P l a t f o r m N e w s
Issue 4 – October 2004 – Quarterly newsletter of the EC Forest
Platform
The EC Forest Platform is a FERN initiative that links peoples in the South and
the European Community on aid and forest issues
Foreword
Dear Platform members,
The last quarter of 2004 promises to be intense on aid and forest issues. One
of the main threads that the EC Forest Platform will be following in Brussels
is the ongoing discussion on EU funding for Development for 2007-2013 – an issue
which is now spiced with the
Commission’s adoption of a proposal to reform funds for external aid. As it
stands, the Regulation, which would affect all EU funding for external actions
(including funding for environmental, human rights and forest projects), would
blur any earmarked allocation to thematic or geographical areas.
Another core area of work will be the discussions, at EU level, on how
to combat illegal logging, with a
decision on the draft ‘Regulation
for a licensing scheme controlling the imports of timber into the EU’ due to be made in the next 12 months. The
impact of the scheme will depend on the detailed arrangements of the scheme’s
proposed partnership agreements that will be negotiated by the Commission with
partner countries (which will include
The national EC Forest Platforms
in
We welcome comments or ideas to
improve this newsletter. Do not hesitate to send any information that you would
like to publicise to other Platform members or reactions to news you see here.
This process of debate and information sharing is the basis to provide the
opportunity for Platform members to influence the European Union and the way
its aid programme affects forests and forest peoples around the world. Please
feel free to forward Platform News
to interested friends and colleagues. We hope you will take advantage of this
opportunity to make Platform News
an open forum for debate and information exchange on EC aid and forest issues.
Iola Leal Riesco
EC Forest Platform co-ordinator
iola@fern.org
www.fern.org/pages/aid/platform.htm
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c o n t e n t s N e w p o l i
c i e s from the EU N e w s f r o m around the
World |
P l a t f o r m Debates
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1. Mid-term Review of the |
By Emmanuel KAM, EC Forest Platform focal point in Cameroon
The Cotonou Agreement, signed in June 2000, lays
the legal basis of co-operation between the European Union and the
African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) countries until 2020. This Agreement is not
only an ideal framework for the North-South dialogue in general, but also a
forum for dialogue between civil society in
Itself an ACP country, the civil society of
During September 2004, the group carried out an
analysis of a provisional report on non-official actors in
The Ministry of Economy, however does not yet
seem to be ready to allow an active role for civil society in the mid-term
review. A website created in June 2004 to facilitate dialogue between the
national director of the EDF and civil society was taken down with many
questions from civil society unsolved. Meanwhile, the head of the coordination
office for Cameroon-EU co-operation, systematically refuses to receive
representatives of NGOs.
This trend can be explained by two reasons:
First Cameroon-EU co-operation has traditionally concentrated on the State such
that it is now difficult for the official actors involved to effectively
integrate the non-official actors; and second there could be a huge gap between
the projects planned in the country’s National Indicative Program and the
achievements on the ground. In addition to this,
It is hoped, however, that things will return
to normal following
For information about our
national Platform activities and documents in Cameroon, or to actively join the
Platform, please contact our NGO focal point Emmanuel KAM (ekamyogo@africa-environment.org), CED - Centre pour l’Environnement et le
Développement, Cameroon.
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2. NGO dialogue with |
By Mardi Minangsari, EC Forest Platform focal point in Indonesia
EC Forest Platform
In a discussion following presentations from every
stakeholder, the Indonesian civil society groups presented key problems associated
with the EC development aid scheme in Indonesia, highlighting: lack of
transparency, participation, accountability and synergy; and problems with
priority setting.
As a result of this seminar, the Indonesian NGOs
developed a joint statement expressing their concerns regarding EC development
aid in the forestry sector, in terms of both planning and implementation. Some
of the immediate demands are to: make annual audit reports for EC forestry
projects available for public scrutiny; ensure that public involvement
mechanisms for the development of the next Country Strategy Paper (CSP)
(2007-2011) are in place by 2006. The latter is crucial to ensure improved
participation of civil society both in CSP and National Indicative Programme
(NIP) project definition and in project monitoring and evaluation. This joint
statement was released in August and sent out to the EC Delegation in Jakarta,
the EC in Brussels, the Indonesian Government and related key institutions.
In a follow-up meeting with the EC Delegation in late
August, the Delegation promised to respond to the demands in the joint
statement and invited us to have further discussions regarding these issues.
However, so far, these discussions have not materialised. Moreover, while the
Indonesian NGOs met with the EC forest projects review mission to convey
concerns regarding the implementation of EC forest projects in
The Indonesian NGOs will continue dialogue with the EC
Delegation and its counterparts in
For information about our national Platform activities and documents in
RELATED LINKS
Joint NGO
Statement regarding the European Community's development aid for
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3. EU Action Plan on illegal logging |
The ongoing
discussions on how to combat illegal logging will increase at EU level over the
coming months, with a decision to be made on the draft ‘Regulation for a licensing scheme
controlling the imports of timber into the EU’ expected in the next 12 months. This proposal is a
step towards the implementation of the EU action plan on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT), presented by
the European Commission in May 2003. Other measures underway are the
development of Voluntary Partnership Agreements with timber-producing countries
to prevent illegally produced timber from entering the EU market, and legal
research into further legislation to support the objectives of the Action Plan – including the feasibility of
legally binding means to control imports of illegally harvested timber into the
EU.
The draft Regulation for a licensing scheme,
which was presented at the Parliament’s constitutive session on 20 July 2004 and at the
Council working group in September, is intended to control imports of illegally
sourced timber from partner countries into the EU. FERN, Greenpeace and WWF,
while supporting the process, have criticised the draft for not being
sufficiently robust on either independent verification of legality or
independent monitoring of the scheme; and for not including sufficient
safeguards to prevent the Regulation from reinforcing damaging legislation in
producer countries (see the ‘Comments on the draft Council Regulation’, link below).
The draft
Regulation builds on the assumption that ‘relevant national legislation’ – a term
which the proposal fails to define – is adequate and
sufficient to prevent environmental and social harm. In practice, this is often
not the case. Existing laws may be unjust or conflicting, or else may provide
inadequate protection for either the environment or indigenous peoples’ rights. A Regulation based on such ‘relevant
national legislation’ thus risks legitimising
destructive logging practices and unjust laws.
NGOs further
criticised the slow process of researching and developing effective legally
binding measures to control all imports of illegal timber – as demanded by the Parliament, the
Council, NGOs and the Dutch timber trade federation (see Platform News
issue 3). FERN is currently carrying out a legal study to see if such
legislation would be possible and what it would look like. A first proposal
will be presented by the end of October.
Ultimately, the
impact of the licensing scheme will depend on the detailed arrangements of the
scheme’s proposed
partnership agreements that will be negotiated by the Commission with partner
countries. A large number of NGOs in North
and South have argued that in order to be
effective and legitimate these partnership agreements must be:
▪
developed through mechanisms
of broad engagement with civil society organisations and favourable towards
community forestry;
▪
aimed at creating public
accountability and transparency in the management of natural resources;
▪
based on a proper assessment
of all partnership countries’ national forest and related
laws (including environmental laws, human rights laws, land tenure laws and
others).
FERN has
therefore argued that necessary safeguards must be set down in the Regulation.
While this is currently not the case, a confidential negotiating mandate, seen
by FERN and presented to Member States, shows that the Commission does see the
need for some safeguards. However, by outlining these safeguards only in a
confidential –
rather than a public – document, this does not allow
for a public and open discussion on these critical safeguards.
FERN maintains
that a more effective measure than the proposed voluntary scheme, and a strong
political signal to producers, would be a framework legislation allowing EU
customs authorities to prosecute criminals and seize illegal shipments. To this
end, we will present our proposals at the end of October. For now we have to
watch carefully: the current proposal could simply legitimise unjust producer
country legislation that does more harm than good.
RELATED LINKS
EU FLEGT Action Plan:
The Action Plan (May 2003): http://europa.eu.int/comm/development/body/theme/forest/initiative/docs/Doc1-FLEGT_en.pdf#zoom=100
FERN’s analysis of the Action Plan
and recommendations to the Council (Jul 2003): http://www.fern.org/pubs/briefs/illegallog2.pdf
and http://www.fern.org/pubs/ngostats/AP_reccs.htm
Council Conclusions (Oct 2003): http://europa.eu.int/comm/development/body/theme/forest/initiative/docs/Doc2-council_proceedings_0310.pdf#zoom=100
Commission’s series of briefing sheets on the FLEGT Action Plan. (April
2004): http://europa.eu.int/comm/development/body/theme/forest/initiative/briefing_sheets_en.htm
Proposal for a Council Regulation concerning the establishment of a
voluntary FLEGT licensing scheme for imports of timber into the European
Community [COM(2004)515 final]: http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/pdf/2004/com2004_0515en01.pdf
FERN, Greenpeace and WWF comments on the draft Council
Regulation concerning the establishment of a voluntary FLEGT licensing scheme
for imports of timber into the European Community (Sep 2004): http://www.fern.org/
NGO positions:
Facing Reality: how to halt the import of illegal timber
in the EU. FERN, WWF and Greenpeace (April 2004): http://www.fern.org/pubs/reports/facing_reality.pdf
N e w p o l i c i e s from the EU
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4. No funding for forests under new EC external policy instruments |
On 29 September 2004, the European Commission finally adopted its
proposal for a new simplified fund for external aid. In a long expected move
towards the rationalisation of EC Development Aid, the draft Regulation
envisages replacing all thematic/sectoral and geographical regulations
governing the EU’s external policy financing. This includes the regulations that set
the legal basis for funds such as environment and tropical forest, NGOs and
Human Rights(1).
Both the Commission and civil society groups acknowledge the highly
bureaucratic and inconsistent nature of existing EC development policy, and
agree on the necessity to bring forward the debate on how to simplify and
improve the effectiveness of EC aid programmes. Nevertheless, it is critical
that any changes also bring greater clarity and transparency to the process. In
direct conflict with this basic requirement, however, the current draft
Regulation would allow the Commission to move resources intended for a specific
geographic or thematic area (such as environment or forests) to other areas, without any obligation to consult civil
society or the Parliament. This undermines the current powers of the
European Parliament – the only publicly elected body in the EU – and significantly reduces its involvement in defining the EU’s development co-operation.
The new framework for EC assistance and co-operation programmes is being
simplified to six funds only. Two existing funds, Humanitarian Aid and Macro
Financial Assistance, will be maintained. The four new funds are:
▪
Pre-accession – covers the
candidate countries (
▪
European Neighbourhood and Partnership – covers the
countries involved in the EU’s Neighbourhood Policy
(i.e. south and eastern Mediterranean countries,
▪
Development Co-operation and Economic Co-operation – covers
third countries not covered by the Pre-accession and European Neighbourhood and
Partnership instruments. It replaces the Asia and Latin American regulation (
▪
The instrument for Stability – will tackle
crisis and instability in third countries and address trans-border challenges
including nuclear safety and non-proliferation, the fight against trafficking,
organised crime and terrorism.
Something new in this process is the fact that this reform of the
financial and legal structure of EC Development Aid is being presented together
with the discussion on the financial framework for the EU. In July 2004, the
European Commission presented its second Communication on the EU’s budget
plan for the period 2007-2013 (the ‘financial
perspectives’ or, as proposed in the still-to-be
ratified EU Constitutional Treaty, the ‘multi-annual
financial framework’ – see also Platform News
issue 3). This Communication shifted from the Commission’s initial position of focusing on policy objectives to a hybrid
thematic/geographic model based on how close political relations a non-EU
country has with the EU. This approach has now been translated into the current
proposal, with one fund for pre-accession countries, one for European
neighbouring countries and one fund for any other country that is not included
among the first two (see above).
Together with the undemocratic nature of the proposal, the new fund
covering developing countries integrates both Development and Economic
Co-operation – a move which allows funding to be allocated to upper middle-income
and developed countries and will no longer guarantee a focus on developing
countries (3). Achieving poverty alleviation – the main
goal of the Community’s Development Policy – will therefore compete directly with funding to developed countries
(including OECD countries such as the
FERN is ready to engage into a debate that would lead to improving the
effectiveness of the Community’s Development Policy, but we do oppose any change that
undermines the democratic nature of the EU or that reduces the quality of the
EC’s development programme in relation to the
protection and sustainable use of forests and the respect for the rights of
forest peoples. The EC Forest Platform will follow this process closely to
ensure that the final Regulation will not undermine those aims.
(1) EC aid is
divided along geographic and thematic funds. The main geographic lines are
(2) Today, the EDF is funded by the
member states. EDF Budgetisation
means that the EDF would enter into the annual Community Budget and would be
part of the new multi-annual financial framework (see text).
(3) The OECD Donor Assistance Committee
distinguishes between official development assistance (ODA) and official aid
(OA). The ODA is aid to lower income, developing countries –‘development
co-operation’-, while the OA is aid for upper middle-income and developed
countries –‘economic co-operation’-.
RELATED
LINKS
Financial perspectives: http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l34012.htm
Commission Communication ‘Building our
common Future: Policy challenges and Budgetary means of the Enlarged Union
2007-2013’ (Feb 2004): http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/cnc/2004/com2004_0101en02.pdf
Comission Working document ‘Proposal for renewal of the
Interinstitutional Agreement on budgetary discipline and improvement of the
budgetary procedure’ (July 2004): http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/wdc/2004/com2004_0498en01.pdf
Commission Communication to the Council and European Parliament ‘on the Instruments for External Assistance
under the Future Financial Perspective 2007-2013’ (Sept 2004): http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/pdf/2004/com2004_0629en01.pdf
CONCORD ’s Information and Lobbying Toolkit on Financial
Perspectives (March 2004): http://www.concordeurope.org/
Eurostep Briefing No 21‘Towards a Responsible Europe in the World:
Briefing on the Draft Regulation on Development Co-operation and Economic
Co-operation. A Blank cheque for the European Commission?’ (Sep 2004) http://www.eurostep.org/docs/200410011659441708.doc
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5. Country Strategy Papers: round two |
Since 2001, programming of EC aid has been centred on Country/Regional Strategy
Papers (CSP/RSPs) which set out the ‘strategic framework’ for the EC’s priorities for co-operation
with a given country or region. The European Commission are now preparing the
second set of Strategy Papers that will be discussed during 2005 and 2006. The
CSP/RSPs are developed at delegation level in collaboration with national
governments, Member States, other donors and, wherever possible, with
representatives of civil society (the feasibility of civil society
participation is both assessed and judged by the Commission). Each document is
complemented by a National Indicative Programme (NIP) which indicates focal
areas where the resources will be spent and the approximate amount of funds to
be allocated (for detailed information on EC Aid see FERN Briefing ‘Introduction to EC Development Aid’).
Country and Regional Strategy Papers cover development assistance, but
do not include activities under thematic budget lines. This fact allows funding
to areas that have not been fully considered under the Country Strategy but
that are covered by a specific line ie. tropical forests. Until now, EC
Development Co-operation Policy has neglected environmental issues (see FERN’s report ‘Forest at the Edge’). Due to lack of either political desire, knowledge or capacity to
integrate environment in all areas of Development co-operation, the Commission’s tendency has so far been to rely on the thematic budget lines to
address environment and forest issues (which are repeatedly referred to in the
CSPs as a mechanism to mainstream those concerns). Given this, it is still not
clear how the proposed new instrument for EC Development Co-operation (see
above), will secure funding for thematic areas such as environment, forests or
gender. While effective changes towards a real integration of environment and
forest issues are welcomed, there are concerns about how the Commission – which is clearly still not prepared to effectively mainstream
environmental issues – will ensure that funding for
forests and forest-dependent communities is available and benefits the poorest
people.
FERN believes
that one of the reasons behind the lack of coherence among EC Policies
(Environment, External Relations, Development, etc) is the fact that civil
society is only being consulted on a ‘wherever possible’ basis. Part of the new package should be the establishment of
effective channels for proper consultation during the elaboration, application
and evaluation of the CSPs. It is critical that environmental, social and
indigenous organisations in developing countries take an active role in the
preparation of the next CSP/RSPs. If your organisation decides to take a lead
in influencing the next CSP for your country, be aware that EC officials often
do expect civil society to approach them with an intention to provide
meaningful input to the process.
Before the end of 2004, the European Commission will undertake scoping
studies that will be the basis for the next round of Country Strategy Papers.
The draft documents will be discussed during 2005. Civil society participation
will be crucial to ensure that forests issues are being incorporated into EC
aid programming.
Contact iola@fern.org to get tips on how to address
your EC Delegation or to get information on who to contact.
RELATED LINKS
FERN report Forest at the Edge
(Nov 2002): http://www.fern.org/pubs/reports/cspedge.pdf
FERN Briefing Introduction
to EC Development Aid (March 2003): http://www.fern.org/pubs/briefs/aid2.pdf
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6. Economic Partnership Agreements: alleviating poverty – or just furthering EU interests ? |
The Economic
Partnership Agreements (EPAs) currently being negotiated between the EU and
partner countries and regions in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) are
increasingly being perceived by NGOs in both ACP countries and in
·
EPAs could be
undermining regional integration in the ACP region;
·
EPAs could force ACP countries
to open up their markets to EU products and services;
·
EPAs could be a tool
for the EU to further their interests in
The EPAs are negotiated as part of the Cotonou
Agreement, a co-operation agreement signed between the EU and 78 ACP countries
in June 2002. In a letter to Eurostep
(European Solidarity Towards Equal Participation of People), a network of 15
major development NGOs from 12 European countries, the European Commission
states that it is “fully committed to make EPAs an
essential development tool for reducing poverty and to build EPAs on South
regional integration” (see link below). In the same letter
the Commission also states that “unconditional
trade liberalisation is neither possible nor desirable for most ACP states”.
Yet despite these assertions, initial negotiations with
the Eastern and Southern African (ESA) Region and with the Pacific countries
have alarmed civil society groups in
One group of European NGOs has now put
forward twelve steps to change the current EU approach, describing the European
Commission’s optimism about the
potential positive developmental effects of the EPAs as “misplaced”. With the Cotonou Agreement being revised in 2005 and EPA
negotiations ending in 2007, everybody should prepare for the new EU Trade
battleground.
(1) Kenyan Civil Society inputs to the launch of
the ESA EPA negotiations and the draft negotiating mandate; February 2004;
Between a rock and a hard place by MWNEGO (no date) and Statement on the Launch
of EPA negotiations between ESA states and the EU by TRADES, MWENGO AND
SEATINI, February 2004.
(2) Statement of civil society
organizations from workshop on negotiations for an Economic Partnership
Agreement (EPA) between the Pacific ACP states and the European Union, 7
September 2004, Suva.
RELATED LINKS
European Commission letter to Eurostep
(June 2004): http://europa.eu.int/comm/development/body/tmp_docs/PL-PN_040621_letter_Eurostep_en.pdf
EPA watch site (for all
above cited documents): http://www.epawatch.net/general/start.php
N e w s f r o m around the World
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7. EU Regulation threatens ‘Legality Standards’ for |
Recent
developments in Indonesia have now highlighted how a lack of safeguards in the
draft EU Regulation to curb illegal timber imports into Europe (see ‘EU plan on illegal logging’ above) could leave Europe effectively condoning the
treatment of indigenous communities as criminals in their own forests (see Down
to Earth Bulletin No. 62), and even sanctioning the death penalty.
Positive steps
towards developing a defined Legality Standard for
Crucially, for
local people, the Indonesian regulation reverts to a very narrow definition of ‘legality’,
excluding respect for customary rights and the requirement for free, prior
informed consent – both of which appear in the draft
Legality Standard for
Ignoring demands
from the Council to ensure that the EU’s Regulation on timber imports properly addresses land rights and
land tenure issues, and guarantees the effective participation of local people,
the Commission’s current draft fails to include these
safeguards. It is now up to the Council to rectify this, the Indonesian case
showing that without clear safeguards, the current EU Regulation risks
legitimising unacceptable practices, including the death penalty.
RELATED LINKS
Draft Legality Standards, including principles,
criteria and indicators and guidance notes: http://www.illegal-logging.info/
Down to Earth Bulletin No. 62 (Aug 2004): http://www.dte.gn.apc.org/
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8. New ENA-FLEGT process: preparing to participate |
The Ministerial
meeting of the new Europe and North Asia Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and
Trade (ENA-FLEGT) process is expected in
As with similar
processes elsewhere, only the involvement of a broad range of stakeholders can
create a sufficiently broad base of knowledge and experience to enable
ministers to take realistic decisions to address forest crime, corruption, and
poor governance in the forest sector in
The Taiga Rescue
Network (TRN) has now established a working group on ENA-FLEGT to ensure that
meaningful civil society participation takes place. TRN is an umbrella body for
more than 200 NGOs, indigenous peoples' organisations and community groups
concerned with forest issues in the boreal region. Of these organisations, 45
are based in
As a result of
the discussions held during the TRN Biennial Meeting in September 2004, two
resolutions were sent to relevant governments as a means of setting up the
structures necessary to include civil society in the process and to encourage
the Chinese Government in particular (as an increasing global economic power
and major importer of Russian timber), to take an active role in the
discussions. Briefings on this FLEGT process are expected to be ready before
the end of 2004.
To contact the
TRN FLEGT Working Group, email: flegt@taigarescue.org
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9. Development co-operation with the |
Despite
recognition of the links between Environment and Development in the EC
2002-2006 aid strategy in the
This is somewhat
ironic given that the Asia Forest Network’s recent evaluation of the EC co-operation strategy for the
Philippines shows that the Country Strategy Paper (CSP) for the Philippines
recognises law enforcement as the main problem leading to the country’s rampant rate of environmental degradation. Moreover, while good
governance is one of the central measures underlined under the EU’s own Action Plan for Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade
(FLEGT) it is estimated that in 2002, 46 percent of EU timber imports from the
Yet despite these
facts, neither the first (2002-2004) nor second (2005-2006) National Indicative
Programmes (NIP) for the Philippines reflect the importance of good governance
as a key factor in ensuring environmental stability.
In a country
which has already lost more than 90% of its primary forest, where 24 million
Filipinos live below the national poverty line and where over 20 million remain
intimately dependent on forests (1), it is clear that it’s remaining 5.7 million hectares of
forest are a key natural resource that any EC co-operation strategy aiming to
reduce poverty has to consider. This will require taking on issues such as
indigenous peoples’ rights, land tenure, and governance
and demands improved coherence between existing EC Policies on Environment,
Development, Trade etc.
While the current
identification of the environment as a cross-cutting issue does allow for some
money to be allocated to environmental concerns through rural development
projects, these amounts are too small to really achieve much effect. Any future
EC aid strategy must, therefore, fully acknowledge the links between natural
resources – and
particularly forests – and the livelihoods and
conditions of Filipinos directly dependent those resources. This in turn will
ultimately depend on effective consultation with civil society during the
preparation, implementation and evaluation of the EC’s
aid strategy in the future.
This article is based on the Asia Forest Network working
paper by Noelyn Dano, Rowena Soriaga and Peter Walpole (Mar 2004) Review of the Environment as a Cross-cutting
Issue in the EU Development Co-operation in the Philippines. http://www.asiaforestnetwork.org
(1) Qiang
Ma (April 1999) Asia-Pacific Forestry
Sector Outlook Study. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations (FAO), Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific,
RELATED LINKS
The EC-Philippines
Country Strategy Paper 2002-2006 and National Indicative Programme 2002-2004 http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/philippines/csp/02_06_en.pdf
Philippines National
Indicative Programme 2005-2006 http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/philippines/csp/nip_05_06.pdf
Arnoldo
Contreras-Hermosilla (2001) Forest Law
Enforcement. World Bank http://www.worldbank.org/devforum/files/overview.doc
R e s o u r c e s
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10. Understanding EU intricacies: new briefings and publications |
Towards a Responsible
Comparing EU Free Trade Agreements and Economic Partnership Agreements: ECDPM (Sept 2004) The first series of briefing sheets by the European centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM), EU FTA InBriefs, will be available before the end of 2004 and aims to provide a detailed overview of the trade (and trade-related) provisions of the ten free trade agreements (FTAs) recently concluded by the European Union (EU) with third countries, i.e. the Mediterranean countries, South Africa, Mexico and Chile. The second series, EPA InBriefs, aims to provide an introduction to and a synthesis of specific issues that are to be addressed in the negotiation of an EPA. The first EPA InBriefs are expected at the end of 2004 and early 2005. http://www.ecdpm.org/ftainbriefs
A Practical Guide to Campaigning at the
EU Level : the EU's impact on forests. FERN, TRN (June 2004). An essential tool for anyone working to
influence the EU on forest issues, the Guide provides an overview of
the EU, its institutions, details of how EU processes work, practical tips on
influencing those processes and pointers on where to get hold of critical
information. Available from: info@fern.org (for a hard copy) or from:
http://www.fern.org/pubs/reports/EU-guide.pdf
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11. What is the EC Forest Platform ? |
In July 2002
FERN launched the EC (European Community) Forest Platform. The Platform’s aim is to ensure that EC
development co-operation (10% of the world Official Development Assistance) has
a positive impact on forests and forest peoples. Its main goals are to:
- give a voice to NGOs and forest peoples who want to present their
issues to the European Community;
- debate the impacts of EC aid policies and projects on forests and
forest peoples;
- provide EC policy makers with ‘on
the ground’ information on forests and forest
peoples;
- encourage greater co-operation and dialogue between EU based NGOs
and Southern NGOs, community-based organizations and indigenous peoples
organizations.
Platform
activities should contribute to a better implementation of commitments made by
the European Commission in regard to development co-operation, environmental
integration and recognition of civil society as an active partner. Exchanges
between European-based Environmental NGOs and Southern NGOs should contribute
to raise awareness among Northern Environmental NGOs about development-related
problems faced by people in the South.
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For more information or to become a member of the EC Forest Platform, visit our website http://www.fern.org/pages/aid/platform.htm or send an e-mail to the Platform co-ordinator, Iola Leal Riesco, iola@fern.org |