Proposal for a Sustainable Forestry Management Policy Essay -- Proposa

Proposal for a Sustainable Forestry trouble PolicyForests are an invaluable natural resource with multiple conflict uses. When left to stand, forests help conserve biodiversity, stabilize the environment and control erosion when logged, they offer building materials, fuel and agricultural land for human use. The challenge is to find an equilibrium between these uses in other words, to make the variation toward sustainable forestry management.Unfortunately, poverty has driven people in developing countries to distinguishable large tracts of land, while instability and corruption have rendered developing republic governments powerless to stop unlawful logging and trade in culpable forest products. The results have been staggering. The World Resources Institute recently reported that tropic regions have been deforested at an alarming rate of 1% annually since 1985 in some countries, the rate has spiraled to over 7% per year (1). Much of this deforestation is linked to the il legal trade in forest products. Greenpeace estimates that up to 80% of all logs cut in the Brazilian Amazon are extracted illicitly the estimate is 70% for Indonesia (2). In order to fight the problem of illegal logging and trade, I propose the following package of policy actions. First, to transmute US government procurance policy to prefer timber from sustainably managed forests second, to provide technical assistance to help developing countries with forestry management and third, to promote a national eco-certification system for sustainably managed forestry products.FIRST, the US government shall adapt its timber procurement policy to give preferential treatment to forest products certified to image sustainable management criteria. In t... ...rg(6) ISO 14001, 14061 http//www.iso.ch(7) ISF Smartwood witness, http//www.isf-sw.org/cert.htm(8) Environmental protective cover Agency, Climate Protection Division. The Power to Make a Difference. 1999 Annual Report on EnergyStar. http//www.epa.gov/appdstar/pdf/cpd99brief.pdf(9) American Forest and Paper Association. U.S. Forest Products Industry Competitive Challenges in a Global Marketplace. http//www.afandpa.org/legislation/legislation.html(10) Rotherham, Tom. Selling Sustainable Development Environmental Labeling and Certification Programs. In Environmentally Sound Trade Expansion in the Americas, University of Miami, 2000.(11) WTO arranging on Technical Barriers to Trade(12) Dawkins, Kristen. Eco-Labelling Consumers Right to Know or suppressive Business Practice? Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, 1996.