Message

UN Threatens to Trump US Land Policy

by Cheryl K. Chumley

September 2004

A Better Earth
http://www.abetterearth.org/article.php/796.html

Its a clash of the titans. On one side there are well-funded environmental groups and eco-lobbyists; on the other, free-market advocates and strict constitutional constructionists. But these are just the internal forces at play. At the global level, the United Nations is proposing a new treaty that holds potential to render moot US congressional decisions.

The outcome of this battle will determine whether the Roadless Area Conservation Rule (passed Jan. 12, 2001) should be amended to open the doors to timber harvesting on our nations federally protected lands. The Dept. of Agricultures Forest Service just extended the comment period on these suggested changes, from Sept. 14 to Nov. 15, but tying into the issue is an almost simultaneous proposal from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. This body wants to develop a successor agreementto its U.S.-backed International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA). If enacted, this agreement would require participating nations to abide by restrictive land management policies that will likely include blanket prohibitions on timber harvests. In effect, it could usurp conclusions reached at the congressional level regarding Americas forests.

As for the internal debate, these proposed changes can be seen as a nod to Tenth Amendment supporters, seeking to preserve statesrights. President Clintons last-hour rule prohibited, with little exception, road construction and timber harvest on all federally protected forests nationwide. However, this new mandate seeks to reallocate a semblance of statesrights by requiring governors to identify areas of desired preservation and, if there is a perceived need, request Forest Service intervention. The Forest Service, in turn, can decline to intervene. And its this aspect of the proposal - along with an interim directive draft provision giving regional foresters temporary authority to recommend road construction, reconstruction or timber harvest projects in inventoried roadless areas,- that have environmental groups in an uproar.

The Bush administrations announcement will immediately imperil wild forests across the country, leaving them vulnerable to commercial timber sales and road building,said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. These wild forests are special places of national significance and need a national policy to ensure their proper management.

Imperil? Here is yet another prediction of doom that is unlikely to be realized. Not only is it unlikely that regional foresters will suddenly give permission, en masse, to build roads or harvest all the available timber in all the nations protected forests, but it is also improbable that every governor would abstain completely from requesting the Feds to oversee land management policy especially when such oversight often brings funding with it.

That logic aside, even the Green groups must admit that the sheer abundance of Roadless Rule court challenges in the past three years proves these Clinton-era prohibitions are on shaky legal ground, and the time for some sort of policy change has arrived.

This mandate offers states the ability to participate in the decision making process, which Clintons rule denied. During the development of the roadless rule in 1999 and 2000, the governors of several western states requested cooperating agency status to work with the Forest Service in the development of & the roadless rule. These requests were all denied,a Forest Service background paper reads. Over the past several years the roadless rule has been the subject of nine lawsuits in federal district courts in Idaho, Utah, North Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska and the District of Columbia.This in itself would seem like a reasonable explanation as to why the administration is now attempting to fine-tune this rule.

However, because of recent developments at the global level, it seems that even if Congress passes these revisions, there may be little actual change. By 2005, the United Nations hopes to solidify its successor, the International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA), and that action could clamp whatever allowances are granted at the congressional level.

The ITTA, a U.N. measure the United States signed July 1, 1999, and accepted Nov. 14, 1996, created an organization that controls the worlds production (and consumption) of timber. The agreement, overseen and administered by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, labels nations as either timber producers or consumers and allots voting quotas based on levels of production versus consumption with more voting weight granted to the former. The United States, a consumer, therefore does not possess the same ability to control - via ballot - the application of this agreement, as many of the producing nations do (e.g. Indonesia or Malaysia).

The agreement purports to establish a timber market that is not only fairto all nations, but supportive of sustainable development ideals that is, the environment should take precedence over selfish corporate concerns. Ironically, it is the selfishNorth American timber industry that has been the most profound impetus for reforestation and management projects. In fact, the UN State of the Worlds Forests Report (2002) stated that North American forests had increased by ten million hectares in the last ten years. Such statistics invite the question: why is the UN attempting to regulate US forestry?

The International Tropical Timber Agreement is not exactly a shining example of supply-side economics. But now UNCTD officials are planning to finalize an off-shoot of ITTA by 2005, and this new agreement, a sort of ITTA2, will place the global body in an even greater position of international oversight. So far, discussions on ITTA2s role have included increasing the following: political attention on forest governance,interest in monitoring and regulating the international trade,and interest in managing natural forests as ecosystems.

Whatever chance states now have of reclaiming Tenth Amendment rights, and whatever opportunity timber companies might have to conduct business according to the American free-market principle, is likely short-lived. Given the UNs regard for all-things environmental, it can be pretty much assumed that ITTA2 will favor retention of trees at all costs. And, should the United States accept this new UN agreement, one could assume that timber harvesting activities will become nonexistent within our federal forests, regardless of what emerges from this comment period as the will of Congress or the people.

Cheryl Chumley is a freelance writer in the Washington, DC area.