Youth Voices: On Governance and Forests

By Gabriela Bueno de Almeida Moraes, GEG Youth Voices Contributor

On Governance and Forests

The International Year of Forests, celebrated in 2011, intends to show how forests relate to social and economic development, and the importance of forest protection in environmental conservation as a whole. As pointed out by the 2010 Report of the Secretary-General on Preparations for Forests, this explains why the year’s logo, entitled “Forests for People”, depicts what forest protection entail: it places a human figure surrounded by images representing water, biodiversity, food and medicine.

But while the idea of the logo’s design can be easily grasped, such is not the case with global governance design. The challenge has been building a system that can effectively address crosscutting issues, avoid duplication of efforts, and improve social and environmental welfare worldwide.

Global environmental governance (GEG) matters because it directly affects how norms are created, monitored, and complied with; it can ultimately assist the international community oversee a country’s environmental performance, and make sure their international discourse match their national efforts. Likewise, it can assist states in collective-action problems and meet their obligations in a cooperative way, through capacity-building, technology transfer and multilateral financing.

International forest protection is in urgent need of a better coordinated GEG system. In addition to not having a forest-focused multilateral environmental agreement (MEA), the current regime is highly fragmented and is regulated by a number of binding and non-binding agreements ranging from general principles and goals to timber trade rules.

In a recent study elaborated by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), “Embracing complexity: meeting the challenges of international forest governance”[1], the Global Forest Expert Panel on the International Forest Regime pointed out that the forest regime is, in fact, a “forest regime complex”. The Panel identifies the international forest regime as the combination of soft law (i.e. Non-legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests), hard law (i.e. International Timber Trade Agreement – ITTA, Convention on Biological Diversity – CBD) and private regulation (i.e. forest certification schemes). To govern such a diffuse set of regulations, as well as the interaction between different groups of stakeholders (states, NGOs, private sector, indigenous communities), a new institutional, organizational framework is required.

The United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) has already recognized the need for change, as one of the body’s functions is to find ways to enhance cooperation on forest-related issues. Improvements have already been made in some instances, including the creation of the Collaborative Partnership of Forests (CPF) in 2001, which involves 14 organizations, working as an arena for coordination among them.

What remains to be seen is how the forest regime complex will be dealt with in the upcoming GEG reform. Will the UNFF be transformed into a branch of a World Environmental Organization (WEO) or a strengthened UNEP? Or will forest issues be dealt with as a co-issue of the Rio Conventions? How will the CPF and the ITTO be integrated into a new GEG system?

The answer to these questions is still unclear. However, what should be emphasized is the need to create a framework capable of addressing forest issues as a multifaceted phenomenon: what the IUFRO’s Expert Panel calls a “forests+” approach. As the Report’s policy brief explains, “looking beyond forests is essential for solving forest-related global problems.”

But while the forests+ approach seeks to nurture synergistic instruments and policies, the environment in which this is supposed to happen is not yet ready. If UNEP is enhanced but multilateral environmental agreements continue to have separate meetings, and implementation and scientific bodies, coordination is more likely to occur in a piecemeal fashion. The problem with ad hoc coordination efforts is that they turn into a mere reaction to any new instrument that is proposed by each organ and, therefore, do not promote long-term coordination.

Take the REDD+ mechanism, for instance: it aims to reduce deforestation and forest degradation in order to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and ensure biodiversity conservation, sustainable forest management and other co-benefits. But, contrary to its synergistic core, REDD+ is being discussed under one single MEA, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Whatever coordination effort and integration among institutions (such as the UN-REDD Programme) is pursued, the current system will continue to be fragmented. This is not to say that such layers should not exist; rather, they should be better integrated.

One of the reasons why fragmentation should be avoided is that monitoring and verification measures are deeply affected. As discussed by Young in the previous Youth Voices contribution, the current GEG system lacks a coherent monitoring framework; if each organization or MEA develops its own mechanism, it becomes harder to evaluate normative and policy effectiveness, and to make sure states comply with their obligations.

The bottom line is that environmental issues are not one regime’s problem. More often than not, they involve a great number of national, regional and international institutions, norms and stakeholders. To embrace complexity in a new governance setting is not only desirable, but crucial if we want to tackle 21st century environmental challenges.

About the Author

Gabriela Bueno de Almeida Moraes is concluding her LL.M. studies in International Law at the University of São Paulo Law School. She was a Fox International Fellow at Yale University during the 2009-2010 academic year, and will start her LL.M. studies at Yale Law School in the fall 2011, where she will focus her research on global environmental governance.