Global Witness - Breaking the links between natural resources, conflict and corruption
Forests
View all latest releases on forests
~~~ New! December 2009 - Global Witness publishes two new reports on REDD in advance of the UN summit in Copenhagen (see news feed):
- Building Confidence in REDD: Monitoring Beyond Carbon informs the development of a monitoring system for REDD that goes beyond the measurement, reporting and verification of carbon in forests.
- A Decade of Experience: Lessons Learned from Independent Forest Monitoring, provides the evidence base for the proposal on the independent monitoring of REDD.
~~~ December 2009 - Global Witness and EIA field investigation reveals extent of illegal logging in Madagascar
~~~ November 2009 - Global Witness hosts meeting with President Jagdeo to explore ambitious plan to stop deforestation
Forests are not like other resources: people live in and depend on them and what they contain; the poorer the people, the greater the dependence. Forests are of immense ecological importance and are also one of the last bastions against climate change. Despite all this, the almost automatic response from the international donor community, especially the World Bank, and from the governments of the producer countries themselves, is to regard industrial export-based logging as a key economic driver that can kick-start the economies of poor countries, but the major problem with this approach, in tropical forests at least, is that it demonstrably doesn't work. In virtually every country where this has been tried, illegal logging and corruption have triumphed over economic theory, resulting in vast revenue loss, exacerbation of poverty, human rights abuses, environmental destruction and, too often, full scale timber-fuelled war.
Global Witness is working to change international thinking on forest exploitation, to ensure that forests are a benefit to the communities that depend on them, and are regarded as an international asset.
The Amazon and DRC possess the two largest remaining tropical forest blocks in the world, and Global Witness believes the world cannot afford to put these global assets at risk by subjecting them to tried and tested theories that do not work. Despite many initiatives surrounding forest law enforcement, timber certification, chain of custody tracking and attempts to ban the trade in illegal timber, deforestation increases every year, with implications that include releasing 18% of total global CO2 emissions - more than the entire global transport sector (Stern Report, 2006).
The world cannot afford to wait in the hope that these approaches will work - evidence suggests that a whole new approach is necessary.
Global Witness' forest campaigns work to:
- Change international and producer-government perception about the role and management of the world's remaining tropical forests, and other forests at risk, and to arrive at an ‘optimal use' scenario that first and foremost benefits forest dependent people, their home countries, and the environment.
- Tackle illegal logging, the trade in conflict timber and unsustainable forest use.
Global Witness' work on conflict timber was responsible for shutting down the timber industries that provided the funds that fuelled the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and Charles Taylor's despotic regime in Liberia, and saw the closure of the Chinese/Burmese border to timber traffic in 2006.
Recent Reports
October 2009 - Global Witness' comments on the June 2009 draft of Guyana's Low Carbon Development Strategy
September 2009 - Trick or Treat shows how the term 'sustainable forest management' is threatening to derail the United Nations REDD negotiations
June 2009 - Vested Interests on the crucial role industrial logging plays in global carbon emissions.
Latest Publications
March 2010
DR Congo: ex-rebels take over mineral trade extortion racket
Former rebels from the Congrès national pour la défense du peuple (CNDP) have established mafia-style extortion rackets covering some of the most lucrative tin and tantalum mining areas in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Global Witness reported today following four weeks of research in the region.
Global Witness concerned at choice of new Ukraine energy minister
Global Witness is concerned that Yuri Boyko, a controversial figure from the murky past of Ukraine’s gas industry, has been put back in effective charge of a key gas supply route from Russia to the European Union.
Landmark oil and mining transparency initiative faces credibility test as key deadline passes
The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a pioneering initiative to bring more openness to the world's oil and mining industries, faces a major credibility test after 20 out of 22 countries failed to meet a key deadline today.
Global Witness urges Cambodia’s donors to condemn sponsorship of military units by private businesses
Aid donors to Cambodia, including the US, EU, Japan, China and the World Bank, should send a strong message to the government that they will not countenance the bankrolling of Cambodia’s military by private businesses. This call follows the announcement last week by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen of the formation of 42 official partnerships between private businesses and Cambodian military units.
February 2010
A near miss? Lessons learnt from the allocation of mining licences in the Gola Forest Reserve in Sierra Leone
Between 2005 and 2007, two mining licences were issued in the Gola Forest Reserve in Sierra Leone, even though the area was a proposed national park. This new report identifies weaknesses in Sierra Leone's natural resource governance and attempts to draw lessons for the future.
Parliamentary committee report on libel, privacy and press freedom not strong enough to defend public interest reporting
A report on press standards, privacy and libel makes broadly sensible recommendations but does not go far enough to allay fears that England's laws are a barrier to public-interest campaigning.
Campaigners criticise proposals to define palm oil plantations as forests
The Ecosystems Climate Alliance today criticised the EU and Indonesia for attempting to reclassify palm oil plantations as forests, saying this would be a step backwards in efforts to halt climate change though preventing deforestation.
28 countries accused of facilitating money laundering … but key offenders missing
An international financial crime watchdog has named and shamed countries that are failing to stop dirty money entering the financial system, a move welcomed by Global Witness. However, conspicuously absent are major financial centres and secrecy jurisdictions, many of which also have serious weaknesses in their anti-money laundering regulations.
Metals in mobile phones financing brutal war in Congo
Metals found in everyday electronics items, such as mobile phones and computers, are being mined illegally in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and funding a conflict that has caused millions of deaths, said Global Witness on the opening day of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
