SYNTHESIS REPORT

EUROPE AND THE WORLD'S

FORESTS

The Underlying Causes of Deforestation

and Forest Degradation in Europe:

Synthesis Report of the European Regional Meeting,

Bonn 28-29 October 1998.

 Marcus Colchester

Forest Peoples Programme

1c Fosseway Business Centre

Stratford Road

Moreton-in-Marsh

GL56 9NQ

England

Tel: + 44 1608 652893

Fax: + 44 1608 652878

Email: wrm@gn.apc.org

Part of an Intersessional Process of the

Intergovernmental Forum on Forests

This global initiative has received funding from among others: Department for International Development (UK), Netherlands Development Assistance (DGIS), Finnish Foreign Ministry, European Commission DG XI, Portuguese Government, United Nations Environment Programme, Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Asia Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Australian Government, International Center for Environment Studies (Japan). We are grateful for this support. This regional report has been prepared for presentation to the global meeting on 18-22 January 1999 in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Executive Summary:

The European regional meeting held in Bonn in October included a range of NGOs, government officials, academic researchers and forestry consultants. The two-day meeting considered ten case studies and a synthesis paper all prepared especially for the meeting and drew on these insights to help them draw their conclusions.

European forests are not in a healthy state. The forests have been reduced to about a third of their original extent and old growth forests have been hugely depleted. What forests remain have been heavily modified and simplified. Two thirds of the continent's trees suffer some degree of defoliation from airborne pollution

Generalisation about forests in Europe is very difficult. Factors leading to forest loss in one context may have the opposite effect in another context. Local and national problem-solving approaches were thus emphasised and relatively little emphasis was given to international solutions which many considered were likely to be too blunt to be adequately adjusted to local needs.

Forests are much more than just stands of trees. They are complex ecosystems with integral associations of flora and fauna and long-term resident human communities, and they perform a wide variety of functions. Loss of any one of these elements or functions should be treated as forest loss.

For the purposes of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests, the IPF's broad definition of underlying causes of forest loss should be accepted rather than the more limited approach adopted by CIFOR so as not to give undue emphasis to economic factors.

Land and forest tenure regimes have had a powerful influence over the way forests have been managed and destroyed. Community ownership - as an intermediate form of ownership between State ownership and private ownership - holds out potential benefits for many parts of Europe but should not be imposed at the expense of central regulations. An adequate policy, legislative, institutional enabling framework is required to ensure effective community forest management, including resources and structures for effective community participation in decision-making.

Forest policies have tended to give priority to production, giving second place to protection functions and third place to social functions. Forests have suffered from the 'wake theory' of forest management. National forest policies need to be reformed to give equal weight to social, environmental and economic values.

Powerful interest groups dominate policy-making. More open, transparent and participatory forms of governance are required to counter these interests. Guidelines for decision-making processes should be developed to guide the evolution of accountable public institutions dealing with the private sector.

Forest services may need reforms and retraining to effect these new approaches. In transition countries, in particular, institutional capacity needs to be strengthened to cope with new pressures on forests from market forces and tenure reforms.

The short-termism of politicians poses an obstacle to the inclusion of environmental concerns in forest-related decisions. The materialist aspirations of society reinforce this tendency. Solutions include: greater public education, especially about the underlying causes of forest loss; improved media treatment of the issue; greater independence for forest research; electoral reforms.

Markets have very diverse impacts on forests, sometimes beneficial, sometimes destructive. Rising consumer demand is however placing an unsustainable burden on forests and needs to be lessened if forest loss is to be curbed. Solutions include: the removal of perverse subsidies; the imposition of 'ecotaxes'; stricter regulations, including restrictions or tarriff barriers to trade in destructively produced goods; green accounting (incorporating externalities into costs). Some of these solutions will require changes in international law (trade agreements). Voluntary regulation and consumer choice should be encouraged but should not be relied on to effect major transformations in consumption and trade.

European measures to counter air pollution have been ineffective as, overall, they have failed to address the underlying causes of such emissions. Policy and legislative reforms are required to reform transport policies (reduce NOx), clean up industrial emissions (reduce SO2) and promote organic farming (less nitrates). Transition countries will require additional economic assistance to effect these changes.

Through aid, trade and foreign investment, western Europe is a major force contributing to forest loss in the rest of the world, including in eastern Europe. Aid to developing countries is causing forest loss both directly and indirectly, by failing to address underlying causes in recipient countries or even reinforcing them. Reforms in aid programmes are needed. Aid projects should seek to be more beneficiary-driven. More attention needs to be given to social issues and vulnerable sectors especially women and indigenous peoples. Aid should become more programmatic and less project focused. Strategic impact assessments should be required. There should be more experience sharing of 'best practice' among donors. Donor coordination needs to be enhanced.

Most of these proposed actions can be undertaken at the local, national and a few at the regional level. The meeting carefully reviewed the IPF's action proposals and highlighted some that could be especially important in addressing underlying causes. By themselves, however, the proposed actions are inadequate.

In particular, to date intergovernmental negotiations on forests have failed to address a number of key issues:

-        more effective measures are needed to change the balance of power over forests. 

-        measures are needed to reduce consumption.

-        aid programmes need to be reformed.

-        reforms in international law are needed to permit regulation of trade and investment on environmental and social grounds.

There are no signs that these issues are being considered by those advocating a convention on forests. It seems that the key issues that need to be addressed at the international level are considered to lie outside the present scope of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests.

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1. Introduction:

The world has now lost some 50% of its forests and continues to lose forests at an ever-increasing rate. As global concern has grown about the implications of this loss for local livelihoods, regional ecologies, national economies and the global climate, there has been a corresponding increase both in research aimed at identifying the causes of this loss and in actions aimed at reversing it.

            Much of this effort has been elaborated within the conventional context of the forestry profession, a relatively marginal and under-resourced discipline in most countries, with little access to power and a heavily circumscribed scope for action. As a result, research has often been limited to an identification of the most immediate causes of forest loss[1] and actions to curb deforestation and forest degradation have, as a result, been relatively ineffective because they have failed to address more fundamental pressures on forests from human societies. Glib phrases like 'lack of political will', 'market failure', 'underdevelopment' and 'over-population' have been used as substitutes for in-depth examination of the political economy of forest loss. 

            Among the many underlying causes highlighted by some of these studies have been: development assistance; government-promoted forest colonisation schemes; land speculation and land concentration inside and outside forests; the displacement of landless farmers; the denial of secure tenure to forest-dwelling peoples; the expansion of agribusiness and the modernization of farming; the globalisation of trade in forest products and other agricultural products; national debt; structural adjustment programmes; the domination of forestry and agricultural policies by urban elites; the activities of transnational corporations; inequitable patterns of land ownership and income generation opportunities; excessive consumption, especially in the North; perverse subsidies; corruption; bad governance; and narrow economic planning.[2]

            Since the mid-1980s, environmental organisations have waged a persistent campaign urging governments to acknowledge and address these underlying causes. In relation to tropical forests, controversies over the Tropical Forestry Action Plan and projects of the International Tropical Timber Organisation and the World Bank, helped illustrate why both forestry and development projects and programmes which ignored the wider social, political and economic contexts in which they were implanted frequently went wrong and caused wide-scale human problems and accelerating forest loss (see box 2). At the same time, in Europe and North America, environmentalists focused concern on the damaging effects on forests of air pollution from traffic and industries and highlighted the heavy pressure on forests globally from urban and industrial consumers. As a result it became accepted wisdom that forest loss could not be addressed by reforms in the forestry sector alone, but required a 'cross-sectoral', 'inter-disciplinary' and 'participatory' approach.

            Notwithstanding the explosion of research publications examining environmental problems from a political economy perspective, these findings have been slow to find their way into government documents and intergovernmental negotiations. Governments have had enough difficulty achieving consensus dealing with relatively uncontentious issues, such as forest management standards, and have been reluctant to address more controversial and fundamental issues less directly related to forests. However, as the global forest situation has become more acute, the need to deal with cross-sectoral forces pressing on forests has become clearer to governments. At the same time non-Governmental organisations (NGOs) increasingly have opposed efforts to develop a global forest convention, exactly because it seemed unlikely to address the underlying causes of forest loss and was thus likely to perpetuate the status quo.[3]

1.1 InterGovernmental Panel on Forests:

It was in this context, that the Commission on Sustainable Development set up the InterGovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) in 1995 and established the theme of 'Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation' as one of the 'programme elements' for discussion. Although the element received relatively little attention during the four sessions of the IPF - it was one of the few programme elements not elaborated on through an intersessional meeting - some useful progress was made (See Box 1).

1.2 Intersessional process under the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests:

In 1997, at the first meeting of the newly formed InterGovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF), which has as part of its mandate the promotion of the Programme of Action developed by the IPF, NGOs highlighted the need for further progress in addressing the Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation and offered to organise an intersessional process, in collaboration with governments, on the theme. Ad hoc meetings with interested Governments, UN agencies and NGOs demonstrated considerable interest in the proposal and the government of Costa Rica offered to sponsor the process.

            It was also agreed at these preliminary meetings that the intersessional process should not be limited to a global workshop but should build first of all on regional workshops, to ensure that more attention could be devoted to local and national differences. It was also agreed that a solutions-oriented approach should be adopted preferably based on consensus-building among a diversity of interest groups. In developing a funding application which elicited donor support, NGOs also proposed that the regional workshops should be focused around a number of case studies in each region which should, wherever possible, look at the actual situation of forests in one locale and then trace out the underlying causes in relation to this concrete situation. Where possible, the case studies should be carried out by local communities or NGOs in close contact with them. Emphasis was given to the need to incorporate the points of views of local communities, especially indigenous peoples, into the case studies.

            The overall process has been administered by a 'global secretariat' comprising the World Rainforest Movement secretariat in Montevideo and the Netherlands Committee for the IUCN in Amsterdam. Other NGOs volunteered to act as regional focal points to carry forward the regional consultations and workshops and the work was shared among seven regions - North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, CIS countries, Asia and South Pacific. In addition an indigenous peoples consultation was made part of the process. These NGOs, along with the Costa Rican Government, the IFF secretariat and UNEP also met periodically as an Organising Committee to oversee the process and they with other interested parties attending the IFF - intergovernmental agencies, governments and NGOs - also met from time to time as a Steering Committee to ensure that a useful contribution would be made to the IFF.

            The NGOs which run the Northern Office of the World Rainforest Movement, the Forest Peoples Programme and FERN, have acted as the European focal point for this process. Interest in participation was established through an email consultation, a short list of case studies was then agreed on, and funds sought and eventually secured to carry through the process.

            The process has been driven mainly by the schedule of the IFF with the aim of bringing the results of the regional and global consultations to the third session of the IFF in early 1999, when the issue is to receive substantive discussion. There was thus a need for all regional meetings to be completed in good time for the results to be fed into the global workshop of the intersessional process to be held in Costa Rica in late January 1999. This European process was hampered by considerable delays in securing funding for the initiative and, indeed, it was only in early October 1998 that the main part of the funding for the European regional process was finally assured. The case study authors and coordinators of the process are to be congratulated for persevering with their work in this climate of financial insecurity. 

2. European Synthesis:

2.1 Europe's Forests:

The gradual withdrawal of the ice sheets, which covered much of Northern Europe during the Wurm glaciation, set the conditions for a major expansion of Europe's forests. As the glaciers withdrew between 15,000 and 9,000 years ago, the forests expanded to their maximum extent and ended by covering the great majority of the surface area of the continent by about 8000 BP.

            The forests that developed were extremely diverse and regionally varied. Natural forest types include, as examples: boreal forests dominated by spruce, pine and birch as in Northern Scandinavia; upland forests of mixed birch and pine such as the Caledonian forests of Scotland; Atlantic beechwoods in Denmark, Sweden and the UK; very diverse broad-leaved forests across the majority of western and central Europe, in England and Denmark once dominated by lime; oak, birch, ash and alder forests across much of Ireland; beech and hornbeam forests in Germany; beech and fir formations in the lower alps; juniper, cork oak and pine forests in the Mediterranean; laurel forests on Madeira; chestnut forests of southern France and Italy; cypress and cedar forests of the eastern Mediterranean. 

2.2. Forest Loss in Europe:

Our knowledge of the processes of deforestation in the millennia that followed is extremely patchy, depending largely on the quality of archaeological research done in any one area. As neolithic farming techniques spread across Europe from the east, forests began to be cleared from the more fertile arable areas and areas apt for grazing livestock. The details of this process varied considerably from region to region. In much of southern, central and western Europe, swidden cultivation, originally very widespread gave way to permanent agriculture in areas of more fertile soil and where rising population densities led to land shortages.[4] Permanent deforestation was the result and was already a widespread phenomenon by the time early Greek and later Roman city states emerged on the Mediterranean littoral.[5] Recent research has revealed that, in western Europe too, the process of deforestation advanced far earlier than conventional history books relate. The popular notion that forest clearance was an essential part of the process of capital accumulation in western Europe during the industrial revolution should be laid to rest.

            For example, the conventional historical account of England is that the country remained largely covered by 'primeval forests' until extensive land clearance by Anglo-Saxon settlers got underway in the sixth century. Remnant forests, so the story-books relate, were then cleared for ship-building, charcoaling and railway construction as England developed as a regional and then global naval and industrial power. 

            We now know this story to be essentially a myth. The extensive forests which had covered the country after the end of the last Ice Age, began to be cleared by settled farming peoples from about 5000 BC. By 1600 BC the population of England had risen to as high as one million people and much of the country was already overlaid by an orderly and clearly planned system of fields. The basic lineaments of the country's field systems and landscapes in some parts of the country were thus set in place two to three thousand years ago. By the time of the Roman conquest (AD 43) there were perhaps already two million people living in England. As Christopher Taylor notes in summarising the existing knowledge:

            By the end of the prehistoric period, England was crowded, perhaps over-crowded, with most of its land exploited to a greater or lesser extent. The primeval forests had long since gone and what remained, perhaps less than exists today, was the product of two or three phases of clearance and regeneraton and was also carefully managed. Whatever the influence of later people on the making of the English landscape, their contribution merely fitted into a framework which had been established and modified a number of times by prehistoric people.[6]

            During the period of Roman occupation, the population in England continued to climb reaching maybe as many of as four or five millions by the early fourth century. Only with the collapse of Roman rule and the period of wars, famines, epidemics and upheavals known as the 'Dark Ages' did the rural economy and population again decline, allowing some extensive semi-natural forests to re-establish themselves in areas such as the Weald, and the Sherwood and Wychwood forests.[7]

            Contrarily, in western Ireland, areas that were for long considered 'naturally' open grasslands and limestone pavements, such as the Burren in County Clare, were in fact for thousands of years after the retreat of the glaciers covered with pine, elm, hazel and oak forests. These were subject to extensive clearance from about 5,000 years ago to make way for subsistence arable farming and cattle raising. Only by the beginning of the first millenium AD did something resembling the present landscape get established.[8]

            The diverse and locally specific histories of interaction between people and forests have to a large extent determined the state of forests in Europe today. Forests were subjected to powerful economic and demographic pressures linked to other factors such as the decline of rural areas, urbanisation, the rise of mercantilism, industrial development, socialism and the establishment of free market systems. Political changes also had major impacts - the establishment of kingdoms, dictatorships, democracies, wars and revolutions - as did corresponding changes in land ownership (community forests, secularisations, privatization, redistribution and re-nationalization of land etc.). All these forces had tremendous effects on the way forest were destroyed, managed and restored.

            One common feature of European forestry (except in very remote areas in the mountains and in northern Scandinavia and the Baltics) can be summarised as a history of recovery from devastation by cultivation and over-exploitation for industry. Centuries of livestock grazing, swidden cultivation and clearance for permanent fields pushed back the forests' boundaries. What remained was prone to intensive logging - both to satisfy the needs of local populations and for emerging industries: shipbuilding, construction, charcoal production and fuelwood for salt, iron, coal and other mining activities - which destroyed very large parts of Europe's forests. This led to a severe shortage of available wood products and the authorities were forced to establish the first 'Forest Acts' to regulate harvesting and the use of the forests.

            By the middle of the 19th, forest science had started to develop production-oriented forestry models, based on maximum production and a classification of forests with different age classes and rotation periods. This model, commonly referred to as the 'old German forestry model', because German forest science was prominent and exported all over Europe, promoted a further uniformisation of Europe's forests, by favouring the planting of monospecific, even-aged, mostly conifer plantations, both in converting 'chaotic' semi-natural forests and for the establishment of new plantations in denuded areas. Nevertheless, alternative forestry models, which did not have the rapid production of wood as their primary management objective, also existed and had been developed over a long history. For example: community owners who prioritised the fuelwood and social functions of forests, as well as their role in soil protection and recreation; smaller farmers who used forests as natural 'banks' to provide long-term financial security to tide them over lean harvests and hard times; and also among some large landowners, including public bodies, who did not want to follow the mainstream and preferred other forest functions, like hunting and nature protection.

            The last decades have witnessed a growing recognition, especially in central Europe, of this kind of nature-oriented forestry that gives as much weight to ecological and social functions as to wood production. The old German model is no longer generally considered appropriate, although in some parts of Europe, notably the British Isles its influence is still strong. 

            These developments were often expressed in forestry legislation. In Sweden, for example, the first provincial laws regulating forest husbandry were enacted in the 13th century but they were not able to halt further centuries of forest devastation by farming, fuelwood collection, iron and copper mining and construction. Only with the first forestry act of 1903 was a halt put to this ruthless exploitation of forests with the establishment of regulations aimed at ensuring sustainable forest exploitation. The 'old German model' that dominated forestry for the next decades in Sweden was also reflected in the 1979 law, which focused on the mass production of wood and the regeneration of tree cover, with the aim of heading off a future wood shortage when domestic demand was expected to exceed supply. The latest revision of the Act in 1993, which gives equal weight to ecological and economic functions, can be seen as the legislative recognition of a more multifunctional, nature-respecting kind of forestry in Sweden.

            All of these varying historic developments have been hugely different from locality to locality, region to region and country to country. As a result of the wide number of variables, the same types of ownership, policy, law and other events can have either positive or destructive impacts on forest quality in different places. General conclusions from the history of Europe's forests for the whole continent are hard to draw. However, in evaluating the underlying causes of present day forest loss, a knowledge and analysis of the past is crucial.  

2.3 The Current State of Europe's Forests:

Today Europe's forests are some of the most degraded in the world. Although tree cover extends over some 30% (144 million ha.) of the surface area of the continent - about half the maximum extent of forest cover - only about 0.24% of this forest is considered by the WorldWide Fund for Nature to be 'virgin' forest and only 1.8% is classified as virgin forest or old growth forest remnants. Even these areas are now at risk from a variety of factors including logging, fires, tourist resort development, pollution and substitution with fast-growing plantation species. An extreme case is Ireland, the country with the least tree cover in Europe (8%), 81% of which is now planted with conifer plantations. Only four countries, Sweden, Finland, Poland and Greece, retain any large-sized remnants of old growth forests. With the exception of Poland, Central Europe is the area with the worst representation of old growth forest remnants. Some major forest types, such as birch forests in Denmark or the mixed oak, beech and birch forests of central Europe, have completely disappeared from their natural range. In Western Europe, in particular, riverine forests have been severely affected. Montane forests have also been heavily depleted with good quality remnants surviving only in inaccessible ravines.[9]

            In the 1970s a further remarkable deterioration in Europe's forests was detected. Trees were losing their foliage and became discoloured. Intensive research since then has demonstrated that this effect is largely caused by atmospheric pollution, much of it drifting across national boundaries. High concentrations of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides not only have a direct effect on foliage but also stress trees through soil and ground water acidification, resulting in reduced levels of potassium and magnesium ions. This has increased trees' susceptibility to stress from drought, a feature exacerbated by high nitrogen levels. In response the EC has initiated a Pan-European Programme to monitor and study the extent of this problem.[10]

            Recently the EC has reported the conclusions of the last ten years of this survey. The survey demonstrated a ten-year decline in the health of Europe's forests. Over the past ten years, the proportion of trees with moderate or severe defoliation has more than doubled. Across Europe, only 36% of conifers and 34% of broadleaved tree species show no significant defoliation.[11]

2.4 The Case Studies: Scope of the Investigation.

The case studies commissioned for the regional workshop did not have the primary aim of delving into the processes of forest loss in early times. Rather they focus on the current pressures causing deforestation and forest degradation in Europe, set in their historical and biological context.

            The following local and national case studies were contributed:

1.         Georgina Green, Examining the Underlying Causes of Woodland Loss from Road-Building: a case study of the Newbury bypass, UK.

2.         Karin Lindahl, Forests and Forestry in Jokkmokk Municipality: a case study contributing to the discussion of underlying causes leading to deforestation and forest degradation of the world's forests.

3.         Rein Ahas, Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Estonia: a local level case study in Polva County.

4.         Michael Pregernig and Gerhard Weiss, Forest Policy in Austria: Policy Making by the Sector for the Sector.