BuaNews (Tshwane)
Mantshele Wa Ga Tau
25 May 2003
Pretoria — Undervaluing the economic worth of forests causes governments around the world to lose some USD 5-billion a year in taxes and royalties, according to a United Nations report released on Friday.
The report will come under the spotlight at the third session of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) in Geneva from 26 May to 6 June.
Conservation of forests is one of the issues discussed at the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), which was held in Johannesburg in August/September last year.
Other issues to be discussed at the next session of the UNFF are maintaining forest cover to meet present and future needs, and forest health and productivity.
The report was prepared in collaboration with the World Bank.
The report said USD 5-billion was more than three times the level of official development assistance for financing sustainable forest management.
'Inadequate tax collection decreases government revenues, poses as a disguised subsidy to producers and reinforces wasteful logging. The problem is typically an indication of improper accounting of forest resources and poor forest valuation.
'With prices that do not reflect the real value of the products and malfunctioning market mechanisms, illegal economic activities flourish and forest cover continues to decline, annual losses from illegal logging exceed 10 billion US Dollars.
The estimated net loss of forests in the 1990s as a whole was 94 million hectares, an area larger than Venezuela.
'Healthy market practices and responsible forest policies are the best tools for achieving sustainable forest management,' said Mr Pekka Patosaari, Coordinator for the Forest Forum, the key intergovernmental body to facilitate and coordinate implementation of sustainable forest management worldwide.
'With timely and up-to-date information about the prevalent international prices for forest products, the report suggests, illegal activities will be reduced, bringing in more money to government coffers. The information will also help small-scale producers of non-wood products. An estimated 500 million people, most of them poor, live in or near forests and subsist on forest products.'
The report said forests contributed to conserving biodiversity, mitigating climate change, protecting watersheds, and generating employment, as well as having recreational and spiritual value.
According to the UN, there are nearly 3.9 billion hectares of forests worldwide. Of the total forest area, 95 per cent is natural or managed forest and five per cent is forest plantations.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2003 BuaNews. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
