Earth Summit Delays Decision for Treaty Work on World's Timber Reserves
6/27/97
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Headline: Earth Summit Delays Decision for Treaty Work on World's Timber
Reserves
Source: The Associated Press
Date: 6/27/97
Author: Robert H. Reid
Copyright: The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Delegates to the Earth Summit
agreed Friday to delay a decision on a European and
Canadian request for a commission to begin work on a
treaty to regulate the world's timber reserves.
The United States, Japan and New Zealand opposed such a
legally binding treaty, saying it was unnecessary.
Jean-Pierre Faby, coordinator for the Earth Summit, said
a preliminary agreement, reached early Friday, calls for
establishment of an intergovernmental forum on forests,
which among other things will ``consider matters left
pending.''
Faby said the agreement will instruct the forum to
``identify the possible elements of ... international
arrangements and mechanisms, for example, a legally
binding instrument.''
That would not require the commission to decide to
negotiate a treaty.
Faby said the forum will report to the U.N. Commission
on Sustainable Development in 1999.
That effectively delays any negotiations on a forest
convention until the end of the century. European
supporters had hoped for a final treaty to be in place
by that time.
During this week's conference, Canadian Prime Minister
Jean Chretien and others called for negotiations as soon
as possible on a global forest treaty.
Under the compromise worked out early Friday, supporters
of the treaty got their panel but without a formal OK to
begin negotiations on a convention.
The conference, officially known as ``Earth Summit Plus
5,'' was convened last Monday to review progress since
the historic Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in
1992.
The American Forest and Paper Association, representing
the U.S. timber industry, fears a convention would
result in audits by U.N. agencies and put the industry
at a disadvantage against competitors from countries
that do not enforce the treaty.
Some major environmental organizations have also
expressed reservations about a treaty, fearing the
political mood in the West is such that any convention
negotiated now would set ineffectual controls and limit
the role of grass-roots conservation organizations in
forest management.