FOREST PROTECTION IS ESSENTIAL INVESTMENT IN FUTURE WELL-BEING OF PEOPLE AND PLANET, SECRETARY-GENERAL TELLS CENTRAL AFRICA FOREST SUMMIT

17 March 1999

Press Release
SG/SM/6929
ENV/DEV/496

FOREST PROTECTION IS ESSENTIAL INVESTMENT IN FUTURE WELL-BEING OF PEOPLE AND PLANET, SECRETARY-GENERAL TELLS CENTRAL AFRICA FOREST SUMMIT

19990317 In Message to Summit's Opening, in Yaoundé, Kofi Annan Stresses Need To Encourage Private Sector to Make Positive Investments in Forest Management

Following is Secretary-General Kofi Annan's message to the opening of the Central Africa Forest Summit, delivered on his behalf by the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Klaus Toepfer, in Yaoundé today:

It gives me great pleasure to convey my best wishes to the Central Africa Forest Summit, and to offer congratulations to Paul Biya, President of Cameroon, on convening an event with great potential for the environment in Africa and beyond.

Forests are part of our natural inheritance. They are the richest and most productive ecosystems on Earth, a crucial link in the carbon cycle and major reservoirs of biodiversity. Forests provide vital ecological services such as soil conservation and flood protection, as well as food, fuel, shelter and jobs for millions of people. For many indigenous peoples, forests are the very basis of their cultural and spiritual traditions.

The forest system of Central Africa is the world's second largest contiguous expanse of moist tropical forest. Its direct economic contribution to the region's economy is significant: more than 8 per cent of foreign exchange earnings, a considerable share of total exports and a substantial share of total government revenue.

Yet scientists continue to warn us that this multifaceted wealth, in Africa and around the world, is deteriorating at an alarming rate. Despite all the strategies, programmes and global agreements of the past decade, deforestation persists and we have yet to achieve sustainable forest management. One reason for this troubling state of affairs is that we have focused too much on the direct causes of deforestation and forest degradation, and not enough on the underlying factors.

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This Summit can help us make the necessary adjustments, and point us in the proper direction: towards implementation of forest laws to reduce illegal logging; towards tax reforms and other changes in economic policy that promote sustainable forest management; towards national and local capacity-building, particularly in the area of human resources; and towards improved coordination of international forest assistance.

Partnerships will be a crucial part of the picture. Non-governmental organizations and private sector enterprises have important roles to play, in concert with Governments. We must, for example, encourage the private sector to make positive investments in forest management and technology transfer through joint ventures, including public-private partnerships, debt-for-nature swaps and "joint implementation programmes" under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Forest protection is an essential investment in the future well-being of people and the planet. This Summit must decide what to do to reverse the trend of the degradation of tropical forests in the region. Never before has there been such a coordinated and concerted regional effort to come to grips with the wide range of issues involved. I have every confidence that you will rise to the challenge and pledge the support of the United Nations for your efforts. In that spirit, please accept my best wishes for a successful Summit.

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