Various political and environmental issues are featured on the WildPlaces website, directing volunteers on how they may participate in our democratic process while educating them on important environmental and social justice issues.

IMF/WORLD BANK PROTESTS OFFER FORUM FOR FOREST PROTECTION

As Washington D.C. police double the estimated size of the upcoming protests against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank activists are fine-tuning plans and strategies for pushing for an end to the agencies' programs that devastate forests worldwide.

Through promoting the export of natural resources, loans conditioned on cutting budgets of environmental programs, and large-scale development projects, the IMF and the World Bank are responsible for environmental catastrophes around the globe.

Why?

IMF policies threaten forests by (1) promoting increased export of natural resources; (2) encouraging foreign investment, particularly in natural resources sectors; (3) encouraging reductions in government spending on environmental programs; and (4) increasing poverty.

Meanwhile, the World Bank has never effectively implemented 1991 measures aimed at heightening consideration of forest protection in its lending schemes. According to the Forest Peoples Programme, "the main failure was in the lack of staff compliance..." and "...the Bank's relationship with borrower countries." The Bank is now considering relaxing these policies, including the ban on direct financing of logging in primary moist tropical forests. While there has been much debate (and some action) regarding the World Bank's impact on forests and ecosystems, problems associated with IMF practices have been relatively unaddressed.

The IMF conditions loans on fundamental reforms to government policies. The conditions come in the form of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) designed to decrease domestic spending and increase government income. The policy prescriptions are designed to promote exports (frequently natural resources, i.e. forests), reduce government spending and the government's role in the economy, increase taxation and devalue currency. Governments meet these requirements by reducing spending in many areas, including environmental protection, health care, education and other basic services and reducing worker protections such as minimum wages and benefit packages.

The U.S. has the greatest influence over IMF policy because it supplies the greatest level of funding. As a result, the U.S. also wields veto power over the IMF's most important decisions.

HOW DOES THE IMF IMPERIL FORESTS?

Export-led growth: In order to increase government income, the IMF encourages countries to develop export industries, rather than industries producing for domestic consumption. Exports allow countries to reach a larger market and provide governments with the foreign currency they need to pay back the IMF.

Forests are present in most IMF loan recipient nations, and the IMF encourages the liquidation of these forests in order to increase exports. Between 1990 and 1995, forest loss for the 41 most heavily indebted and poor countries globally significantly exceeded the rate of forest loss for the world. Approximately 75 percent of these countries had an IMF loan at some point during this time period. Two of these countries, Nicaragua and Honduras, lost almost 12 percent of their forests, over seven times greater than the world average.

Increased foreign investment:The IMF encourages governments to prioritize the attraction of foreign investors above important social and environmental objectives. This often results in the reduction of environmental protections and an increase in concessions for foreign timber companies, accelerating unsustainable logging practices.

Increasing poverty: In promoting the reduction of government funding for social programs, the IMF has contributed to the exacerbation of poverty in many of the world's poorer countries. Combined with the pattern of transnational corporations displacing peasant farmers onto more marginal farmland, these policies have forced many rural communities to turn to primary forests as the sources of wood for fuel and homebuilding materials.

Please join us in protesting the IMF and World Bank programs responsible for global deforestation!

For more information on planned activities, contact: American Lands Alliance: Jason Tockman (740) 594-5441,
email: tockman@americanlands.org

Mobilization for Global Justice: www.globalizethis.org