| Indigenous
and NGO participants of the Fifth World Conference on Boreal Forests,
and the biennial meeting of the Taiga Rescue Network, Moscow, 17-22 September 2000 |
|
Considering that: q old growth boreal forests in European Russia have been critically reduced to a small part of their original extent; [1] q on-going studies suggest that old growth forests in Siberia and the Russian Far East are far less extensive than is generally thought; q large-scale exploitation and logging threatens the future, ecologically sustainable use of the taiga by local communities; q our global future, including a healthy climate, clean air and water, our spiritual well-being, cultural diversity and sustainable economies, depend on healthy forests q it is vital to safeguard these forests and the rights of their inhabitants; Aware that: q the World Bank is now considering a revised forest policy, which will include safeguards to prevent it financing potentially destructive projects and programmes in all forest types; q at the Eastern European and Russian regional consultation for this revision process participants called on the World Bank to extend its policy to prohibit the financing of logging in all old growth forests; Therefore call on the World Bank to adopt a new forest policy which includes safeguard provisions that: q prohibit World Bank Group financing of logging in all old growth forests; q prohibit World Bank Group financing of other operations that lead to old growth forest destruction; q protect the rights of indigenous peoples and other forest-dwellers; q ensure inclusive, effective, informed, transparent, participatory decision-making; q include an outright ban on negative impacts in forests defined as ‘high conservation value forests’; [2] q require social, environmental and ecological assessments of proposed operations affecting all forest types by an independent institution not related to the planning agency. We also call on other donor agencies, transnational corporations and development banks to adopt similar policies. [1] Taiga Rescue Network, 2000, The Last of the Last, Jokkmokk, Sweden. [2] The World Bank’s working definition of HCVFs includes forests that: are fundamental to meeting the basic needs of local communities and/or are critical to local communities’ traditional cultural identity; provide basic services (e.g. watershed protection, erosion control); contain globally, regionally or nationally significant concentrations of biodiversity or contain rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems. Such areas are to be determined locally through consultation processes and based on internationally accepted standards. |
