Ecosystem Services of Tropical Forests Growing in Importance

YOKOHAMA, Japan, November 12, 2003 (ENS) - Tropical timber producing countries as well as countries that consume tropical timbers today concluded a meeting to rework a 20 year old agreement that is the underpinning for the International Tropical Timber Organization. First established in 1983, the International Tropical Timber Agreement was renewed in 1994 for 10 years and must now be renegotiated.

The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) carries out policy work and project activities in the areas of economic information and market intelligence, reforestation, rehabilitation, and forest management, and the forest industry. The intergovernmental agency has an active portfolio of about 180 projects throughout the tropics.

A tropical forest (Photo courtesy International Development Research Centre, Canada)

As the tropical timber trade continues to suffer from low demand and low prices, especially in the the tropical plywood sector, trade in the ecosystem services provided by tropical forests is emerging as an important economic sector.

Ecosystem services are the transformation of a set of natural assets, such as soil, plants, animals, air, and water into services of value to humans. Forests absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, which gives them monetary value as carbon sinks. Buyers may be companies interested in purchasing carbon credits or organizations supplying funding for the protection of biodiversity values.

Forest communities should no longer be considered as passive participants but rather as leading decisionmakers in the management of tropical forests and the ecosystem services they provide, according to a civil society group at the International Tropical Timber Council meeting that took place last week in Yokohama, where the ITTO is headquartered.

Yati Bun, a spokesperson for the Civil Society Advisory Group (CSAG), formed last year to provide advice to the council, reported that indigenous and other communities now legally own as private property or officially administer at least 22 percent of all tropical forests, and this percentage is expected to increase.

"Indigenous and other communities currently own as private property approximately three times as much forest as do private individuals and firms," said Bun, "and communities actively manage approximately two times the amount of tropical forest as in public protected areas globally."

But the policy environment is not yet accommodating this change in ownership, he said.

Chairman Juergen Blaser of Switzerland addresses delegates to the 2nd Session of the Preparatory Committee for the Negotiation of a Successor Agreement to the 1994 International Tropical Timber Agreement. (Photo courtesy IISD)

Tuesday he addressed delegates on the current status and future potential of markets for ecosystem services of tropical forests, saying that the main buyers of ecosystem services are local, private investors. He said that the ecosystem services trade is hampered by insufficient knowledge and information dissemination and called for the development of property rights and legal frameworks in this area.

Bun pointed to the continuing decline in the international trade of primary tropical timber products and said the future of the tropical timber trade will be in ecosystem services.

"The only major, and growing, sources of investment for the sustainable use of tropical natural forests are communities themselves and payments for ecosystem services," he said.

As delegates negotiate as successor to the 1994 ITTA, Bun urged a revision of the proposed objectives of the new agreement to "demonstrate and show an understanding of the role of indigenous and other communities as critical, yet under-supported, actors."

At the ITTO council meeting last week the organization's transboundary conservation program received a boost with the financing of a project that will link the Pulong Tau National Park in Sarawak, Malaysia with the Kayan Mentarang National Park in Indonesia. The Malaysian park will be extended to cover some ecologically important forests and Sarawak's highest mountain, Mt. Murad.

A tree becomes timber in a Sarawak forest. (Photo courtesy Bruno Manser Foundation)

The new transboundary park will improve protection for endangered species such as Bulwer's pheasant, the clouded leopard and the Sumartran rhinoceros. The project was one of more than 36 projects, pre-projects and other activities financed to the amount of US$7.6 million in grants by the council last week.

Another project approved and financed by the ITTO council last week will test an innovative approach to plantations in Ghana in which native and exotic species are grown in mixes to provide a range of forest products and services.

Another project, in Colombia, will work with rural communities to increase the benefits to them from sustainable forest management. And another project, in Venezuela, will upgrade and strengthen the national forest statistics information system there.

During the 2004 - 2005 period the ITTO will conduct 10 national workshops to promote the implementation of its Guidelines for the Restoration, Management and Rehabilitation of Degraded and Secondary Tropical Forests.

The ITTO will convene a workshop to strengthen the capacity in the mahogany source countries of Bolivia, Brazil and Peru to implement the listing of mahogany on Appendix II of the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) that takes effect on November 15. The listing requires that shipments of this timber be accompanied by a CITES export permit.

The organization will cosponsor an international symposium on the impacts of forest certification on developing countries, and cooperate with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization on the development and dissemination of guidelines for improving law compliance in the forest sector.

Funds for the ITTO work program, as well as for projects and pre-projects, were provided at this session by the governments of Australia, Finland, Japan, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States.