 |
TODAY Tuesday 1 July 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
newsroom
|
TODAY Tuesday 1 July 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site. |
TODAY IN THE WORLD: Forest for the Trees
In the general disappointment that characterized the windup of the Rio-Plus-Five conference at the United Nations, few but the most active of partisans took note of the particular disappointment represented by the failure to strike any accord on forests. The best spin doctoring that could be had was an observation that no agreement was better than the only kind of an agreement that had a chance, which was a bad agreement.
Forest policy had proved contentious in Rio five years ago and that conference produced no protocol beyond a commitment to keep on meeting. The same thing happened in New York last week. With the exception of some European countries that had chopped down their own native forests by the end of the 18th Century, few nation states have evidenced much of a commitment to impose international norms on local tree-cutting practices. Timber is an important export crop for countries desperate for foreign exchange, and there's a tendency to look with cold eyes upon the exhortations of ecological scientists from rich countries who talk about biodiversity.
There is a parallel skepticism about the practical viability of strategies which call for economic development through the preservation of native forests. When you get down to it, the opportunities for a profit margin from "sustainable forestry" that can compete with the profit margins of a) clearcutting, and b) monocrop plantations are small and fragile. North American environmentalists tend to get romantic about the possibilities of making money from the rainforests -- the same modest niche markets are mentioned over and over again -- but unsentimental young planners at the helm of national treasuries want to see business plans, and capital investments, with some heft and scope. You can only go so far on eco-tourism and mixed-nut candy bars.
Finally, there's the difficult issue of aboriginal peoples and their rights. From Papua New Guinea to Peru, ancient cultures have co-evolved with the native forests. Sometimes these cultures are entirely hunter/gatherer; sometimes they practice some agriculture; almost all have appropriated certain industrial products, particularly tools. They generally live in uneasy co-existence with the governments of the states that incorporated them by the act of drawing lines on a map. They often represent obstacles to the economic designs of non-aboriginal people, most of them not rich. It is not surprising that the interjection of opinion and sentiment about aboriginal rights from people in northern, developed countries (many of which have calamitous ethnic histories) is often received testily by government officials who, like most government officials anywhere, regard nationalism as a loftier development than tribalism.
None of this is to criticize anybody. In fact, most of the forest specialists in American and European NGOs are knowledgeable and sensitive professionals, well aware of the difficulties of the terrain. It's just that anyone who wants to preserve natural forests in an optimal state of biodiversity has an extremely difficult job, always pushing against deeply interested, strong countervailing forces.
That struggle continues here at home, relatively unpublicized. Yesterday, for example, Greenwire reported that the House Appropriations Committee had once again voted a generous subsidy for logging road construction in the US National Forests. Already we have a network of taxpayer-financed forest roads that dwarfs the Interstate Highway system. These roads are then used by private loggers and maintained by the government. Such a deal!
There may be emerging a bipartisan, pro-conservation, anti-socialist alliance to combat this subsidy. Representatives Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) and John Porter (R-Ill.) are co-sponsoring a bill to de-fund the logging roads, and it's picking up advocates on both sides of the aisle. The man to watch is Representative John Kasich (R-Ohio), the charming and ambitious libertarian who chairs the House Budget Committee. Unlike House Whip Tom DeLay, whose philosophy is to serve wealth and power, Kasich displays a taste for subverting privilege. If he decides that the road subsidies provide good ground on which he can distinguish himself as a new-style conservative and as a new-style environmentalist, well, then matters might turn interesting in short order. One can even daydream about a Grand Compact in which national forests are protected as biodiversity reserves while private forests are treated like any other agricultural acreage. Some land swaps might have to occur, for ecosystem boundaries don't always coincide with Forest Service boundaries. That could be difficult. But nonetheless, the possibility of a new consensus on American forest policy beckons, and it seems an attractive possibility. Maybe even attractive to other countries as well.
TODAY ON THE SITE
We got lots of forest info here at Liberty Tree, and freshly updated, too. Brad Auer's extensive treatment -- full of Web leads and artful summaries -- can be found at our In The Trenches section.
This week's "Today" columns:
6/30: Investing in PessimismTo access "Today" columns from previous weeks, click "Archives" below.