Timber exporting and importing nations set themselves a tight agenda for action on Monday, giving themselves barely 18 months to produce tough new tactics to tackle illegal logging.
With the practice estimated to be costing developing nations at least US$15 billion a year in lost revenues leaving aside the environmental and social damage caused, the Group of Eight rich nations and their suppliers have their work cut out.
"We need policies that are practical, deliverable, politically acceptable and have the agreement of all sides of the industry," British biodiversity minister Barry Gardiner told the first meeting of the G8 illegal logging dialogue's international advisory board.
He told the meeting in the Houses of Parliament the goal was to formulate proposals for the G8 summit in Tokyo in mid-2008.
A report last month by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern painted an apocalyptic picture of the planet if action to curb climate change was delayed, and noted that 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions came from deforestation. "The Stern report is beginning to develop a consensus among economists of the danger of climate change," Gardiner said. "Scientists have already agreed it, now it has moved into the economic sphere."
The need for action to both curb illegal logging and stifle demand for the timber in the rich, developed nations was agreed as a meeting under Britain's G8 presidency in 2005.
But calls from countries like Britain for new trade rules were stymied by the United States's insistence that all agreements had to be voluntary.
Gardiner accepted that the absence of any US official at Monday's meeting was a drawback, but insisted that the attendance of a representative of the American Hardwood Export Council was a positive sign.
"They are now saying certification is part of the process. We need to get all stakeholders involved. Who knows how the US agenda will change over the next two years," he told Reuters.
Delegates from wood-rich nations welcomed the G8 initiative, but stressed that any solution had to be broad-ranging and inclusive -- especially of local people who had to be offered economic alternatives to illegal logging.
Katherine Sierra, World Bank vice president for sustainable development, told the meeting that enforcement of laws was crucial, as was exposing corruption at all levels, ensuring accountability and making local people part of the picture.
"We need to be close to the people. We need to be down on the ground," she said, voicing a new credo for an organisation that has in the past been accused of favouring high profile big budget development schemes over local projects.
"We need to make sure that people see the value of saving their forests," she added.Reuters via PlanetArk
