Ministry of Environment so as to raise the responsibility for environmental policies to higher levels in Paraguay’s administrative hierarchy. 2. Reinforce and expand legislation related to forests. For example, designate a nodeforestation zone along the border with Argentina, similar to the “exclusion zone” along the border with Brazil. 3. Organize more workshops to inform officials in the legal system and in the enforcement agencies about the importance and potential of environmental legislation. (A high-level commission, with representatives from all three branches of the state, has already started to organize such workshops for judges and public prosecutors; Sobrevivencia is planning similar workshops for the special section of the National Police that is in charge of enforcing environmental laws.) 4. Initiate pilot court cases related to environmental crimes. These cases should involve only judges and prosecutors who have been identified as sensitive and honest. (Sobrevivencia is investigating the feasibility of filing such cases in one or both case-study areas described in the report.) 5. Rapidly establish the proposed protected areas, but expand them with biological corridors. Give these corridors, as well as the legal indigenous territories, protected status. This will provide legal protection to ecologically and culturally sensitive areas. In addition, give legal recognition to more Ayoreo and Chamacoco territories in the Alto Paraguay region. 6. Launch a long-term public education campaign on the environment, particularly on the values of forests. This page intentionally left blank.CHAPTER 6The TropicsComparing the Countries StudiedThis chapter mainly discusses the similarities and differences in the overall context of illegal logging and timber trade in the four countries studied. Key data on the forest cover and timber trade of each country are presented in Table 2. Some of the most striking conclusions to be drawn from Table 2 are the following:• Paraguay has the highest deforestation rate;• In countries with lower deforestation rates (Brazil, Cameroon), most logging takes place in primary forests (about 90%, versus 19% in the other two countries); and• The African countries export more logs than processed timber, whereas in the Latin American countries the reverse is the case. Local — including indigenous — forest-dependent communities suffer a wide range of negative consequences from illegal practices but are sometimes involved in illegalities themselves. This is a delicate issue that merits specific attention and is therefore analyzed in more detail in the section entitled “Local and indigenous communities and illegal logging.” The chapter ends with brief sections on the specific impacts of illegal practices and the role of local NGOs.Table 2. Key data concerning forests and timber from the four case studies. Source: Forest cover, deforestation, and logged area: WRI (1995); timber volumes for Africa: Sayer et al. (1992); timber volumes for South America: Harcourt and Sayer (1996). Note: This table uses a broad definition of forest and includes deciduous woodlands. CBD, Convention on Biological Diversity; CITES, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora; ITTO, International Tropical Timber Organization.CONTEXTUAL FACTORS: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
AMONG THE FOUR COUNTRIES The four countries studied in this FoEI project present an interesting array of contexts. Obviously, the cultural setting and specific characteristics of the actors make every case unique to some extent. The following discussion of similarities and differences serves as a brief introduction to the various factors that make up the social, economic, political, and environmental frameworks within which the problem should be analyzed and addressed. In other words, these contextual factors are essential points of attention for individuals, NGOs, and agencies in other countries that wish to address the issues of illegal logging and timber trade and, especially, contribute to solutions.
SIMILARITIES Brazil, Cameroon, Ghana, and Paraguay have several basic elements in common, although they do not have these to the same degree. Each of these elements is discussed below.
Rapidly increasing exploitation Each of the countries is experiencing heavy or at least rapidly increasing exploitation pressure on its natural-forest and timber resources. Macroeconomic disturbance, rural poverty, insecure land-tenure rights, and SAPs imposed by development banks and aid agencies all combine to produce this pressure.
Conflicts between local forest-dependent communities and logging interests Conflicts often arise between local forest-dependent communities and the loggers. The loggers, however, are often well protected by political connections. The most frequent reasons for the conflicts are the following:
• Loggers violate legal or customary rights and local cultural traditions (for example, cutting sacred groves);
• Logging directly threatens the resource base on which the local people depend for subsistence. Their multipurpose trees are cut down; their land is eroded and their streams silt up; they are exposed to an increased risk of forest fires; and they face shortages of fuelwood.
• Local communities are given no share, or a very little share, in the economic benefits from logging and timber exploitation. In other cases, loggers do not comply with earlier agreements, or they fail to honour commitments they made to communities.
Conflicts between local communities and enforcement agencies Conflicts also arise between the local communities and enforcement agencies. A variety of issues are behind these conflicts:
• Local people feel that forestry laws and regulations simply go against their own interests. This can apply to forest conservation laws or regulations for forestmanagement regimes.
• Enforcers fail or refuse to protect the local people’s legal rights or even their physical health from the loggers’ violations and threats. In some cases, enforcers are involved in such violations themselves.
• Enforcers do not act without bribes or other favours. Local residents see that enforcement favours logging interests and related commercial or political linkages.
• Local residents are themselves involved in illegal forest exploitation.
The daunting task of enforcement In all these countries, enforcement agencies face a daunting task, with totally inadequate resources. That situation, exacerbated by a lack of political will and of commitment to the legal system and to forest protection at the highest levels, can lead to frustration, corruption, or illegal practices among enforcers. Forest rangers are often under physical threat — the loggers typically are better armed. Local people are of course also abused or killed.
Threatened protection Protected areas (including indigenous reserves) are particularly threatened, and this is for two reasons:
• These areas contain the last or the most accessible stands of commercial-timber species whose populations are dwindling; and
• Logging, and illicit practices especially, simply clash with conservation objectives for these areas.
Recent legal and policy reforms The four countries have recently adopted legal and policy reforms that should improve control over the forestry and timber sector. In many cases, however, these reforms present critical implementation challenges: because of the involvement of opposing interests, the
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