This document was posted on 8 June, 1999.

URL: http://greatreversal.rockefeller.edu/gv_7June1999.htm

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1. The Council on Foreign Relations has secured funding to work in collaboration with the World Bank/WWF Alliance and others to design a research project that could develop a global vision for forests through the year 2050. The activity would network with several related "visioning" activities that are underway, including at WWF and World Resources Institute.
2. Many of the factors that will influence the Global Vision have been the subject of past and ongoing research by various international agencies such as FAO, CIFOR, the World Bank, the World Resources Institute, IIED and by many other independent policy research institutions, conservation agencies and industrial corporations around the world. The project seeks to develop collaborative linkages with such bodies. Much of the information needed to test the hypotheses being advanced will be derived from synthesis of already available knowledge. The research project will be a combination of networking and gap filling. It will depend on the willingness of these many groups and analysts to share knowledge and research expertise.
3. The Council is convening a meeting in Washington D.C. on June 17th to seek advice of leading experts on the design of this research project. Second, the meeting will identify agencies and individuals who are willing to contribute to this initiative and begin to strengthen networks among related research and visioning exercises. Third, it will identify important gaps that can be filled with additional research. Fourth, it will identify possible sources of funding and discuss funding strategies for supporting various components of the research project.
4. The 17 June meeting will initiate a pilot project to examine the feasibility and design of a larger effort to develop forest visions. The pilot project will identify a few quick turnaround pilot studies and papers that can be completed over the subsequent 6 months to test the viability of the concept. Another meeting to assess the pilot effort and finalize research proposals is planned for early 2000. If the concept is viable then a more extensive visioning effort might begin at that time, with other funding sources, and continue for perhaps two years. The timing coincides with the timeline for other efforts to develop forest visions as well as international efforts to develop policies that require better forest visions.

5. The origin of this project was mutual recognition among several of the groups participating in this dialogue that a long term Global Vision for Forests would provide a useful framework for developing national government, private industry and international aid community forest policies and strategies.
6. This visioning exercise is timely because many organizations are developing comprehensive or partial visions of future forests and using them to develop forest policies. For example, the project could aid:

• Reaching accord on long range global goals for "Protected Areas" that go well beyond the targets of protecting 10 percent of representative forest ecosystems, which was adopted for WWF's Forest for life Campaign
• Better understanding of the potential for intensifying the management of secondary forests and plantations to contribute to reducing pressure on natural forests.
• Development of more scientifically based and participatory approaches to forest land use planning and to decision making about "zoning " of "production" and "protection" forests.
• Improved understanding of the social, environmental and economic trade-offs between different forest management options, which could help guide national forest conservation policies. Better understanding of these trade-offs could also aid resolution of conflicts between conservation and developmental interests.
• Better understanding of how alternative forest management strategies could contribute to the goals of poverty alleviation, economic growth and trade in sustainable forest products.

7. The various organizations and researchers that have expressed interest in collaborating in this effort are coming at the issue from different perspectives. For example:

• The World Bank/WWF Alliance is interested in this vision as a framework within which it can assess the potential targets for global forest conservation beyond its year 2005 goal of an additional 50 million hectares of new Protected Areas, bringing under effective management and protection a similar area of 'Paper Parks' and its target of 200 million hectares of the world's production forests to be brought under independently certified sustainable management.
• Jesse Ausubel (Rockefeller University) is interested in pursuing this as part of a series of research projects on the potential for "sparing nature" by using natural resources (water, energy, land) more efficiently.
• David Victor (Council on Foreign Relations) is interested in this as a continuation of research on the effectiveness of international policy instruments (e.g., treaties and non-binding agreements).
• World Resources Institute is interested in defining a Global Vision as a step towards further development of its analysis of policies for containing threats to Frontier Forests.
• FAO is planning further work on global forest futures as part of its regional and global forest policy research programs. that are supporting forest policy planning in its member countries.

8. One objective of the 17^th June meeting is to explore how the various long term planning studies that different agencies are conducting could contribute to a common Global Vision. The effort must allow for these multiple endeavors to flourish while also yielding a synergy that can improve development of global visions as well as policy initiatives that depend on good global visions.

9. The total area of closed forests is 3.2 billion ha. Recently published results from the FAO Global Fibre Supply Model estimated that about half of the world's forests (about 1.6 billion ha) are likely to be economically inaccessible for sustainable logging. Forest areas considered as unavailable for wood supply included:

• Legally Protected Areas (IUCN Classes I to III).
• Forest areas that are physically inaccessible due to factors such as steepness of terrain.
• Forests that are far from industrial sites due to transportation distance or lack of infrastructure.
• Forests that are too low in commercial volume to justify logging

Table 1 shows the geographical distribution of these unavailable areas.

10. The same study suggests that about 880 million of the global closed forest area has already been logged over and a further 665 million hectares are classified as economically accessible for logging. Of that latter total, 59 million hectares are located in Africa, 49 million ha. in Asia, 9 million ha in Oceania, 34 million ha. in South America and 514 million ha. in Russia.
11. This project will examine the potential for reversing and containing the expansion of logging activities. It is predicated on the hypothesis that there will be substantial social environmental and economic benefits by gradually reducing rather than expanding the area under logging, by preserving possibly as high as three quarters of global forests for their environmental and other benefits and by ensuring that logging and forest management operations in production forests are subject to independent certification/verification.
12. To this end, intensification of production and improved efficiency in the use of forest products are particularly important. Already, economic forces that are driving an ongoing global trend towards intensification of management and improved efficiency of end-use.
13. Also vital is the growing recognition that in the 21st century, citizens world wide will wish to insist on being involved in decisions about how forests are harvested and managed and for whose benefit. As per capita incomes rise, societal demands will increasingly favor policies aimed at protection of the environmental and recreational benefits of forests.

14. The project must give special attention to the trend towards intensification of forest management, which could spare large areas of forests for other, non-timber purposes while also allowing more efficient and profitable production. Intensively managed secondary forests plus plantations growing on some 100 million hectares (i.e. less than 3 per cent of the global forest area) already supply 20 per cent of industrial wood needs. This is forecasted to increase to over 40 per cent by 2030. Ensuring such a shift to intensive forestry in the face of rising demand for forest products probably would require a significant increase in average yield and also a massive planting effort over the next few decades.
15. Critics of this intensification model are concerned on several fronts, and these must be examined and addressed. First it is argued that intensification will restrict possibilities for many of the rural poor to benefit from timber harvesting and may limit access to essential non-timber products in areas designated for intensive production.
16. Second, it could restrict possibilities for some developing countries to use forest resources as a source of development revenues. Third, it is argued that by confining logging to a smaller area, reduces the economic value of natural forests thereby making them more vulnerable to conversion to other uses. This argues for an extensive rather than intensive approach to future logging. Fourth, it has been argued with justification that plantation forests in some parts of the world have displaced local communities. Fifth, there are concerns about monocultures, narrowing of biodiversity, about the sustainability of plantation forests and how to ensure that equity and environmental concerns are not ignored in intensively managed production forests.

17. The following very tentative thoughts on project design are intended only to stimulate discussion. A substantial part of the 17^th meeting agenda will be devoted to the topic of exactly what participants want to see emerging from this exercise, possibilities for designing the research project in a way that could simultaneously contribute to meeting the special interests of different groups and to explore sources of funding for various elements of the research program.

18. The research might focus on the implications of evolving consumption patterns, production costs and timber prices on timber supply. Most existing forest inventory studies and analyses such as the FAO Global Fibre Supply Model do not address those issues. To assess their impact on global wood supply requires assembling data on comparative industrial manufacturing costs in various regions of the world and considering how anticipated shifts in global timber consumption patterns, and in the location and structure of forest industry, are likely to influence forest harvesting and management practices.
19. Economic forces will strongly influence a transition towards a situation in which the bulk of world construction grade timber, wood based panel and paper and paper board demands might be met from more intensively managed secondary forests, plantations and from non forest timber resources. Thus evaluation of the intensive/extensive management options must occur within the context of analysis of trends and potentials in the global forest industry (supply, demand). Such a context requires better understanding of technical potentials, robust long-term trends, and better economic models.

20. The research project might also examine the potential for production forests to be managed in ways that combine conservation and developmental goals. Much of the confusion and emotive concerns about the relative merit of intensive versus extensive forest management options stem from the inadequacy of empirical evidence on the socio- economic and environmental tradeoffs between different management options. The advent of global efforts to limit net emissions of greenhouse gases-which could result in growing and protection of forests as carbon sinks-opens new opportunities for achieving synergies of forest uses.
21. The project might develop optimization models to test cutting regimes under different constraints and objective functions, which could be useful tools for less emotive and more scientifically based approaches to land use planning. It might also sponsor case studies of successful multi purpose management of production forests.

22. Third, the project might examine the socioeconomic factors that could significantly reduce pressure on natural forests. Factors that could contribute to this include reduced dependency on forest lands for meeting subsistence needs and for conversion of forest lands to agriculture; continued migration into urban areas; rising per-capita income; availability of wood from non forest sources; and, growing pressure on governments from concerned citizens and environmental groups to set aside forests for environmental benefit.

23. Fourth, the project should give attention to the social and equity dimensions of forest use. As mentioned earlier, critics of the intensification model are legitimately concerned that concentration of large scale commercial timber harvest and management in the hands of industrial corporations has adversely affected the welfare of forest dependent local communities in many parts of the world . Grievances of indigenous groups on that issue are almost daily news in the media.
24. It is unclear how a strategy of intensified forest management would affect the potential of forests to contribute to poverty alleviation and how it could be reconciled with protection of indigenous people's forest access rights. There have been many well documented case of situations where plantation forests have been established on customary lands without adequate consultation and with no provision for benefit sharing. The ecological damage caused by companies involved in large scale clearing of natural forests for establishment of plantations has been widely publicised. (These were cited as a major cause of the disastrous forest fires that swept through Indonesia last year.) Heavily mechanised and wasteful harvesting practices in natural forests also have caused ecological damage. (FAO and many conservation organisations have documented these abuses, including Nigel Dudley and Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud's WWF publication " Bad Harvest".)

25. Fifth, the project might examine the policy implications for global forest conservation and development strategy. The project could define regulatory, fiscal and institutional policies that would contribute to achievement of the global visions.
26. Forests today are facing unprecedented threats from a combination of migratory logging pressures, road construction, agricultural encroachment, mining oil exploration, fire, pollution and other developmental threats. Such threats to forests have been the topic of extensive review carried out over the last three years by the IPF and WCFSD processes. They have been documented by many conservation groups (e.g., see the World Resources Institute (WRI) Frontier Forests Report (1997), and WWF's "Temperate Forests in Trouble"). And they are a focus in an ongoing review of the World Bank's Forest Policy.
27. The project is not intended to duplicate research on how most effectively to contain those threats. Both WRI and The World Bank are engaged in parallel research efforts on that topic . However, the project could develop collaborative links and networks that could help to identify polices for managing development threats to forests.
28. Strategies for addressing the negative impact on forests of: macro-economic policies, agriculture and land tenure, transportation policies, energy, and mining developments are well summarized in a recent CIFOR analysis: " Non Forest Sector policies that Affect Forests" (David Kaimowitz and Arild Angelsen, May 1999). In addition, it may be useful to examine expansion of agriculture tree crops (e.g., oil palm).
29. Policies for dealing with agricultural encroachment pressures may deserve special attention. Earlier research by IFPRI and others has identified the potential for raising per capita income levels and agricultural productivity as two of the key determinants of future deforestation trends. To illustrate the latter point, CGIAR studies have concluded that major increases in agricultural productivity achieved between 1970 and 1990 as a result of the wide use of high yielding varieties of key agricultural crops and technological improvements in agricultural practices saved some 280 million hectares of marginal land (including substantial areas of forest) from agricultural cropping.
30. Expansion of agriculture tree crops such as oil palm is likely to make major inroads into the forests of countries such as Indonesia. Taking into account the escalating market demands for oil palm and other agricultural trees crops what area of forests is likely to be converted to such crops? What policies could be put in place to minimize the negative ecological impact on forests of further expansion of agricultural tree crops.
31. In considering policy implications, key issues that are likely to surface include the potential and limitations of emerging financial mechanisms, such as carbon sequestration credits, trades as mechanisms for forest conservation, the role of independent certification of forest management in achieving a transition towards sustainable management of production forests, the potential of existing conventions such as FCCC, the CBD and various regional forest conventions to contribute to achievement of long term global visions for forests, and other international regimes such as the WTO.

32. At the 17^th June meeting the discussion might be structured around five main themes:

• Conservation issues and objectives.
• Demand for forest products.
• Sources of Wood Supply.
• Implications of demand and supply for the Geographic Location and structure of the Global Forest Industry.
• Social and Equity concerns.

33. The purpose of the 17 June meeting is not a comprehensive discussion on each of these topics. Rather, our goal is to identify the main issues that the research project might address. In addition, we want to identify what must be done during the pilot project (June 1999 through early 2000) that is being managed by the Council on Foreign Relations. To those ends, on each theme we should address the following questions:

• What are the main issues and questions that must be answered for the purposes of developing global visions?
• What synergies in existing research have not been tapped, and where must gaps be filled?
• Where can we make progress over the next 6 months (pilot phase) and two years (full research project)? In particular, we must focus on those topics where it is likely that it will be possible to develop useful projections that extend beyond fifty years. For some topics we may be able to advance little beyond existing knowledge whereas for others there may be long-term trends and potentials that additional research can identify and for which that research could vitally aid the development of future visions.

34. The development of future visions and roadmaps requires objectives. In general, the research project aims to identify ways to maximize the amount of forest areas that could be protected. It may be useful to enumerate the purposes of protection-such as preservation of biological diversity, protection of watersheds (for humans and nature), preservation of areas for indigenous peoples, recreation, sequestration of carbon, and other forest services. Many other groups have already done this, but perhaps some additional review or synthesis is needed.
35. The goals of conservation imply the need to delimit protected areas. However, the concept of "protected area" varies, as do the tradeoffs between formal protection and the achievement of multiple objectives in forest areas.

36. "Protected Areas" (IUCN Categories I-III) account for less than 8 per cent of global forest area. It might be useful to consult with IUCN, WRI , TNC, CI and other conservation agencies such as, WCMC and WCPA on the possibility for global Protected Area strategies. The intention is to explore the extent to which there is a consensus between WWF and other leading conservation agencies on what they perceive as a minimum area of global forests that should be permanently set aside as " Protected Areas" for preservation of biodiversity and other environmental benefits, the location of those areas, etc. Should the development of a global vision for forests in the 21^st century give first priority to legally protected areas.

37. In addition to "legally protected areas," FAO's recent Global Fibre Supply Model (GFSM) also excluded from production (logging) very large areas of forest as economically inaccessible for sustainable harvesting and management, either because of their geographic remoteness or difficult topography. These include, for example, very large areas of boreal forests in the North of Russia, Canada and Alaska and the more remote forests of the Amazon region and substantial areas of forest in Africa and Asia. (Similarly, the WRI Frontier Forests Initiative has concluded that more than half of the world's remaining "frontier forests" is economically inaccessible and thus not under immediate threat-nearly all of that is in Canada and Russia.)
38. Assumptions underlying FAO analyses of economically inaccessible areas need to be tested. How were they determined? How are they likely to be affected by current trends towards expansion of non sustainable logging and the awarding of subsidised timber concessions in primary forests (e.g., Guyana, Suriname, Cameroon, Siberia etc)? Will the economic forces that are driving current trends towards intensification of management help to divert logging pressures away from these areas? How will population migration and per capita income levels affect forests that are not being logged? For example, UN projections suggest that a combination of rising per capita incomes and rural/urban population migration in some Asia and Latin American region countries could result in reduced pressure on forests. This may not happen at such a rapid rate in many African countries.
39. The outcome of this analysis has major implications for a Global Forest Vision. To illustrate, if half of global forests are unlikely to be logged then to the extent that other developmental pressures on these non timber production forests can be contained, these economically inaccessible forests will remain relatively undisturbed. In some countries legal steps have already been taken to gazette such areas as "protection forests."
40. Key issues are how to contain development threats to "protection forests," such as those cited in para 26 above, and how to incorporate into national forest policies more explicit quantification of services such as preserving biodiversity, carbon sequestration, protection of critical water catchments and, where appropriate, wilderness/recreational opportunities that "protection forests" supply. To what extent could these additional "protection forests" contribute to WWF, IUCN, WCMC, CI, TNC, WCPA and other conservation agency goals of creating a global network of protected areas that are fully representative of all major forest ecosystems? To what extent might areas protected for particular purposes-e.g., zones delimited for protection because they have generated certified carbon sequestration credits-overlap or conflict with zones that might be established for other purposes?
41. Research by WRI and others has recommended policies for containing developmental threats to these remoter areas. Assuming that national governments, with support of the international community, can be persuaded to implement these policies then is there a case for redefining long range global forest conservation goals something along these lines:

42. If it is decided to pursue that line of reasoning then a crucial question becomes what is meant by "protection status" That opens up the whole question of whether the definition of protected areas should be broadened to include all of IUCN Categories I through VI? In that connection, some of the thinking behind WWF's publication "Protected Areas for a New Millenium" becomes highly relevant. Powerful arguments have been made for a more flexible definition of protected areas based on three fundamental principles:

• Human presence in protected areas is not necessarily a threat.
• Protected areas don't necessarily have to be owned by the State but can also be owned by people.
• Recognition that it is not just official protected area agencies who have the right to control and manage PA's but many other actors, from land owners to NGOs, local communities, municipalities.

43. These arguments are well articulated in a memo from Gonzala Oviedo dated 13 February 1998 in which, commenting on WWF's " Protected Areas for a New Millenium" he argued strongly for a broader interpretation of PA's that would embrace a wider range of "socially and ecologically appropriate models."

44. Demand for forest products will influence whether forests are managed either intensively or extensively. The important factors include: market trends, changing patterns of wood consumption, substitutes for wood products, demands for fuelwood and biomass based fuels, and improvements in end-use efficiency.

45. A useful starting point for examining future market trends is FAO's recent (1999) projections that cover production, imports, exports and domestic consumption of all forest products for all countries of the world to the year 2010.
46. Dependent on alternative assumptions about population and economic growth and changes in prices, world industrial wood demands will increase from current levels of about 1.6 billion cubic meter to something between 2.5 and 3 billion cubic meters by year 2050.
47. Patterns of consumption will change significantly. In developed countries, per-capita consumption of solid wood products will probably decline. Of special relevance to this research project is anticipated expansion of world paper and paper board demand which, by 2050, is expected to account for over half of all global industrial roundwood consumption.

48. World demand for fuelwood currently accounts for more than 50 per cent of world wood harvest. Despite an anticipated 50 per cent increase in world population between now and 2050, demand for domestic fuelwood consumption is expected to remain fairly constant at around 2 billion cubic meters per year (Solberg et al. 1996). This reflects past historical experience that as per-capita income rises, households shift from fuelwood to more convenient fuels.
49. It seems doubtful that domestic fuelwood demand will significantly influence the outcome of this research project. Many studies carried out under the World Bank ESMAP programme have concluded that a high proportion of domestic fuelwood is not produced as a result of direct harvesting of closed forests but rather is gathered from a variety of sources and types of vegetation such as on-farm trees, remnant woodlands, and agricultural crop residues. In short, as an issue for discussion, is the proposition valid that domestic fuelwood demands are unlikely significantly to affect decisions about whether forests should be either extensively or intensively managed?
50. However, there may be some regions where fuelwood demand could significantly affect protection of closed forests. These may include parts of West Africa, and it may be useful to conduct case studies on those regions. Such case studies must examine factors such as prospects for economic and population growth, urban/rural migration, and potential supply of non-wood fuels.

51. The potential in the 21^st century for increased use of biomass based wood fuels for commercial scale heating and or as a substitute for fossil fuels has been studied by the World Energy Council. Issues covered in their studies included how anticipated oil price changes will affect the prospects for biomass based fuels and the possibility that in the 21^st century investment in biomass energy plantations will become attractive to private sector investors. Issues for discussion include the latest status of knowledge on this issue and their implications for forest management. Earlier research by, for example, the SHELL IPC has confirmed the enormous potential for raising the productivity of intensively managed short rotation biomass plantations.

52. Per capita wood consumption is declining in industrialised nations. Waggoner, Ausubel and Wernick ("Lightening the Tread of Population on the Land," 1996) concluded that in the USA between 1904 and 1990 intensity of lumber use per dollar of GNP fell by 2.8 per cent per year. It might be useful to conduct similar long-term studies in other markets and regions in order to examine the potential for reducing usage of wood products.
53. Recycling of paper is steadily increasing. From 1983 to 1991 the share of all paper and paperboard worldwide manufactured from recycled paper rose from 30 to 37 per cent and may soon account for half of paper furnish.
54. Technological advances are making it possible to use wood far more efficiently. For example, in the USA, "TrusJoist International" I beams (high strength structural lumber manufactured from wood wastes and second growth timber) are replacing solid old growth lumber for roof framing in some North American home building.. Houses can now be built that require only one fifth of the lumber required for construction of traditional timber frame houses. An issue for the research project is how will these developments impact on future industrial round wood demand and on approaches to forest management?

55. Some of the key factors that will likely influence wood supply include alternative sources of wood supply, the role of substitute fibbers, technical possibilities for increasing the productivity of secondary forests and plantations and the influence of different forest resource ownership patterns.

56. The main sources of interest to this project include:

• Secondary natural forest
• Plantation forests
• Remnant woodlands and agro-forestry,
• Commercial scale agriculture tree crop plantations (rubber, wood, oil palm, etc)
• Substitute fibers and waste residues.

57. The FAO Global Fibre Supply Model provides a useful starting point for assessing what area of secondary forest is likely to be influenced by harvesting between now and 2050. It strongly advocates the potential of reduced impact logging (RIL) as a strategy for achieving sustainable management of secondary forests.
58. An issue for discussion is how many countries should the project supply side analyses attempt to cover? For example a recent study by LEK for the WB/WWF Alliance concluded that only 25 countries account for 88 per cent of global industrial roundwood production. 40 countries account for over 90 per cent of global industrial wood production.
59. Looking ahead to 2050, what area of secondary forests could be brought under sustainable management? What levels of industrial wood supply can be anticipated from managed secondary forests assuming application of reduced impact logging methods? Is enough known about the economic viability of RIL to be certain that it will attract private sector investment? In the countries to be studied by the project, what are the economic trade-offs between RIL harvested and managed secondary forests and plantations? Can the environmental benefits of RIL be quantified? Is there a case for injection of global carbon funds into RIL as a step towards the promotion of improved logging practices?

60. For plantation forests, an FAO study by Chris Brown (1999) provides up to date information on current plantation areas, rates of planting and on trends in plantation forestry. IIED's Paper Cycle project (1996) provides a useful and comprehensive review of issues surrounding the pros and cons of plantation forests.
61. On the technical front, studies by CIFOR and research carried out by private corporations such as ARACRUZ and others have documented the enormous potential for raising yields through selection, tree breeding and improvement. Yields of commercial fibre can be achieved that exceed those obtained from slow growing and heterogeneous natural forests species by a factor of 20 or more. It could be useful to synthesize already available evidence on the technical possibilities for increasing productivity, and on the biological sustainability and economic viability of plantation forests.
62. Of potential interest is the current status of private sector investment in new plantation forests, especially in Latin America, and the realistic potential of emerging carbon related financial mechanisms to provide incentive for accelerated plantation development.
63. There are already available many studies that document the concerns that have been raised by environmental groups about the potentially negative social and ecological impacts of plantation forests. It might be useful for the research project to review the recommendations that have been made by a recent WB/environmental agency forum of the possibilities for putting in place safeguards that minimise the risk of social and ecological damage. Also useful could be to review ongoing experiences of more responsible plantation forestry companies around the world, several of which have been endorsed by the Forest Stewardship Council.
64. The very significant potential of plantation forests to relieve pressure on natural forests have been well articulated by Roger Sedjo and Daniel Botkin ("Using Forest Plantations to Spare Natural Forests," Environment, 1997). In that article they suggest that, in theory, all of the world's foreseeable industrial wood needs could be met from an intensively managed plantation area covering less that 5 per cent of the global closed forest area. They identify three forces that are driving the transition towards the intensive management model. They are: increasing scarcity of accessible old growth forests, technological improvements that are increasing productivity and plantation yields and increased social pressure to protect old growth forests either through set asides or indirectly through the implementation of more stringent standards which would increase the cost of harvesting in natural forests
65. The comparative economic advantage of southern hemisphere plantation based pulp, paper and solid products manufacture were the subject of a 1980's World Bank study "The Forest Industry Sector and Operational Strategy for Developing Countries" (Andrew Ewing and Raymond Chalk World Bank 1988). Are there any more recent studies of those issues that the project could usefully examine?

66. For non forest resources such as on farm trees and agricultural tree crops, FAO studies such as those cited above for the Asia Pacific Region are the most up to date and authoritative source of data. These non-forest resources are far more significant than had been assumed in many earlier studies. For the region as a whole the potential annual production exceeds 800 million cubic meters. For example, in North Asia as much as 80 million cubic meters of sawlogs and 360 million cubic meters of pulpwood and fuelwood could be harvested annually from outside forests.
67. Agricultural tree crops are also very significant in the Asia Pacific Region. They account for 25 per cent of total production of trees outside forests. To quote FAO:

"In some countries (e.g Malaysia and Thailand) these crops are even more important than regional figures suggest. They far exceed the current importance of industrial plantations in overall roundwood supply"

68. In addition to supplies of wood from forests, fiber can be obtained from forest industries and from fiber sources outside the forest sectors. These fall into three broad categories, residues (both forest and industrial wood processing residues), non wood fibers and recycled paper. It could be useful to obtain data on these various sources of supply, all of which have the potential to reduce pressure for harvesting of natural forests. A comprehensive review of the potential for alternative fibers such as bagasse and kenaf was carried out under IIED's Paper Cycle Project. FAO's Asia Pacific study includes useful data for that region. Other sources need to be identified.

Ownership Patterns

69. Ownership of forest resources strongly influences the productivity and prospects for responsible forest management. For example the Solberg et al. study for the IPF classified forest ownerships as:

• managed forests owned by forest industries in temperate countries,
• fast growing plantations in the tropics,
• managed forests owned by private non industrial owners in temperate countries,
• managed Public forests,
• residual extensively managed natural forests (various ownerships).

70. The results of the IPF analysis support the hypothesis that large tracts of land can be spared for other purposes through intensification.. For example, projections of the proportion of global wood supply that might come from the first four categories listed above suggested that less than 20 per cent of the global forest area surveyed under these forms of ownership accounted for more than 60 per cent of global industrial round wood production. The study concludes that "future production of industrial round wood is likely to be even more concentrated than at present."
71. Similar intensification trends to those of IPF are predicted by Robert Hagler in Wood Resources International's Global Wood Supply/Demand study which estimated that intensively managed secondary forests and plantations that now account now for 20 per cent of global supply in year 2000 will account for 40 per cent by year 2030.

72. Significant changes in trading patterns are expected. For example, some conclusions of the above cited Wood Resources International study on the sources of future industrial roundwood supplies include:

• Developed countries dominate both industrial wood production and trade. They account for more than 70 per cent of production and more than 80 per cent of world trade in forest products. The heavy sunk cost in large scale industry and proximity of wood supply suggests that they will continue to dominate world consumption patterns till well into the 21^st century. The implications are that the temperate and boreal forests will remain a major source of supply . In Europe most temperate forests are already under fairly intensive management. There is potential further to increase their productivity.
• Japan, which has been the largest net importer of logs in the world, will rely on increased imports of semi finished products such as lumber plywood OSB and semi processed pulp and paper board products. The shift away from import of pulp logs and wood chips could conceivably reduce pressure for ecologically damaging logging of tropical rain forests .
• Although China becomes a major market for forest products, China's dependency on imports of raw material or finished products over the next 30 years will decline because the country will have the capability to increase primary and secondary production based largely on its own emerging wood supply. Taking into account recent decisions to set aside a higher proportion of China's forests for environmental protection a trend towards intensification of management seems almost certain.
• The USA will shift from being a net exporter of raw material to being a net importer. Canada will not be able to meet the extra US demand. The US may well become a net importer of pulpwood, and much of this could feasibly come from fast growing plantations in Latin America.

73. In reviewing the likely impact of wood production costs on the location and structure of forest industry in the Canadian Province of British Columbia, Clark Binkley in a study titled "Preserving Nature through Plantation Forestry'' suggested that current extensive approaches to forest management in that Province will likely result in massive economic dislocations and will not satisfy legitimate societal demands for protection of environmental values.
74. Opportunities exist to consolidate forest industrial development and intensive forest management in the more favorable growing areas in the South of the Province and to dedicate more than half the forests of British Columbia for management as national Parks. Rising wood costs in British Columbia will support expanded timber supplies in other competing locations such as New Zealand, Chile, Brazil and perhaps eventually Siberia. The project might develop similar analyses for other provinces and timber producing regions.
75. The recent report of the WCFSD highlighted the extent to which perverse subsidies such as under-pricing of timber and transport subsidies are currently supporting forest industries that in many situations are located way beyond the economic limits of sustainable logging. It developed strong arguments for elimination of such subsidies and cited examples of situations where commitment by governments to tackle that issue had immediate beneficial impact on forests. To illustrate, removal of rail transport subsidies in Russia in 1996 immediately reduced the economic haulage radius of logging by some 2000 kilometers.
76. An issue for discussion is the possibility of collaboration with agencies such as the Earth Council and FAO that are researching the impact of subsidies on forests in various regions of the world. For example if all subsidies were to be removed, how would this affect location of industry world-wide? In some regions of the world there may be a significant decline in the area under logging.

77. Some of the key issues that have surfaced in the course of preliminary discussions of this research project include, first, how to reconcile intensification of commercial management with protection of the forest access and land use rights of local communities and with the goal of poverty alleviation. There have been numerous examples of situations where local community access to the many non products on which they depend for subsistence and income have been usurped by large timber corporations.
78. Conversely there have been situations where it has proved possible to work out equitable arrangements between companies and local communities for benefit sharing. It may be useful to review these arrangements and to explore their policy implications for the research study. More generally, it may be useful to examine cases of local and shared management of forest resources and the compatibility of such arrangements with a shift to intensified production of forest products.
79. A second area of concern to critics of the intensification model is that it limits opportunities for local communities to benefit from timber harvesting and to bring demonstrable economic value to unmanaged forests. It thereby exacerbates the risk of deforestation. It has been argued by others that this latter argument is flawed first because the economic value which extensive selection logging adds in tropical forests is nowhere near the level needed to compete with alternative land uses. Moreover, opening up logging roads encourages inward migration of slash and burn farmers.
80. A third related issue is the possibility of involving private landowners, small farmers and local communities in reforestation programs as outgrowers operating under contractual arrangements to larger forest industrial corporations. There are many experiences and well documented examples of such arrangements from which the project could draw useful conclusions about how to ensure equitable arrangements that on the one hand, guarantee local forest owners a fair price for their products and on the other which guarantee large scale industries a sustained flow of raw material.
81. An issue of particular concern to developing countries is that a trend towards intensification may restrict potential for utilizing forest resources as a source of development revenues and employment. It might be useful to examine those conflicts and whether particular policy instruments have been effective at addressing them.
82. Because it is difficult to discuss these issues in generalities, it might be useful to conduct case studies on particular forest areas and regions to examine how these problems have been handled on the ground.

83. The purpose of this paper has been to outline some of the major issues related to the production and use of forest products and their possible relations to the protection of forest lands. The goal is to aid in the development of a research project that could identify the long-term (through 2050) potential for protecting forest lands. At the 17 June meeting we should identify the elements of that research project. We should also identify specific actions (e.g., pilot studies, review papers) that could be undertaken over the next 6 months. Early in 2000 the group will hold a second meeting to examine the results from those quick studies and agree on the elements of the major research project.

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