Commonwealth Forests

Chapter 7 The Commonwealth and the international forestry dialogue

COMMONWEALTH COUNTRIES AND INTERNATIONAL FORESTRY-RELATED AGREEMENTS

The main international forestry-related agreements are described in Annex 6.1. Commonwealth countries are strongly involved in all of them.

An important international issue concerns the possibility of a legally-binding instrument on forestry. Although the CBD, the UNFCC and the UNCCD came out of UNCED and are now being implemented, the only inter-governmental agreement on forestry was the “Non-legally Binding Authoritative Statement of Principles for a Global Consensus on the Management and Sustainable Development of All Types of Forest”.  Obtaining agreement on a legally-binding agreement on forests has been among the aims of the IPF and then IFF, and has continued in the UNFF.  In late 2006 there appeared to be support from Canada, Malaysia, Kenya and the EU - although the EU may be moving towards a non-legally binding agreement and other African countries than Kenya are not yet ready to discuss the matter. Australia, India and New Zealand do not support a legally-binding agreement.

The UNFCC and its Kyoto Protocol offers a potential opportunity for funding for forestry projects, described below.  Australia has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, affects a number of forest species (see Annex 7.2).  There are seven forest species included in Appendix 1, which are endangered due to international trade and their trade is only permitted in exceptional circumstances. They are all found in Central and South America countries. There are twelve Appendix 2 forest species (that may become endangered if trade is not regulated through controls to prevent unsustainable use), including several species occurring in Commonwealth countries such as Prunus africana (tropical Africa) Swietenia humilis and S. mahagoni (Caribbean), Taxus wallichiana (S. Asia).  There are six Appendix 3 species (species that are subject to domestic regulation), none of which have been declared by Commonwealth countries.

For those wishing to follow the international debates on forestry and forestry-related issues, electronic access to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin is strongly recommended.  To subscribe to the free electronic mail distribution list contact http://www.iisd.ca/email/subscribe.htm  Codes and descriptions of best practices have been published by many international and national bodies to provide guiding principles on forest use to help policy makers and forest managers achieve desired outcomes.  A full list is available on the FAO website http://www.fao.org/forestry  A recently published (2006) example is Planted forests code, prepared by FAO and partners and available at http://www.fao.org/forestry/site/34031/en . Other examples include the ILO code Safety and health in forestry work (1998) which is available at http://www.ilo.org/public/english/support/publ/pdf/forestry.pdf .