Global South-South cooperation essential

They are the planet's green lungs: the equatorial forests. Every hectare of forest lost through the felling of trees for timber or through slash-and-burn clearing for agriculture, adds to the pace of climate change. ‘The rate of extinction of species that accompanies this is no less dramatic, because about 70 percent of all animal and plant species live in tropical forests,’ says Herbert Christ, project manager of International Forest Policy, a project being executed by GTZ on behalf of BMZ. ‘For poor people in developing countries it is particularly important to maintain biodiversity, especially forest biodiversity,’ Christ continues, “because that is what guarantees them a living, as well as food sources and - through medicinal plants – good health." But how is the gap between economic gain and the protection of forest eco-systems to be closed? "We need global cooperation for this," Christ explains. He is convinced, that the cooperation must go beyond classic North-South development work.

(Photo: Around 70 percent of all animal and plant species live in tropical forests. Poor people in developing countries are particularly dependent on this biological diversity. Photo: Al-Janabi.)

A step in the right direction was the conference on sustainable forest management and biodiversity that took place in July in Montreal. On behalf of BMZ, and working with the Secretariat of the UN Biodiversity Convention, GTZ assumed responsibility for organising the conference and defining its content. The conference was part of a South-South exchange which began in Indonesia in January 2009. It brought together representatives from various departments of the three most important regional organisations for the cross-border preservation of tropical forests – the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) of Amazon riparian countries, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Commission for the Forests of Central Africa (COMIFAC). ‘We were in a good position to promote this South-South cooperation because GTZ has been advising the secretariats of these three regional organisations, on behalf of BMZ, for several years now,’ says Dietmar Schorlemer, who, with his GTZ team, provides local support to COMIFAC.

An early success is that forest-related issues are now being discussed cross-sectorally among the representatives of the regional organisations. The discussions are to continue in October in Buenos Aires at the World Forestry Congress. ‘That and subsequent meetings will concentrate on providing information, for example, about positioning for the trade in climate certificates, and about bio-piracy and timber certification; it will be about sharing information on successful approaches,’ says Gunter Simon, manager of the project Amazon Rainforest Conservation.

In practical terms, the next issue will be if and how people living lower down in river basins should compensate those who live upstream for preserving the forests to ensure good water quality and reduce the dangers of erosion. There is also an urgent need to establish common legal standards, for example, to prevent international pharmaceutical and timber companies from exploiting differences in countries’ regulations by playing them off against each other to gain cheap access to valuable natural resources. The same applies to the trade in climate certificates based on forest conservation, which in future will be an important source of income – especially for poor countries seeking to advance their national development on their own.

Further imformation

• Report of the meeting
  www.cbd.int/doc/meetings/.../bmssc-02-02-en.doc