Marcus Colchester
Forest Peoples Programme

Definitions:

In the documentation provided to TAG 1,  High Conservation Value Forests  (HCVF) are defined as:

‘those that possess one or more of the following attributes:

a)       forest areas fundamental to meeting basic needs of local communities (e.g.  subsistence, health) and/or critical to local communities’ traditional cultural  identity (areas of cultural, economic or religious significance)

b)      forest areas that provide basic services (e.g. watershed protection, erosion control) that are crucial and unable to be effectively replaced by other land cover.

c)       forest areas containing globally, regionally or nationally significant concentrations of biodiversity and forest areas that are in or contain rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems.’[1]

This definition is a shortened version of the one adopted by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and presently being assessed by an FSC advisory panel.[2] Further discussion in the FSC of this concept is expected before it is applied by FSC-accredited certifiers. Meantime the same concept, and a very similar definition, has been adopted by a number of large companies, like IKEA, that are trying to ensure that they do not source forest products in environmentally or socially destructive ways.

The draft FSC proposal notes that ‘HCVF could occur in all social settings, not just in relation to indigenous peoples’. According to the FSC advisory panel, the presence of one or more of the following suggest that the forest may be a HCVF for social reasons:

-         gardens or forest fallows

-         active market in NTFPs

-         dense populations in vicinity

-         presence of indigenous peoples with legal and/or customary rights in the area

-         presence of communities that practise traditional subsistence

-         overlapping land claims

-         lack of mechanisms for conflict resolution

-         presence of shrines, sacred sites or visible archaeological remains

-         existing public protests about proposed forest use

The FSC has also sought to define what is meant by the terms ‘fundamental’  (forest use which contributes as much as 15-20% to community monetary economy or diet and which cannot be easily replaced) and ‘basic need’ (requirements for economic or biophysical survival). The report also notes that knowledge about areas critical to local communities’ traditional cultural identity may be ‘very local to a specific area, sometimes not known to a nearby clan or other family groups. This again stresses the importance of widespread consultation under principles 2, 3 and 9’ (emphasis added).

The importance of consultation:

The importance of there being adequate processes of consultation to define HCVF is stressed by all parties. The FSC definition of HCVF includes a phrase requiring their identification ‘in cooperation with local communities’. At the TAG 1 meeting, the Bank noted with regard to HCVF that:

‘Such areas are to be determined locally through [a] consultation process and based on internationally accepted standards.’ [3] (emphasis added)

This is consistent with the FSC’s interim proposals, which find that ‘indicators and verifiers for the identification of social attributes, which are high conservation values are most often evaluated at the local, rather than global or regional level’. FSC also note that ‘languages used for the processes of consultation and assessment should be local and culturally appropriate to the region and peoples’. The FSC enjoins full consultation with all primary stakeholders – conservation NGOs, local communities, indigenous peoples and land owners. The process also calls for the involvement of the same stakeholders in monitoring the application of the safeguards.

It is important to note that the proposed adoption of the concept of HCVF by the FSC is in addition to the safeguards already built into the FSC certification process, notably FSC principles 2 and 3, which state that:

‘Principle 2: Long-term tenure and use rights to the land and forest resources shall be clearly defined, documented and legally established.

Principle 3: The legal and customary rights of indigenous peoples to own, use and manage their lands, territories and resources shall be recognised and respected.’

Observations and Recommendations:

As evolved by the FSC, the notion of HCVF can potentially be a powerful tool for promoting public participation in land use planning and natural resource management. It gives emphasis to local knowledge, local needs and local values to be assessed through the involvement of local people in local consultations using local languages. As such, it could be useful for promoting socially appropriate forest management at the level of the landscape or forest management unit. However, the concept is less well adapted to macro level decision-making about forests, unless a great deal of local consultation, zoning and mapping has already been done.

Given the amount of work already done on HCVF by the FSC advisory panel, it is unlikely that the TAG’s ad hoc  ‘Safeguards and Definitions Focus Group’ can improve on it. The FSC is expected to finalise its own report on the concept in late 2000. It is generally expected that further refinements to the concept should now be done through field trials to see how the concept applies at local and national levels. These field trials are needed not just to establish the validity or otherwise of the draft definitions of HCVF but also to indicate what kinds of consultations are acceptable and necessary to allow the concept to be applied effectively. There may be scope for the World Bank/WWF Alliance to assist with such field trials, which would also help the World Bank gain a clearer understanding of how the concept might be applied to World Bank operations in the future.

It is important to understand that the concept of HCVF is still at the conceptual level and is being developed by the FSC and by forest products trading companies for the use of certifiers assessing forest management at the level of the individual Forest Management Unit (FMU). The concept has not yet been developed adequately through field testing, nor yet applied on a wide enough scale to be readily applied to World Bank operations at the level of guarantees (MIGA), investments (IFC), project loans, grants and credits (IBRD, GEF and IDA) and structural adjustment lending.

Given these limitations, I suggest the following:

·        retain the current definition of HCVF proposed at TAG 1

·        include a clear provision for full and transparent local participation in all exercises aimed at defining HCVF :

·        include the phrase: 

In accordance with the precautionary principle, all old growth forests are considered HCVF unless established otherwise, with demonstrable public acceptance, through inclusive and open processes of  participation.