[stop-imf] GLOBAL DEFORESTATION HASTENED BY IMF/WORLD BANK LOANS AND PROJECTS

[Robert Weissman]

To: All trade and forest activists
From: Jason Tockman, American Lands
Date: September 30, 2002

GLOBAL DEFORESTATION HASTENED BY
IMF/WORLD BANK LOANS AND PROJECTS

                      [Please forward widely.]

Among the long list of grievances brought by civil society to Washington
DC last week during the annual meetings of the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund is the link of these institutions to global
deforestation.

>From the massive land-clearing dams and mining operations supported by
the World Bank to the forest and biodiversity loss that accompanies IMF
policies of fiscal austerity and export-led growth, both agencies have
shown a severe disregard for the ecological impacts of their loans and
projects.

WORLD BANK

The World Bank’s devastating impact on forests is more well known, owing
to the fact that its projects have been predicated on large-scale forest
destruction. For about two decades the environmental community has been
spotlighting the Bank’s support for large hydroelectric dams, road
construction, export-oriented agriculture, and oil, gas, and mining
projects that have required the removal of forests, often in areas of
critical forest habitat.

In the 1990’s, this pressure led the World Bank to adopt minimal forest
protections, most notably a ban on direct World Bank financing of
logging activities in tropical ancient forests. This was a modest
improvement, which proved to be hampered by lackluster implementation
and failure to apply the policy across the board. In particular, the ban
did not apply to the Bank’s structural adjustment lending (see SAPs,
below).

For some time, the Bank’s forest policy did provide us with some hope
that reforms could correct some of the institution’s problems, but now
the Bank is in the process of rolling back even these already weak
provisions. It plans to get back in the business of funding logging of
old growth temperate rainforests, without any new protections for
forests or forest peoples.

IMF

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund has had somewhat of a free
ride, dodging a dose of well-earned criticism for the role they play in
global forest and biodiversity losses. But IMF policies are very much
responsible for plummeting numbers of many species--such as forest
elephants, orangutans, and rhinos--and the diminution of ecosystems from
Brazil’s Amazon to Russia’s coniferous taiga. Increasingly, activists
are becoming aware of the IMF’s links to deforestation.

Through structural adjustment program lending (SAPs), by which loans to
developing countries are conditioned upon foreign investor-friendly
economic policy reforms, the IMF (and the World Bank) have dictated a
one-size-fits-all global regime of privatization, deregulation, lessened
government spending, and export-led growth. Such policies have not only
had devastating social and environmental costs, they also have often
failed to generate the economic growth at which they are allegedly
aimed.

In the mid-1990’s, the IMF prevailed upon Cameroon to devalue their
currency and cut export taxes on forest products. This resulted in
making logging more lucrative, and by 1998, the number of logging firms
had jumped from 177 to 479 (largely transnational timber companies). The
estimated annual loss of Cameroon’s forests is 500,000 acres, with 75
percent of the nation’s forest cover already or scheduled to be logged.

In Ecuador, the IMF’s $304 million loan in 2000 was tied to a doubling
of oil exports from 90 million to 190 million barrels. The resulting
pipeline, lead by Occidental Petroleum originates in the Amazon
rainforest, travels over the Andes Mountains, through 11 protected
areas, and then descends to oil refineries on the Pacific Ocean. The
crude oil pipeline would bisect the Mindo Valley Cloud Forest, home to
45 species of birds at risk of extinction, and much of the oil will be
sourced from the Yasani National Park (Ecuador’s largest and a UNESCO
Biosphere Reserve) and the land of the Huaorani people. Civil protest by
Ecuadorian indigenous and environmental groups has been met with
brutality by the authorities.

TAKE ACTION

The policies of the IMF and World Bank are being rejected by people who
have suffered from them all over the world. But these institutions are
deaf to the cries of poor people in far off places like Argentina and
Papua New Guinea. We in the U.S. (where the institutions are housed)
have a critical role to play in bringing needed changes to the world’s
financial system. As many of us participate in teach-ins, marches, and
rallies here in Washington DC this weekend, please help build a national
movement for a new model of globalization, one that addresses the needs
of people and ecosystems, not merely international capital. Here are a
few actions you can take:

1. Educate yourself and your community, through forming a study group,
writing a letter to the editor, or hosting a rally on the devastating
impact of the IMF and World Bank on forests.

2. Contact World Bank President James Wolfensohn at 1818 H Street, NW,
Washington, DC 20433, and insist that the World Bank strengthen its
forest protection policies, rather than their current plans to gut them.
Specifically demand that the prohibition on Bank financing of
deforestation be expanded to all areas, including structural adjustment,
and include all forest types.
3. Call your Members of Congress at (202) 224-3121 and express your
concerns with the forest impacts of the IMF and World Bank and ask them
to make continued U.S. support for the institutions contingent upon the
adoption and implementation of forest and environmental protection
measures (as well as canceling the debt of poor nations, promoting
democracy, and ensuring transparency).

For more information about the IMF or World Bank, contact Jason at (740)
594-5441 or tockman@americanlands.org.

Jason Tockman, International Trade Director
American Lands Alliance
PO Box 555
Athens, Ohio  45701