georgetown, Guyana in early December; the African region, either in the Congo Basin or the Dry Zone countries of Africa in early 1997; and in Russia for the European region in mid 1997. The following is a report by the Sustainable Development Institute which had the opportunity to attend the first Asia regional hearing and meeting.

The World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development (WCFSD) is an independent body of experts that was established after the Earth Summit of June 1992 to examine the problems of the deteriorating status of the world's forests. The Commission is holding five regional public hearings around the world to hear the views of different "stakeholder" groups on these issues. The Secretariat and the Commission will produce interim reports, and a final report will be issued in mid-1997.

The North American hearing was the second of the five regional hearings, following the model of the 1980's Brundtland Commission, planned by the WCFSD. The Sustainable Development Institute was invited to attend all meetings and speaking events along with the panel of experts. The Commission aimed to examine three areas: the sustainable use and management of forests; trade and export of forest-related products, and financial mechanisms and instruments needed for sustainable development.

The North America hearing focused on Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The abundance of Canadian stakeholders tended to dominate the hearing and detracted from the concerns over forests and sustainable development in Mexico and the U.S.. However, despite the smaller numbers of Mexicans and U.S. participants, an overwhelming message emerged that greater local and community-based control over forest resources may lead to wiser and more sustainable use and management of forests. Less decisive conclusions were reached on the other two areas of focus.

It was the intent of the Commissioners to have the participants address several questions in each panel that might indicate areas where international agreements might be strengthened, or recommendations might be formulated for the development of wiser use of diminishing global forest resources.

The WCFSD is concerned that progress is not being made in stopping forest loss and degradation due to a variety of realities on the ground that are frequently not discussed at international forest meetings. Thus the Commission has attempted to examine problems of forests and sustainable development not being addressed in the major global forest policy fora such as the UNCSD's IPF; Montreal, Helsinki, & Tarapoto Processes; the COP to the Convention on Biodiversity; and ITTO; At each of the regional hearings, the Commission has raised four basic questions:

• How much and what type of forest should be managed and protected?
• How should forests be managed and protected?
• By whom should they be managed and protected? and
• For whose benefits?

On behalf of the IUCN, I attended the 15th Commonwealth Forestry Conference in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe from 12-17 May 1997. My primary goal was to gain an understanding of the direction of the Commonwealth Forestry Conference. Additionally, it was an opportunity to broaden the membership of the working group on Community Involvement in Forest Management (WG-CIFM) and further the network of practitioners in the development of specific recommendations for community forestry policy. This community forestry policy project is being run through an electronic conference of the working group on CIFM and the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), a Washington-based NGO with a policy research project focusing on community forestry. The recommendations and results of this electronic conference will be directed to a number of international and independent bodies, including the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development (WCFSD).

Overview

In the complex world of international forestry, often what transpires in the field is barely reflective of what has been designed on paper. Whether site-specific donor-backed projects, national government attempts to reform institutional and sector policies, or local community-generated protection activities, even the best-intentioned efforts to achieve more sustainable and equitable management of the world's forests fail miserably to realize their goals. For the growing number of people concerned with forest protection, particularly in the tropics, a key factor to sustainable management is the full involvement of forest dwelling peoples and those living near forest areas in the planning and implementation of forest management schemes. Not surprisingly, perspectives abound on what actually constitutes "local participation" in forest management processes, running the gamut from sporadic "consultations" with local communities by donor agency staff to extensive engagement of local community ideas and activities throughout the life of a given project.

As part of SDI's attempt to conduct a "comparative analysis" of forest management policies designed by the chief international lending agencies - World Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) - and forest management practices on the ground that depend on local community participation, I have examined institutional policies, countless project reports and evaluations, and spoken with agency staff and consultants to gain some insight into the links and gaps between policy and practice. While what has emerged is a disjointed, rather unclear picture of how donor policies concerning forest management and local community participation have translated into reality, some notable shifts in policy thinking and trends have appeared.

Generally, there is increasing language in some donor agency portfolios about the need to incorporate local communities and NGOs into forest and protected area management plans. The World Bank and USAID seem to have made the greatest strides in this area, with the ADB having recently formulated an official forest policy (3/95), and the IDB only just beginning to consider lending for environmental projects.

(In March 1997, the Sustainable Development Institute and sent e-mail queries to some 150 people, from twenty-six countries, with a professional interest in promoting the idea of community forest management. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) kindly agreed to provide SDI with the e-mail addresses of its Working Group on Community Involvement in Forest Management, a multi-stakeholder network facilitated by IUCN. We asked for suggestions and comments about the kinds of national and international level actions and policy shifts that could best strengthen current moves toward greater local control over forests. On the basis of the many useful responses received, we have modified and sharpened the inventory of ideas we initially circulated.)

What follows is a new draft statement on community forestry's importance and needs. Before putting this document in final form, we once again invite your reactions.)

Communities and Forests: Strengthening the Field

Roger D. Stone and Claudia D'Andrea
July, 1998

Overview

In March 1997, the Sustainable Development Institute sent email queries to some 150 people, from twenty-six countries, with a professional interest in promoting the idea of community forest management. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) kindly agreed to provide SDI with the email addresses of the Working Group on Community Involvement in Forest Management, a multistakeholder network facilitated by IUCN. We asked for suggestions and comments about the kinds of national and international level actions and policy shifts that could best strengthen current moves toward greater local control over forests.

On the basis of the many useful responses received, we modified and sharpened the skeleton inventory of ideas we initially circulated.  To the extent possible, the recommendations for actions that follow represent the collective opinion of our respondents.  While they were most generous with their time and thoughts, however, these people were not asked to help form the analysis that backs up the recommendations. For these sections of the paper, the authors are solely responsible.