Statements by Mr. Klaus Toepfer Executive Director United Nations Environment Programme to the "Environmental Concerns and the International Forest Agenda: The Need to move from dialogue to action" |
| * Forests can no longer be
considered as nature's factory that produces wood alone. UNEP considers forests as
ecosystems that provide a range of economic, industrial, cultural and social benefits as
well as environmental benefits and services. Forests are important elements to take into
account when implementing environmental management programmes at all levels. * The conservation of forests and the protection of our environment are closely linked with efforts aimed at achieving social equity and economic growth. It is clear that deforestation is increasing in most developing countries. Tropical forested countries are losing nearly one acre of forests per second. As their sheltering habitats retreat, poor people are being driven deeper into poverty. * Forests and other wooded lands provide vital functions to hundreds of millions of people who rely on them for food, medicine, firewood, soil rehabilitation, agriculture and water supply. As you are all aware, timber is the primary source of income in many countries in the tropics and planted forests are becoming an important part of the economy in many developing countries. * Forests are reported to contain eighty per cent (80%) of the worldþs biodiversity. They also sequestrate atmospheric carbon and are our best line of defense against climate change. |
| * It is for us to seize the
opportunity, at this momentous time in history, and enhance the interaction between
environment and economics towards the greater good of mankind. * All of recorded history, the saga of the last 5000 years, centres on how man has struggled to survive with man. We seem to have gone full circle back to pre-history, back to the dawn of civilization, where the dominant issue was how man is to survive with Nature. The answer to this "how", I strongly believe, lies in plumbing depths of the wellsprings of human knowledge and ingenuity. * We cannot minimize the ecological threats which stare us in the face and darken our common future. The over-exploitation of our natural resources, changing monsoon patterns, rise in sea levels, the alarming depletion of atmospheric ozone, desertification of vast tracts of land, droughts and floods, sometimes in geographical proximity, the increasing global population ... the problems seem to be almost insurmountable, with their magnitude increasing in geometric proportion. * And all this in the context of a world which remains starkly divided between the rich and the poor, between those who have carelessly exploited the resources of the Earth to reach their present levels of material comfort, and continue to exploit these in an effort to sustain a pattern of living that can only be termed as conspicuously wasteful, and those billions who clamour on the fringes of development. Can these realities be ignored? * We are all conscious of the global environmental problems, but if we are to tackle them unitedly, and move beyond the rhetoric of mere debate, it is necessary to reconcile our differing perceptions of the nature of these problems, to understand them in their totality, and then evolve strategies that would span the chasms of base selfishness, leading on to enlightened self-interest. |
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