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International Processes: Framework Conditions for Tropical Forestry

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Tropical Forestry Handbook

Abstract

Forest managers, forestry professionals, field practitioners, and local communities have to improve and update their understandings in international forestry processes to make informed forestry-related decisions. This chapter assists them and all those interested to improve their understandings in the processes. A large number of young scientists, students involved in forestry research, and the stakeholders, previously mentioned, involved in the processes often get confused about the terminologies which are frequently and interchangeably used in the processes (description, reports) and their outcomes (decisions, declarations). This chapter defines (framework) convention and protocol and describes how the processes have been used as an approach of international law making. This chapter deals with forest loss due to deforestation and forest degradation as an international problem and argues for an international framework of action as a global solution. Management, conservation, and sustainable development of forests have been key issues of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992. Despite the scores of international negotiations and initiatives on sustainable forest management (SFM) and forest-related issue areas like climate change, biological diversity, and illegal logging and associated trade, deforestation and forest degradation continue at an alarming rate. This chapter reviews the international processes in tropical forestry from Stockholm to Rio, post-UNCED intergovernmental processes, regional processes for SFM, and initiatives supporting the legality in and governance of the forest sector. The chapter concludes that due to the global nature of forest problem and lower effectiveness and political realism of the fragmented forest regime, the need for an international high-level forest policy forum – the Missing Fourth Convention of Rio – is stronger than ever.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Deforestation/

  2. 2.

    http://www.fao.org/forestry/fra/76871/en/

  3. 3.

    http://www.unep.org/regionalseas/programmes/conventions/default.asp

  4. 4.

    Available at http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm

  5. 5.

    By which it adopted the Environmental Perspective to the Year 2000 and Beyond as a broad framework to guide national action and international cooperation on policies and programs aimed at achieving environmentally sound development (available at http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/42/ares42-186.htm)

  6. 6.

    In which it welcomed the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (available at http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/42/ares42-187.htm)

  7. 7.

    Available at http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/43/a43r196.htm

  8. 8.

    Available at http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/44/ares44-228.htm

  9. 9.

    Joint Liaison Group of the Rio Conventions, http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/publications/forest_eng.pdf

  10. 10.

    http://www.cbd.int/ecosystem/

  11. 11.

    Decision VII/11 of COP (http://www.cbd.int/decision/cop/?id=7748)

  12. 12.

    www.cbd.int/forest/redd-plus/

  13. 13.

    http://www.un.org/esa/forests/ipf_iff.html

  14. 14.

    Available at http://www.un.org/esa/forests/pdf/ipf-iff-proposalsforaction.pdf

  15. 15.

    Available at http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/62/98&;Lang=E and at http://www.un.org/en/ga/62/resolutions.shtml

  16. 16.

    http://www.fao.org/forestry/16435-091114c04e64187ce8caa8299fcd3fa8c.pdf

  17. 17.

    Can be defined as an occasional and single tree harvesting by forest-dependent people and forest dwellers to fulfill their basic household and cultural needs for timber. In countries, such as Nepal, India, Vietnam, etc., the timber distribution system is not accessible to local and poor farmers residing in remote but in the vicinity of forests. In the countries, most of the timber produced in forests under the state management is sold in auction. The farmers are forced to purchase the timber either from the traders or from sawmillers. In this case, the timber price is mostly out of reach for the rural peasants. In some countries, the state has allocated a few quotas (certain amount of total timber produced in a forest area at a particular time) to individual farmers, so that they can purchase a limited amount of timber for the purpose of household consumption from a specific timber depot. Nevertheless, long and very demanding bureaucratic procedures, high transportation costs, and difficult terrain in hilly areas to transport the timber from the depot to their household make the purchase simply nonpractical. Therefore, the last resort remains for the peasants to harvest the timber from the traditionally long-used forests without the state permission which is mostly defined as “illegal” by the state laws.

  18. 18.

    http://www.euflegt.efi.int/documents/10180/23398/FLEGT+Action+Plan/3c0cfca1-1503-458a-9d05-1717bf226e23

  19. 19.

    http://www.euflegt.efi.int/documents/10180/23396/FLEGT+Council+Regulation+%28EC%29%20No+2173-2005/7e78ce69-345e-46f8-8e8f-bf6cd634c987

  20. 20.

    http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2012A00166

  21. 21.

    http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eutr2013/index_en.htm

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Hamburg, World Forestry, Hamburg, Germany

    Thomas Schneider

  2. University of Hamburg, World Forestry, EFI (European Forest Institute) Project Centre SURF (Supporting the Global Implementation of REDD+ and FLEGT), Hamburg, Germany

    Prem Raj Neupane

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  1. Thomas Schneider
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Correspondence to Thomas Schneider .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, La Libertad, El Salvador

    Laslo Pancel

  2. Center for Wood Science, Institute of World Forestry, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Michael Köhl

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Schneider, T., Neupane, P.R. (2016). International Processes: Framework Conditions for Tropical Forestry. In: Pancel, L., Köhl, M. (eds) Tropical Forestry Handbook. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54601-3_13

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