[stop-imf] FOREST CORRUPTION REPORT COVERED UP [FWD]

Of course this is all just an imperialist plot with the collusion of
the WRI and WWF to bad-mouth Asian multinationals with an enviable
track record ;)

kj

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Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 15:43:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>
To: stop-imf@venice.essential.org
Subject: [stop-imf] FOREST CORRUPTION REPORT COVERED UP - The
Guardian (UK)  (fwd)
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The Guardian Monday May 29, 2000

FOREST CORRUPTION REPORT COVERED UP

        Governments, big business, World Bank and IMF named in investigation

        By Paul Brown, Environment correspondent

        A devastating report about the destruction of tropical forests by
multinational companies has been suppressed for three years by the
European commission and World Wide Fund for Nature.
        The report named companies prepared to bribe and bully their way
to lucrative logging concessions. It also blamed the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank for inducing countries to sell their
forests for a quick cash return to pay off debts to western countries.
        The European commission, which paid the researchers nearly
£200,000 for the work, was fearful of the repercussions if they named
names and asked for a second version with the names taken out - but even
this version was watered down.
        A third version still makes clear that EU funds being poured into
developing countries to ensure forests are carefully managed are
frequently being wasted. Forest laws were enacted but no action taken.
        The well-respected authors from the World Resources Institute and
WWF said they were so disturbed by what they found that they recommended a
moratorium on all further logging in 11 countries - Cameroon, Gabon, Congo
(Brazzaville), Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea and the
Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa; Belize, Surinam and Guyana
in the Caribbean rim; and Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in the
South Pacific rim. This should last until bribery scandals had been
investigated and proper environmental standards enforced, they said.
        They also recommended an end to EU aid until these issues were
addressed - but no action has been taken. The report says: "The new
investments [by Asian multinational companies] have been concentrated in
countries with generally weak or outdated environmental and social laws
and little enforcement capacity. The governments of these countries are
easy pickings to foreign investors as they have weak forest services, poor
monitoring capacity, inefficient tax collection and auditing capacity, and
in some cases widespread bribery and corruption.
        "Many of the countries are suffering severe economic difficulties
with large foreign debts, high inflation and unemployment. In the majority
of countries studied, decision making is controlled by a small group of
powerful people or clans within the government that look at primary
forests of their country as a short-term source of personal revenue, not
as a productive ecosystem which can generate social, economic and
ecological benefits on the long term for the entire country and its
people."

Corruption

        The Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Cameroon and Belize were
all named as suffering large-scale corruption.
        "In some countries administrative procedures facilitate widespread
corruption. Senior officials in countries such as Papua New Guinea have
been shown to be taking decisions to award logging rights in exchange for
bribes."
        The report says although European companies have in the past
indulged in bad practices the scale of the new incursions was much larger
and that: "The logging itself is often very careless, with high collateral
damage to the surrounding forest. The roads built to extract the timber
often hundreds of kilometres long create access to frontier areas that
facilitate the entry of commercial hunts, farmers, miners and others who
cause further environmental damage." The companies frequently end up in
violent clashes with local people and native tribes.
        It blames the main donors to these countries - the World Bank,
Japan, the EU, France, Germany, the UK and the US - for failing to enforce
their own rules to promote forest conservation and responsible management.
In fact the World Bank and IMF make things worse by imposing monetary
reform on the countries, the report says. These countries are urged to
allow in multinational companies and governments are urged to sell their
forests for cash to pay back debts.
        The report says if substantial action is not taken soon by
governments, donor agencies and investors, as well as environmental and
social pressure groups, much of the remaining virgin primary forests in
the Caribbean rim, Central Africa and Pacific will be lost within five to
10 years, due to the expansion of unsustainable logging operations.
        The original report was completed in 1997 and the EU cleared a
twice-revised version for publication, printing 5,000 copies. Its press
launch in July last year was blocked by the WWF, some of whose employees
had carried out the research. The organisation feared that some of the
governments concerned, particularly Malaysia, would close down WWF
offices.
        A weaker version of the report has now been prepared and, because
the European commission refused to foot the bill, the WWF pulped the
original 5,000 copies and has paid to print 2,000 of the latest version.
The organisation claimed in a statement to the Guardian that it had to
correct some "inaccuracies" and hopes this new version will be published
in July.

Expert authors

        The Guardian has seen the first three versions of the report -
including the original draft that details the names of companies and
individuals involved in bribery scandals. The main authors of the report
are Nigel Sizer, an expert for the World Resources Institute in Washington
and Dominiek Plouvier, a forestry consultant who works for WWF in Belgium.
All their work was peer-reviewed in the countries concerned and by other
forestry experts before being submitted.
        Mr Sizer said: "Of course I was deeply disappointed that the
report was not published. A few things were corrected in the peer review
process. We were very careful about the conclusions we drew in the report.
The commission was concerned and asked some of the names to be removed but
I stand by everything that appeared in the drafts. My reputation and that
of the Institute depends on getting things right. Lack of accuracy was not
the reason the report was withheld."
        A commission spokesman said: "We asked originally for some of the
names to be removed and for some revisions but were satisfied with the
later versions of the report. It was WWF that intervened to prevent
publication last year. The new version of the report has now been
delivered by them and will be distributed to interested parties when a
list had been drawn up." Officials of the commission would now consider
the report's findings.
        WWF's senior forest officer, Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud, said WWF had
been anxious to name names but was concerned that many of the companies
were Asian and the organisation did not want to appear to be
Asian-bashing. After the Asian financial crisis the report was held up for
updating.

Papua New Guinea

        If the forests were sustainably managed and harvested, it is
estimated that the annual income to the country could be as much as £2bn.
However massive corruption in the issue of timber permits, failure to
monitor exports, and low royalties and taxes have reduced government
returns. Environmental and social impacts have been serious and well
documented.

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