SUNS4508 Wednesday 15 September 1999

Washington, Sep. 14 (IPS/Danielle Knight) -- The fate of the world's forests will be on the chopping block at top-level international talks during the upcoming meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), according to US environmental groups.

"The WTO threatens to fuel the destruction of the world's remaining forests," according to 'Our Forests At Risk,' released today by more than 100 environmental groups based mostly in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.

Negotiations on existing WTO rules and a new "global, free logging agreement" - proposed by the United States - are on the agenda for WTO negotiators who meet in Seattle at the end of November.

The talks aim to liberalize trade or reduce tariffs in wood and paper products that could be devastating to countries' attempts to protect their forests and to limit demand, says a report, co- authored by Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund and the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance.

The 32-page report says an accelerated tariff phase-out for wood products will only fuel consumption and demand that will increase logging operations, already endangering forests worldwide.

The environmental groups outline the various protection measures for forests that could be dismantled by the trade body. These include the eco-labelling of wood and forest products and safeguards to prevent the importation of invasive pests.

Over the last two decades of this century, rapid deforestation has taken an unprecedented toll, according to the report. A recent study by the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development showed that about 15 million hectares of forests - mostly in tropical regions - are being lost annually.

"It is also clear that the structural integrity of much of the forest cover that remains has deteriorated," the World Commission notes in the study.

Contentious debate over trade and environmental protection can be expected when delegates gather for the WTO's third ministerial round of talks, to be held in Seattle Nov 29-Dec 3.

Environmentalists point to numerous conservation measures that have been challenged at previous meetings and found to be "unfair trade barriers."

Such was the fate of a US law designed to protect sea turtles which prohibited the import of shrimp from countries that do not require their fishing fleets to use devices that exclude the endangered turtles from their nets.

The WTO found this to be an "unfair trade barrier."

New trade negotiations could lead to similar dismantling of forest protections, according to the report.

[But in the shrimp dispute though, the WTO ruling, found US measures to be discriminatory as between different sources of imports and domestic products]

Restrictions or bans on imports of wood products designed to prevent the spread of pest species, such as the Asian Long-horned Beetle from other countries, would collide with restrictive WTO rules that require that regulations use the least trade restrictive means of achieving the regulatory goal.

"Invasive species are the second leading threat to forest biodiversity," says the report. "The most effective way to prevent bio-invasions of forests is to prevent the entry and spread of invasive species."

The Asian Long-horned Beetle, for example, which entered the United States in wood packaging material from Northeast Asia, first attacked hardwood species in New York City and Chicago.

Difficult to eradicate, because it has no known natural enemies in this country and is resistant to pesticides, the insect now has been found in warehouses in more than two dozen cities.

Export bans on unprocessed or raw logs cut on public lands could also be challenged under WTO rules, warns the report.

"Such bans reduce the demand for logging and enable domestic mills to reap the benefits of logging that is done," says the report. But, "WTO rules prohibit such export bans."

Japan already has threatened to invoke these rules to challenge the export bans for public lands as instituted by the states in the western United States.

Government regulations that prohibit or limit the purchase of products from primary or unsustainably-managed forests, or that require the state to buy a certain percentage of recycled products, could also be challenged under WTO rules that prohibit different treatment of products based on the way the product is
produced.

"Such rules are vulnerable to challenge on the ground that they discriminate against countries that log native forests," says the report.

Labels and certification processes for wood and paper products from forests that are sustainably harvested could also be challenged by the WTO. The trade body creates obstacles for such eco-labelling because it is based on how the product is produced, say environmentalists.

[The eco-labelling of forest products involving the Forest Stewardship Council, and the bodies authorized by it to certify have come under cloud, after exposures about such labelled and certified schemes in the Netherlands, and subsequently other studies that suggested bias against forests in developing
countries, and favouring those in the industrial world, and some linkages between certifiers and the corporations.]

US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky has stated that pressing for the elimination of tariffs on forest products is one of the country's primary targets going into trade negotiations in November.

But pushing for tariff elimination could magnify global consumption trends of wood and paper products. Already, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation's 'State of the World's Forests 1999' report forecasts a 25 percent increase in worldwide industrial wood production and consumption by the year
2010.

Without including forest conservation provision into the free- trade rules, tariff reduction will lead to the accelerated destruction of forests worldwide, says the report.
According to the American Forest and Paper Association - a powerful industry group - a recent study by the Finnish consulting firm Jaakko Poyry estimates a 3-to-4 percent increase in the consumption of forest products as a result of tariff-free trade.

"Our trade negotiators are pushing a plan that would undermine our forest protections, despite broad public opposition," says Patti Goldman, managing attorney for EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund and principal author of the report.

She says that current trade rules need to be assessed and repaired if needed, before pushing forward with new proposals. "We are urging our government to look before we leap into loosening regulations on trade," Goldman says.

Dave Batker, an economist who directs the Seattle-based Asia- Pacific Environmental Exchange stresses that his organisation is not opposed to trade.

"However, when the single-minded pursuit of free-trade is elevated to supercede our own environmental standards, our government must be held accountable," he adds.