Southeast Asia Rainforests: A Resource and Action Guide
Edited by Martha Belcher and Angela Gennino
Rainforest Action Network in cooperation with the World Rainforest Movement
1993. 100 pp. (large format)
Reviewed By Jon Lamb
This document is a most comprehensive and up to date resource on deforestation and the devastating social and environmental impact of years of unchecked logging in South-East Asia.
The last 30 years of commercial logging, poor agricultural practices, development projects and war have reduced once dense forest cover by more than half. Every year another 4 million hectares are cleared — an area the size of Switzerland.
The guide provides an informative overview of the problems associated with deforestation as well as the primary reasons why eight countries have plunged headfirst into ecological destruction. Most of the information and analysis were provided by NGOs, which have acted as a liaison between the international forest movement and forest communities.
The book is critical of the role of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in supporting government and business projects which have made only superficial changes or reforms to destructive logging practices. The FAO has been instrumental in carrying out the Tropical Forest Action Program (TFAP) — the overall forestry strategy in South-East Asia funded by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and bilateral aid agencies.
As the guide points out, this plan is a facade. "Sustainable logging", for example, is TFAP's euphemism for continuing large-scale commercial logging; "forest management" means allowing the timber industry to locate and extract the most valuable trees; and "reforestation" means evicting local people and clearing natural forest to make way for monoculture tree plantations.
A country by country analysis provides detailed statistics and information on deforestation, its history and impact, government forest policy and the role of environment groups and NGOs.
This is an indispensable guide for the activist or concerned person. It includes an extensive directory of environmental and human rights organisations active around these issues within and outside South-East Asia.
The resource guide can be ordered for US$8.50 (plus US$4.50 for overseas mailing) from the Rainforest Action Network, 450 Sansome, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA, 94111, USA. Requests from Third World organisations will be sent free of charge.