ADDRESS BY SHRI K.R.NARAYANAN, VICE PRESIDENT OF INDIA, AT THE FIRST MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE OF FORESTRY FORUM FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 1, 1993

I am very happy to be present at the inaugural session of this first Ministerial-level Meeting of the Forestry Forum for Developing Countries. It is encouraging that participants and observers from 70 developing and developed countries have come to attend this meeting in New Delhi. Apart from being a great honour for us, it is demonstrative of the active interest that the international community is taking in this crucial aspect of the world environmental problem. I extend a warm welcome to all the delegates, particularly those from foreign countries nearby as well as far away. I must also congratulate our dynamic Minister for Environment and Forests, Shri Kamal Nath, for taking the initiative in arranging this meeting.

In pre-historic times before human beings began clearing forests and creating farms, towns an cities, over 60 % of the earth’s land surface was covered by forests as against less than 30 % today, and most people lived in forests sustaining themselves on forest produce and hunting. Gradually the growth of civilization alienated people from their forest habitat and from nature, and the ecosystem of the forests that harmonious relationship between the living and non-living things got disrupted. In our country some of the profoundest and elevated philosophies and poetry of mankind originated in the quietude and beauty of the green and flowering wildernesses. They were the backdrop for simple living and high thinking. They are still part of the life and culture of our people. Above all the forests are still a major source of livelihood for people, for millions of people in the third world. The social, economic and cultural importance of forests is therefore paramount for us.

Today forests have become important for different and scientific reasons, for preventing global warming and for averting a climatic disaster. We in the third world trying desperately to advance on the scale of economic development are intensely interested in this global problem, but cannot ignore the social and economic issues affecting the people. For developed countries tropical and other third world forests are primarily “sinks” for the enormous carbon-dioxide emissions produced by their unrestrained industrialization and pursuit of the consumerist paradise. It is useful to stress this difference because of the tendency on the part of the advanced countries to fix excessive responsibility on the developing countries for the ongoing greenhouse effect and the oncoming climatic catastrophe. No one from the developing world assembled here will deny that the destruction of tropical forest contributes significantly to the greenhouse effect. But let us not ignore the fact that the countries of the North have destroyed a major part of their forests, are still destroying them, and are today involved in the destruction of forests in the developing countries as well.

It has been estimated that the cumulative loss of forests in human history has been to the tune of 2 billion hectares most of which occurred in the temperate zone. This is equivalent to the present total tropical forest are on the glob. It has been estimated that while about 10% of the Amazonian rain forest has been felled over the last 50 years, 45% of U.K.s ancient forest have been lost and in U.S.A. only 8% of the country’s original forest cover remains and, in recent years, trees have been felled at a faster rate than in the Amazon rain forest. To say this is not to admit that during the last few decades tropical deforestation has not become a major source of carbon dioxide emissions and that today and in the immediate future the third world has a national and global responsibility to protect, sustain and expand the forest cover. But the plea is that historical and current responsibilities for the phenomenon of deforestation must be accepted by the developed world together with the consequent implications with regard to economic and technological assistance in a system of international co-operation. It is not enough to preach the principles of Forestry. There is an old saying in the Indian language that the cat goes on a pilgrimage after eating a hundred rats.

The Rio do Janeiro Summit on Environment and Development has reached an agreement in the form of a non-legally binding authoritative statement of principles for a global consensus on the management, conservation and sustainable development of forests. Agenda 21 has spelt out an integrated approach to the planing and management of land resources, multiple roles and functions of all types of forests, forest lands and woodlands, a broad action plan to combat desertification, programmes for dealing with fragile eco-systems like the mountains of the world and objectives and activities to improve the conservation of biological diversity and sustainable use of biological resources. It is interesting to note that ten out of the forty action points included in Agenda 21 relate to agriculture, an area closely allied to bio-diversity and sustainable forestry. Out outstanding agricultural scientist Dr. M.S. Swaminathan has pointed out that in spite of the fact that of 400 million farming families in the world 100 million live in India and another 100 million in China, the current GATT negotiations are mainly pre-occupied with the welfare of a few million families on either side of the Atlantic. This is indicative of the current obsession with the interests of the developed countries be it in the industrial, agricultural or forestry aspects of the environmental and ecological crisis facing mankind.

In this context Ministerial meeting of the Forestry Forum for Developing countries with Observers from the developed countries is of considerable significance. I must extend a special welcome to the Observers at this meeting, for, if I may appropriate a phrase that Shakespeare used of Hamlet, they are “the most observed of all observers.” On the policies and actions of the governments they represent will depend the successful and happy denouement of the drama of environment and development that is being enacted today on the world stage. One central principle of Forestry Principles is the sovereign right of States to use their resources in accordance with their own environmental policies and developmental needs and with the participation and for the benefit of millions of poor people who depend on the forest for their subsistence. It is relevant to stress here that these people have not just been cutting down and despoiling forests but also tending and caring them over the centuries.
                  
One outstanding but unacknowledged contribution has been that of the poor farmers of the Himalaya ranges in India and Nepal who have put in massive labour over many long years to terrace the mountain sides protecting them from soil erosion. The sophisticated bio-scientist of the world who claim fame and profits by working on germ plasm of plants from the tropics have not realized that it is the farmer of the third world who have shrewdly observed, carefully tended and selectively cultivated and preserved for future generations innumerable varieties of plants and grains. Modern patenting system based not so much on scientific but commercial consideration must not be allowed to deprive us of the fruits of the hard and creative work put in by generations of our farmers and forest dwellers. We have to preserve our bio-diversity, the rich treasure house of thousands and thousands of varieties of plants and life-forms that we possess. We have to ensure that genes and germ plasm of the botanical and biological variety are not appropriated by the developed world without any returns to us, or even access to the biotechnological knowledge and products based upon it except at prohibitive costs. Time has come for the developing world to protect its botanical and biological heritage, protect it for itself and for the world, and not permit it to be deprived of through refined modern scientific methods and one-sided patent laws. It is time that developing countries co-operated among themselves more closely and more meaningfully in agricultural, biotechnological, forestry and environmental sciences. If for one reason or another we do not have the political will to do so and we prefer to hang on to the hem of the glamorous garments of Western science, it would not be justifiable for us to bemoan our lot or to blame others for it. There is enough of natural resources and stock of scientific technological knowledge in the third world for us to work together in solidarity and co-operate with the rest of the world in an open and full-blooded manner but with some degree of equality of status and basic self-reliance.

Today we are living in a one world, though somewhat disorderly one world. All of the third world has opened itself up to the rest of the world. Therefore, when I speak of basic self-reliance and equality of status it is in the context of the freest and widest system of international co-operation. We in India, as others present here, have opened up our economy to the rest of the world. That is in our interest and in the interest of humanity. But basic self-reliance and equality of status are fundamental to this opening up and free international to the rest of the world. That is in our interest and in the interest of humanity. But basic self-reliance and equality of status are fundamental to this opening up and free international co-operation. As Mahatma Gandhi put it “let the doors and windows of my house be open, and the winds of the cultures of the world blow about it, but I refuse to be swept off my feet.” That is the spirit in which we approach international co-operation, be it in the realm of culture, science, economics or commerce. The sovereign right to manage and develop our natural resources and to acquire certain degree of basic technological self-reliance fundamental to not being swept of our feet in the face of the opening up for full-blooded international co-operation.

Increased international co-operation is essential for the sustained and environmentally sound development of forest in the developing countries. It is in our common interest to forge a global partnership by evolving a transparent mechanism for the flow of information, technology and funds that will lead to greater national capacity for management of the massive problems of forestry. It is not only forests that have direct impact on environment and climate change. The mineral and oil wealth of countries, the ubiquitous phenomenon of the automobile, and technologies both adverse and beneficial, have as much or greater relevance for the production of greenhouse gases and the state of the environment. All such relevant factors should, logically as well as practically, enter the system of international co-operation and regulation without setting aside the minimum conditions of sovereignty.

This gathering here is proof of the interest of the developing countries to carry forward the decisions and guidelines of the Rio Summit for international as well as national action in tackling the problems of the forest. I should like to emphasize that while the obligation in this regards of the international community, particularly of the advanced countries, are of great importance, we have to take among the developing countries themselves individual and collective action to tackle the problem by preventing deforestation and launching programmes of reforestation. It has been said that large-scale reforestation is one of the most constructive programmes that can be undertaken. Many developing countries have already embarked upon such programmes. “The great green wall of China”, 6500 Km. Long, of trees and shrubs, is a conscious example. India has also achieved some significant results in slowing down deforestation and in growing new forests. A national forestry plan is under implementation. Environmental bridges, afforestation brigades, and ecological task forces have been organized by NGO’s. Out wild life conservation projects have met with considerable success, including the famous tiger project. The Chipko movement started in India nearly 20 years ago has become the model of a peoples movement for protection of forest. For us protecting forests is not just for absorbing carbon dioxide. It is for the livelihood of millions of human beings, an it must be remembered that the welfare and the future of the human being is the central concern of all environmental programmes. For us forest are also for nurturing the thousands an thousands of varieties of plants and other life-forms, all of which in an intimate and integral relationship sustain the climate and the balance of the earth.

In India we have looked upon the entire world of animate and inanimate objects as an interdependent mechanism and while we recognized the human individual as the centre of things also respected all other forms of life and realized the fact of dependence of and kinship of the human being with nature and all forms of life. This is the philosophy that ought to animate our approach to forestry and to the larger issue of global environment. I am confident that this high level and representative conference will make an important contribution to the formulation of action programmes for protecting, preserving and sustaining the forests of the world for the good of the human race.