History of forest use

History of deforestation

At the start of the century, the Philippine archipelago was covered with rich dipterocarp forests. Today, forests have disappeared in many places, and those that remain are concentrated on a few islands: Mindanao, Palawan, Samar, and pockets of eastern Luzon. In 1982, the government reported that 16.6 million hectares, or 55 percent of the country's land area, were forest lands, of which 11.2 million hectares were forested. About 9 percent of the country, or 2.7 million hectares, was said to be virgin forests. Yet the rate at which virgin forests declined is astounding. From 1971 to 1980, they decreased by 1.7 million hectares, with 1.1 million converted permanently to nonforest uses (Reyes 1983). Table 4.1 summarizes the status of the forest area of the Philippines.

However, these government statistics have been disputed in recent years. One study (Revilla 1984), using Landsat photos, estimated forested lands at only 8.9 million hectares, 0.6 million hectares of them in alienable and disposable lands. In another study (Revilla 1984) Landsat photos for 1976 suggested that only about 8.5 to 9 million hectares of forest lands were forested in 1976, and that the total had been reduced to 7.8 to 8.3 million hectares by 1983. This study estimated there were 2 to 2.5 million fewer hectares of virgin forest than the government's figure of 2.7 million hectares. These discrepancies may be corrected with the completion of the second national forest inventory, begun in 1981. Meanwhile, the lower figures seem more credible.

Deforestation in the Philippines began to accelerate in the post-independence era following the Second World War.

Principal findings

Some low-income nations are confronting a shortage of wood; the world is not. The world is, however, facing a decline of natural tropical forests. Even as policy-makers begin to understand the value of natural tropical forests, they are rapidly shrinking and deteriorating. The studies underlying this volume were neither intended nor needed to verify these problems. Other scientists have clearly established the extent of forest decline and likely economic, social, and environmental consequences (Brown etal. 1985; Eckholm 1976; Fearnside 1982; Grainger 1980; Lanly 1982; Myers 1980, 1984, 1985; Spears 1979).

Many of these and other studies (Allen and Barnes 1985; Bunker 1980; Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1981; Plumwood and Routley 1982; Tucker and Richards 1983) have also established the principal causes of deforestation. They have identified three major outgrowths of population growth and rural poverty – shifting cultivation, agricultural conversion, and fuelwood gathering – as threats to natural forests in the Third World, along with the impacts of large development projects. Virtually all previous studies have also focussed upon commercial exploitation, including logging and land-clearing for ranches, as major sources of the problem.

The studies contained in this volume support these findings. In addition, the authors have identified government policies that have significantly added to and exacerbated other pressures leading to wasteful use of natural forest resources including those owned by governments themselves. We emphasize the policy dimension, because changes in policy can substantially reduce resource wastage. Our emphasis on wasteful use in the economic sense does not ignore or minimize the importance of noneconomic objectives underlying forest policies.

All beginning students learn that economics is about the efficient allocation of scarce resources. In that spirit, Robert Repetto, Malcolm Gillis, and the other contributors to this volume have shown that good economics can help stem the loss of the world's disappearing forest resources. Reversing the forces of tropical deforestation in the closing years of this century is of paramount importance. Rapid population growth, unemployment, and concentrated agricultural landholdings are fueling the drive to clear forested land for agriculture. Demands on the world's forests for timber, industrial raw materials, and fuel are growing. Even as these pressures mount, scientists are documenting with greater precision the roles that forests play in the control of erosion and floods, in the hydrological cycle, and in the survival of perhaps half of the planet's species.

This volume convincingly demonstrates that, on balance, government policies affecting the forest sector aggravate rather than counteract this pressure. Inappropriate tax and trade policies, distorted investment incentives, and shortsighted development priorities contribute to alarming waste of forest resources, and result in heavy economic and fiscal losses as well. In all ten countries covered by the studies underlying this book, such policies contribute to uneconomic and ecologically damaging exploitation.

Thus, Public Policies and the Misuse of Forest Resources shows how conflicts of interest between conservationists and developers are often more apparent than real. Indeed, an important message of this volume is that more reasonable policies can save both natural and financial resources. The policy changes that Gillis and Repetto outline in the closing chapter give specific content to the idea of sustainable development of forest resources.

Water development in the American West has been shaped by the region's geography, legal and institutional arrangements, urban expansion, and the spread of irrigated agriculture.

Geography

From the grasslands of west Texas to the deserts of Arizona, the southwest quadrant of the United States is the most arid part of the country. The southern Great Plains states with their vast farmlands and grazing lands are semiarid and relatively flat. To the west, the Rocky Mountains and other ranges in Colorado and New Mexico rise out of the plains to form the massive peaks of the Continental Divide. These mountains shelter some well-watered valleys before giving way to arid basins and deserts in Nevada, Utah, and southern California. Terrain and local climate thus vary considerably throughout the arid and semiarid West. Of the 1.9 billion acres of land in the continental United States, almost half receive less than 20 inches of precipitation per year (Council on Environmental Quality, 1980). (See Figure 1.1.) Water supplies in this arid and semiarid region are both limited and variable. Precipitation in the form of rainfall and snowfall is unevenly distributed across and within the western states. For example, average rainfall in the mountainous area surrounding Flagstaff, Arizona, measures over 20 inches per year. But in central and southern Arizona, where most of the people live and most of the agricultural areas are located, average rainfall ranges from only 7 inches (in Phoenix) to 11 inches (in Tucson) per year (Ruffner and Bair, 1981).

Equally as important as the quantity of rainfall for western water users is the natural variation in supplies from season to season, year to year, and even decade to decade.

The South Coast Basin of southern California includes the second largest urban area in the United States as well as the two largest cities in California. In addition to the major centers of Los Angeles and San Diego, there are numerous other urban and suburban communities. The 1980 population of the entire region was 12.01 million, compared with a prewar (1940) total of only 2.9 million. Over the past 40 years, the dramatic growth in population, which has averaged 10 percent annually, has been fueled by a variety of factors, including a favorable climate and the rise of defense and aerospace-related industry. This growth was achieved despite the severe limitations of local water supplies.

Mean annual precipitation in the region averages only 14 inches. Over the period of record, annual precipitation has been quite variable, ranging between 5 and 38 inches annually. In addition, the area has a typically Mediterranean climate in which rainfall occurs predominantly between November and April. As a consequence, there exists not only a dearth of locally generated water supplies but an incongruity between the winter period, when those supplies are more readily available, and the summer period, when water demands are at a peak.

The modern history of the region has been characterized by the development of supplemental water supplies and the storage facilities necessary to regulate water flows so as to redress the natural imbalance between periods of peak supply and peak demands. The physical manifestations of this development include three major aqueducts that, with their associated storage facilities, permit the South Coast Basin to import water from the Colorado River, the Central Valley of California, and the Owens Valley to the northeast.

There can be no meaningful discussion of the implications of “Malaysian” policies impinging upon Malaysia's natural forest estate. Subnational governments in Malaysia possess great autonomy; in forestry policy autonomy has been defined with particular clarity. We may, however, speak of Sabah policies, Sarawak policies, and to a very limited extent, Peninsular Malaysian policies affecting the forest sector.

Accordingly, this chapter is divided into five distinct sections. The first sketches the salient features of forest endowments, forest utilization, and forest policies in Malaysia as a whole. The second section focuses upon forest exploitation and public policies in the state of Sabah, where timber harvest and deforestation rates have been the most rapid in recent years. The third section examines forest issues and forest policies in Sarawak state, and the fourth deals with these questions in the 12 states of Peninsular Malaysia. The final section focuses upon the implications of national-level non-forestry policies on deforestation in all three regions.

Malaysia: east and west

Malaysia is composed of three distinct and geographically separate regions: Peninsular Malaysia, containing 12 states, and the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak in the northern portion of the island of Borneo. Peninsular Malaysia, also known as West Malaysia, contains 40 percent of the nation's total land area (Table 3.1), but 81 percent of the population, 14.9 million people in 1983. Malaysia is a relatively wealthy country: 1985 GNP per capita, at US $2,000, was nearly four times that of neighboring Indonesia (World Bank 1987: 202).

Most of the factors responsible for deforestation in Indonesia since 1950 have also been operative in Malaysia: poverty, institutions, and public policies.

This chapter examines the role of public policy in deforestation in each of four West African countries: Liberia, Cote d'lvoire (hereafter, Ivory Coast), Ghana, and Gabon. We provide an overview of forest resources, deforestation, and international trade in tropical hardwoods for the entire region, and on a country-by-country basis. Patterns of property rights and foreign investment in each nation are addressed, as well as the national benefits these countries have derived from forest utilization and government capture of timber rents. We then focus upon reforestation and forest concessions policies, respectively, and examine the impact of forestbased industrialization policies. Finally, the impact of non-forestry policies on tropical forest utilization in each of the four nations is considered.

Overview

By most estimates, the rate of decline in the area of productive closed forest in West Africa has been the highest in the world since 1975, some 3.7 times the average rate for all tropical countries (Lanly and Clement 1979: 10–21). The four West African nations studied in this chapter include the Ivory Coast, with the highest rate of annual deforestation yet observed anywhere, Liberia and Ghana, in which only shreds of natural forest remain, and Gabon, where deforestation has been slow but will likely accelerate sharply before the end of the century, with the completion of the Trans-Gabon Railway.

In 1984, these four countries together accounted for nearly all of Africa's timber exports (Ivory Coast shipped 60 percent of this) but only 9.3 percent of world exports of tropical hardwood forest products (World Bank 1986: 8).

The Braziliàn Amazon's forest resource

Spanning an area of 5.5 million square kilometers, the Amazon (Figure 6.1) is the world's largest contiguous tropical moist forest. Tropical forests extend into nine South American countries, but in the Amazon the Brazilian portion (3.8 million square kilometers, or 69 percent) is the largest. The Amazon has four main types of vegetation. The dense tropical forest, floresta densa or “hylea” found mainly in the northern Amazon States (Amazonas, Amapá, Roraima, Pará, and Maranhāo), covers 48.8 percent of the region. The less exuberant, shorter, but still continuous “transition forest,” floresta aberta or fina, in the central Amazon (Acre, Rondônia, northern Mato Grosso and Goiás, and western Maranhāo), covers 27 percent of the region. Farther south, mainly in Goiás and southern Mato Grosso, are savannah shrublands, campo cerrado, that cover 17.2 percent of the region. The fourth type, savannah grasslands, campos naturais, occurs mainly in the várzea floodplains, along the Atlantic coast in Amapá and Marajó Islands, and in northern Roraima, and covers only 6.9 percent of the “Legal Amazon” region. The tropical zone embraces about 76 percent of the Brazilian Legal Amazon region (3.8 million square kilometers).

The Brazilian Amazon region alone is believed to contain some 6,000 different tree species (Correa de Lima and Mercado 1985: 152), many endemic to specific areas. The growing stock varies widely in density, from 100 to 270 cubic meters per hectare, but the natural distribution of individual tree species is sparse; an average of 84 to 90 percent of the species are represented by fewer than one individual (more than 15 cm. diameter at breast height – d.b.h.) per hectare (EMBRAPA 1981).

The deforestation and degradation of Indonesia's tropical forest is recognized as a serious problem internationally. Herein we assess the contribution of Indonesian public policies, by design or by happenstance, to the shrinkage of Indonesia's tropical forest estate in the past two decades. At least one conclusion is clear: Indonesian deforestation would have been less rapid had government policies had more neutral effects on tropical forest land use decisions; government policies and institutions have, jointly and separately, discouraged resource conservation.

Introduction

This chapter first details the extent and composition of the Indonesian tropical forest and identifies factors, other than government policies, important to forest destruction and/or conversion of the forest estate. The role of forestry policies in the process of deforestation or forest degradation, and the nonfiscal benefits expected from their execution, such as employment, regional development, and foreign exchange, are then examined. Further, we discuss the effects of non-forestry policies, such as tax policy, upon forest-based industry. This is followed by a consideration of the contribution of other policies, including resettlement policies, not designed as forest policies per se but with significant implications for the future of Indonesia's tropical forests. Finally, the chapter focuses on the degree to which Indonesian citizens have been compensated for the extraction of what must be considered now as an essentially non-renewable resource from the fragile tropical forest ecosystem, in terms of both fiscal and non-fiscal benefits. Instruments for capture of these benefits have included both forestry and non-forestry policies. Evidence suggests that these policies have been highly flawed, and that Indonesia has sold a valuable resource too cheaply, with relatively little to show for two decades of large-scale forest resource utilization.

The conventions are completely silent as to the legal requirements for the existence of historic waters. However, a number of authoritative studies have been made and it is generally agreed that three requirements must be met before a claim to historic waters is duly established. These are: (1) the exclusive exercise of State authority; (2) long usage or the passage of time; and (3) the acquiescence of foreign States. In addition to these requirements, three related questions must also be considered: (1) the legal effect of protest; (2) the vital interests of the claimant State; and (3) the burden of proof. This chapter will address those six points in succession.

Exclusive exercise of State authority

Since a claim to historic waters is one over a maritime area which the coastal State considers as an integral part of its national territory, the type of jurisdiction exercised over that area should be essentially the same as that being exercised on the rest of the territory. More precisely, the coastal State must exercise an effective control over the maritime area being claimed to the exclusion of all other States. Naturally, the extent of control will vary depending on a number of factors such as the size of the maritime area, its remoteness and the degree of its usability. The actual control might be limited, but yet sufficient, in remote areas. In the words of Professor O'Connell, ‘just as in the case of remote and little used seas, very little in the way of effective exercise of sovereignty need be required’, to show that a State took whatever action was necessary to assert and maintain its authority and control over the area in question.

Introduction

Fish, nets, corporations and government. Although seemingly unrelated, the four entities have much in common. By instinct, corporations desire to roam the economic sea at will, free to pursue prey – minerals, oil and gas so as to maximize profits. Such “free-swimming” entails at least three dangers. Corporations may devour one another – the monopoly problem. Corporations may overexploit the flora and fauna–environmental and social values. Or corporations may themselves flounder because of outside predations such as inflation, high interest rates or trade restrictions. Government acts as a protective net, directing corporate movement into politically desired directions.

This chapter examines the Canadian decision-making net for controlling Northern development. Section II surveys the drifting floats, the convolutions in Northern policies. Section III discusses the administrative mesh, the threads of governmental bureaucracy operating in the North. Section IV reviews the legislative mesh, the threads of federal legislation and regulations controlling industrial development. Section V views the net in action by focusing on governmental reviews of ten major industrial proposals during the past decade – the Alaska Highway Gas Pipeline, Beaufort Sea hydrocarbon development, Norman Wells Oilfield expansion, the Arctic Pilot Project, Panarctic Arctic Islands exploration, Polaris Mine, Nanisivik Mine, North Davis Strait, South Davis Strait, and Lancaster Sound drilling. The role of Cabinet, while treated tangentially, and the role of Parliament are beyond the scope of the present paper.

No one study will ever capture all the intricacies of the decision-making net.

Geographical requirements for a coastal Archipelago

The geography required for the application of the straight baseline system was laid down by the International Court of Justice in the Fisheries Case of 1951. Having stated that the breadth of the territorial sea should be measured from the low-water mark, the Court examined three methods of implementing the low-water mark rule: the tracé parallèle, the arcs of circles, and the straight baseline system. It was in its discussion of the method of the tracé parallèle that the Court, in effect, described the kind of coast required for the application of the straight baseline system.

Two observations should be made about this passage. First, the straight baseline system is made applicable to two types of coast:' where it is deeply indented or where it is bordered by an Archipelago'. Of course, a coast could have both of those characteristics either in whole or in part. The other observation relates to the second type of coast, that is ‘where it is bordered by an archipelago such as the “skjaergaard”’.

It is generally recognized that the doctrine of contiguity forms the basis of the sector theory. Even those who invoke the boundary treaties of 1825 and 1867 look to that concept to reinforce their case. This section attempts to determine the extent to which States and international tribunals have relied on contiguity. This is followed by an appraisal of this concept as a principle of international law capable of generating title or sovereignty.

Contiguity in State practice

The notion of contiguity appeared in international law when principles for the acquisition of sovereignty over new territories were being developed. Acquisition through the act of discovery, accompanied by a formal taking of possession, having led to abuses, the Roman Law principle for the acquisition of property was introduced. It required the fulfilment of two conditions: the open intent to occupy (animus) and the actual occupation of a well-defined property (corpus). The second condition being difficult or perhaps impossible to fulfil in many instances, the doctrine of contiguity or geographic proximity was developed.

Under this doctrine, the effective occupation of part of a region or territory gave title to the whole of the unoccupied region or territory proximate enough to be considered as a single geographic unit with the occupied portion. The same doctrine, with the occasional nuance, has been presented under different names, in particular the following: proximity, propinquity, hinterland, adjacency, continuity, geographic unity and region of attraction.

The first use by a State of the doctrine of contiguity seems to have been made in 1844 during the Oregon controversy between the United States and Great Britain.