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Rainforests and Logging

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Eden of Winton on securing this debate. It is an enormous privilege to take part in it. I have been particularly struck by the fact that all speakers have emphasised that there are three aspects to this problem—environmental, economic and social. All speakers have spoken eloquently. Fortuitously, after the wonderful introduction by the noble Lord, Lord Eden, each speaker has concentrated on a different angle. I do not want to repeat the point those speakers have made but simply to endorse them. The noble Lord, Lord Eden, strikingly gave us a history of the plans, initiatives and strategies that have gone into trying to address what is not a new problem, and he underlined the fact that despite all these good intentions and strategies the problem continues unabated. So it is with a heavy heart that I speak about this problem this afternoon. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Peel, that we really must recognise the value that these lands offer the world. Economic measures may well be an extremely powerful way to ensure that preservation and conservation happen in a way that a purely environmental approach has been unable to secure. Into that equation we must add the fact that the economic consequences of doing nothing and allowing deforestation to continue are very high. The World Bank estimates that they amount to about $15 billion a year, of which $10 billion are paid by the developing nations. So the costs of not addressing the issue are incredibly high. Only this week the United Nations estimated that 50 million of the world’s refugees would be in that situation as a result of environmental factors. So there is a huge social and economic cost. The noble Lord, Lord Maginnis mentioned the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade action plan. I am sure that the Lord President will refer to it when she sums up the debate, to which I am delighted that she has time to reply because of her expertise in this area. I believe that under the UK presidency of the EU the regulations will be published. That is an important step forward, because it suggests a very practical package of measures, and the country-to-country working that it envisages will be a powerful way forward. However, I am worried when it mentions,"““encouraging measures to avoid investment in activities that encourage illegal logging””." It is hard to see how such measures could be brought to bear on, for example, the multinationals involved in growing soya beans. Although we could encourage the measures, I fear that the EU may be over-optimistic in thinking that we could do much about that. I endorse the point made by previous speakers that much of this is about cultural change and enabling producer nations to match the effort on the EU’s part to stop illegal timber coming in with new laws of their own—for example, the efforts at national level by Brazil to monitor what is going on and by Mexico to establish the scale of the problem. Both those countries are making very good efforts at national level but, nevertheless, thousands of hectares of forest are still being destroyed every year, partly as a result of the fact that there is not the capacity to inspect such vast areas. The figure for Mexico, which is three years old but which I do not believe has changed dramatically, is that there are 100 inspectors to 100,000 hectares of forest. So the problem is never going to be solved by inspection but only, as other speakers have pointed out, by empowering the local communities around the forests to do something about it. That also goes to the heart of good governance, because municipal local government will be at the forefront of handing out permits, licences and so on for what happens in their areas. If they are subject to bribes and corruption, the paper trail that the EU envisages will not be worth much. I had hoped before the debate to experience an especially good example in Mexico of an economic resource that has been being developed for about 20 years in the cloud forest there. However, due to Hurricane Stan and the torrential rain last week in Chiapas state in Mexico, I was unable to visit the project. I still wish to mention it in passing, and I hope to visit it in the future, because it is an exceptional example of what can happen. The project, called Finca Irlanda, involves hundreds of small-scale landowners who have got together to develop shade-grown coffee in the cloud forest. That has enabled them to preserve the forest and the coffee trade at the same time, in one of the poorest states of Mexico which has not had much economic success. The Government have recognised the good practice developed there over the years, and told me about it as an interesting place to visit. They are interested in building on that sort of activity. On the domestic front, we have spoken much about what happens in other countries but we must ensure that we are not guilty of using illegal wood. That brings me particularly to the Government’s new guidelines for certification of imported timber. Already the UK director of the Forest Stewardship Council is questioning two of the five certification systems backed by the central point of expertise on timber. His opinion is that endorsing them undermines the Government’s commitment to sourcing timber from legal and sustainable forestry. I would be grateful for the Minister’s comment on that. The Government are being further undermined by failures in their own procurement practices. Laudably, five years ago, the report on green government required annual procurement reports from government departments to check that they were buying ““good wood”” and not illegal wood. However, last year, five departments were unable to provide any data on their construction timber spend. That meant that there was no evidence of legal sourcing for 2.5 per cent of the total expenditure on manufactured timber. That may not sound large but it means that £0.5 million was spent on timber that may have been illegally logged, in addition to the 20 per cent spent on sources with uncertified evidence of sustainability. The Government still have some way to go in ensuring that they are not a market for illegally logged wood. Cleaning up our home front is essential so that we can work abroad with credibility. Can the Government assure the House that, by the time the next report is due, all departments will have the necessary apparatus for delivering those data? I would like to ask the Minister about the Government’s imaginative new Global Opportunities Fund, which will enable Defra and embassies in their work abroad to address issues of sustainable development and climate change. No doubt, some of its effort will go into tackling the subject of today’s debate. In a region such as Latin American, where we do not have embassies in some affected countries because of the closure programme, will one or two lead embassies be identified to do the work and to spread good practice to other countries? The fund is a very important source of pump-priming money for the sort of governance and capacity-building work about which noble Lords have spoken so eloquently. How will it be divided up in terms of priority? For example, currently, embassies see their work very much as helping companies on the economic front. Presumably, this fund balances that, so that work on social and environmental areas will be an important priority. Will those areas of the world with particularly severe problems—Latin America has been mentioned many times today—have the opportunity to bid for further funds to help them with that work? The Government have found an imaginative way to enable grassroots, small-scale projects working with local NGOs to be financed. I would really like that to succeed.