In 1997, the World Bank and the WorldWide Fund for Nature (WWF) announced the establishment of a new ‘Alliance’ to be shaped around a joint strategy designed to meet the WWF’s dual campaign targets of ‘setting aside’ 10% of all major forest ecosystems as protected areas and bringing an additional 200 million hectares of the world’s forests under sustainable forest management, both by the year 2005. The alliance brought together the WWF’s abilities to work with a wide range of ‘stakeholders’ and the financial power of the World Bank. It was important to visualise what was actually happening to forests on the ground. Improved data about rates of deforestation have also sharpened concerns about whether these targets are realisable or even too modest. Revised FAO and WRI figures suggest that forest loss at this time was still accelerating with global annual loss now estimated at 15 million hectares per year.
According to World Bank/WWF projections, by 2050 a further 200 million hectares of the world’s total 3.2 billion hectares of forests would be lost to agriculture, while to service a projected demand of 3 billion cubic metres of industrial roundwood per year, up to half of the worlds’ remaining forests will be subject to logging at an intensity of 2 cubic metres/ha/year. This may be taking logging up to the limits, as according to one study up to half of all forests are likely to remain inaccessible to logging for the foreseeable future.
An ‘Intensification Model’ was therefore put forward by the WWF/World Bank Alliance to meet market demands – a ‘model’ which corresponded closely with the Bank’s existing forest policy. Under this model, 200 million hectares of forests would still be ineluctably lost to agricultural expansion, but intensive management of silviculture and plantations, on 600 million hectares of forest yielding up to 5 cubic metres of roundwood per hectare per year, would service the global market, potentially freeing an additional 900 million hectares of forest for additional protected areas, while still leaving a further 1.5 billion hectares of forests relatively inaccessible and untouched.
This alliance and the outcomes it predicted were critically reviewed by Marcus Colchester in 2000.
A draft of Colchester’s article may be viewed from here
In May 2005 the WWF and the World Bank renewed their Alliance for Forest Conservation and Sustainable Use (Forest Alliance) with a programme aimed at reducing global deforestation rates 10% by 2010. The two organizations signed on to the Forest Alliance agreement for another five years on 26 May 2005, during the fifth session of the UN Forum on Forests. The programme was designed to support the establishment of new forest protected areas; more effective management of forest protected areas, and improved management of forests outside of protected areas. It will also facilitate regional cooperation and the adoption of policies in support of more effective forest management.
The following year (Mar 2006) the "Heart of Borneo" conservation initiative was officially launched today with the three Bornean governments - Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia - declaring their commitment to support it. The tri-country initiative aims to preserve one of the most important centres of biological diversity in the world, including approximately 220,000km2 of equatorial forests and numerous wildlife species. A recent WWF report had highlighted that 361 new species have been discovered in the last ten years.
Today, only half of Borneo's forest cover remains, down from 75 per cent in the mid 1980s. According to WWF, all lowland rainforests in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, would disappear by 2010, if the current deforestation rate of 1.3 million hectares per year continues. That's an area equivalent to about one-third the size of Switzerland. Forest fires, the conversion of forests to plantations, and logging are also driving the destruction of Borneo's forests.
In addition, the three Bornean governments recently announced new conservation measures within the ‘Heart of Borneo’. Malaysia declared it will protect more than 200,000ha of key forest habitat in Sabah for the protection of orang-utans, elephants and rhinos. Brunei has established two conservation areas. And Indonesia has proposed a new national park of 800,000ha.
According to WWF, the Heart of Borneo initiative spells the end of plans to create the world's largest palm oil plantation in Kalimantan along Indonesia's mountainous border with Malaysia. The scheme - supported with Chinese investments - was expected to cover an area of 1.8 million hectares and would have had long-lasting, damaging consequences on the Heart of Borneo. WWF repeatedly said new oil palm plantations should be established on degraded, non-forested land.
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