Thu, Mar 21, 2013 -
Editorial by Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive
Director, and Andrew Steers, President and
CEO of the World Resources Institute, to
mark the International Day of Forests.
Article first published
in 'The Guardian' at following link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/saving-forests-technology-illegal-logging
FURTHER RESOURCES
International Day of Forests
UNEP film: Forests - We all Depend on Them
By Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General
and UNEP Executive Director and Andrew Steer,
President and CEO, World Resources Institute
21 March 2013 - Our
future is inextricably linked to forests.
The social and economic benefits they provide
are essential to realising a sustainable
century. A key litmus test of our commitment
to this future is our response to a growing,
global threat: illegal logging and the criminal
timber trade.
Forests are vital source
of biodiversity and livelihoods. More than
1.6 billion people depend on forests for
their livelihoods, including 60 million
indigenous people who are wholly dependent
on forests. They are also natural carbon
storage systems and key allies in combating
climate change. They are vast, nature-based
water utilities assisting in the storage
and release of freshwater to lakes and river
networks.
While deforestation
is slowing in some places - most notably
Brazil - it still remains far too high.
The loss of forests is responsible for up
to 17 per cent of all human-made greenhouse
gas emissions, 50 per cent more than that
from ships, aviation and land transport
combined.
Organised crime in global
forests
There is increasing
evidence that an important slice of these
losses and emissions is linked to illegal
logging and organised crime in key tropical
countries of the Amazon basin, Congo basin
and in south-east Asia.
Indeed, Green Carbon:
Black Trade, a recent report by UNEP and
Interpol, estimates that illegal activity
accounts for 50 to 90 per cent of all logging
in these key areas - a criminal trade worth
US$30-100bn annually worldwide.
Illegal operations,
including bribes and even hacking of government
databases, are also becoming more sophisticated.
Loggers and dealers quickly shift between
regions and countries to avoid local and
international policing efforts, laundering
wood by mixing it with legally cut timber,
or passing off wood originating from wild
forests as plantation timber.
With the increase in
organised criminal activity related to forests,
murder is also on the rise. The growing
involvement of criminal cartels should be
of grave concern for communities, companies,
conservationists, and all forest stakeholders.
But there is also good
news that may finally help crack down on
the criminals and the theft of the natural
resources, resources that often are the
"GDP of the poor".
The UN environment programme's
global environment outlook 5 noted a drop
in deforestation rates - from more than
25,000 square kilometres to just over 5,000
per year - in the Brazilian Amazon, which
comes in part as a result of more agile
and determined enforcement. Meanwhile in
Indonesia, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
has placed a moratorium on new forest clearings
that has helped cut deforestation and illegal
activities in the region.
Companies are also starting
to respond. Most recently, Asia Pulp and
Paper announced that it would no longer
buy wood from natural forests.
Interpol and UNEP, through
the Grid Arendal centre in Norway, have
also established a pilot project, called
Law enforcement assistance to forests (Leaf),
to develop an international system to combat
organised crime.
Enter the technology
revolution
A final piece to the
puzzle may be emerging: rapid, online alerts
that deforestation is taking place, particularly
in remote locations. Until now, by the time
satellite images of deforestation can be
viewed, the criminals are often far away.
Cattle are already grazing amidst stumps,
the illegal oil palm plantation has been
established and a company's financial support
for ecosystem services - now degraded and
lost - may already have been paid. The most
recent forest maps of Indonesia, produced
from Landsat satellite data, took three
years from the time the data was taken to
being posted online. This is not unusual
since it typically takes around three to
five years to produce a national forest
cover map.
All this is on the verge
of changing with help from an innovative
partnership convened by the World Resources
Institute, with partners including the UN
environment programme and businesses and
NGOs from around the world.
Global Forest Watch
2.0, which will be launched later this year,
will take advantage of remote sensing technology
to show high-resolution, near real-time
deforestation maps on a user-friendly platform.
The system will provide global deforestation
alerts to identify illegal logging and deforestation
hotspots, drawing on a combination satellite
and crowd-sourced data, including from local
communities.
Technologies such as
Global Forest Watch 2.0 have the potential
to democratise the management and protection
of forests. Imagine an analyst from a forest
conservation group in Jakarta receives an
alert via social media showing where deforestation
has occurred. He then notifies the authorities
who head to the location to take pictures
and upload them, starting an effort to save
the park and apprehend the illegal loggers.
Or consider the vice-president
of sustainability at a major global corporation
tasked with ensuring that the firm purchases
palm oil from responsible suppliers. She
is concerned about a supplier in Ecuador
whose plantations are located within critical
forest habitat. She accesses the new system
online and discovers that primary forest
in the critical, off-limits corridor has
been cleared. The company can immediately
suspend its purchases and use the information
to confront the supplier.
Only time will tell
if these technologies will be true game-changers.
But, as the world celebrates the first-ever
International Day of Forests, it is encouraging
to these powerful alliances of governments,
companies, civil society organizations,
and enforcement agencies that are determined
to call time on illegal logging. It is time
to put the opportunity to secure healthy
forests for the future back into the hands
of the people.
