[asia-apec 455] SIGN ON to Stop APEC From Endangering Forests

[a. paige fischer]

Dear friends,

>From June 18 - 22, APEC Leaders will meet in Malaysia to 
finalize a proposal to liberalize trade in forest products.  

The goal of this plan -- called Early Voluntary Sectoral 
Liberalization (EVSL) -- is to make it cheaper and easier 
for corporations to harvest and sell more wood on the Pacific Rim. 
The plan will eliminate environmental and other regulations,
making our forests more vulnerable to overcutting, disease
and mismanagement that ever before.

Unless we can intervene now, APEC Leaders will approve the 
liberalization plan later this month.   

Please sign your organization on to this letter asking the U.S. 
Vice President Al Gore to stop APEC's plan to liberalize forest 
trade on the Pacific Rim before it's too late.  

Simply reply to this message with your name, title, organization, 
and location (city, country).

For the Forests!

Paige Fischer
Pacific Environment and Resources Center (PERC)
Sausalito, California, <perc at igc.org>

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June 8, 1998

The Honorable Albert Gore, Jr.
Vice President of the United States
The White House
Washington D.C. 20001

Dear Mr. Vice President,

We undersigned # organizations, representing millions of citizens 
concerned about the global environment, write to express our serious 
reservations about a current US Trade Representative (USTR) initiative 
to liberalize trade in forest products within the Asia Pacific Economic 
Cooperation (APEC).  If carried out as currently planned, APEC's Early 
Voluntary Sectoral Liberalization (EVSL) for Forest Products will put 
Pacific Rim forests in jeopardy.  We urge you to intervene before APEC 
Leaders approve the final work plan and begin implementing it at the 
June 18-23, 1998 Senior Officials Meeting in Malaysia. 

We do not believe that all liberalization of trade in the forest 
products sector is bad for the environment.  For example, the Clinton 
Administration's proposal to eliminate US Forest Service forest road 
building subsidies will likely result in fewer destructive roads in 
pristine roadless areas.  However, we find USTR's aggressive attempts 
to liberalize forest products trade without accounting for and 
protecting against potential negative environmental and social 
consequences of elimination of specific tariff and non-tariff measure 
to be reckless and deeply troubling.

Many environmental groups have called on the USTR to halt its all-or-
nothing advance toward liberalizing the forest products sector in APEC 
until environmental and social consequences are identified and safeguards 
are put into place.  On March 25, 1998, 115 environmental organizations 
sent a letter to Ms. Charlene Barshefsky, U.S. Trade Representative, 
expressing our concerns.  Unfortunately, Ms. Barshefsky has not provided 
the groups a response.  On April 21, 1998, several national environmental 
organizations expressed many of the same concerns in testimony before the 
International Trade Commission, which is conducting a study for USTR 
about potential impacts of APEC EVSLs.  However, at the request of Ms. 
Barshefsky, the results of this study will be concealed from the public.  

Pacific Rim forests under APEC's influence comprise some of the most 
ecologically important in the world.  APEC countries are home to 63% 
of the world's remaining "Frontier Forests," which are defined as large 
relatively intact primary forest ecosystems that provide habitat to rare 
and endangered species, sustenance to communities, and carbon sinks that 
mitigate against global climate change.  From the ancient temperate 
forests of the US Pacific Northwest and Chile, to the tropical moist 
forests of South East Asia, these ecosystems are  threatened by the 
combined forces of increasing production and consumption of wood 
products that would result from a poorly executed liberalization of 
this sector. 

Pacific Rim logging -- to satisfy the world's increasing demand for 
wood and paper products -- is expected to expand dramatically in the 
coming decade. Industry and intergovernmental projections, including 
those of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), indicate that 
consumption of paper and paperboard products world-wide will rise as 
much as 70% to 80% over 1990 levels by the year 2010, the bulk of 
which is expected to occur on the Pacific Rim.  

As currently envisioned, APEC trade liberalization in the forest products 
sector will exacerbated growing consumption and production of forest 
products on Pacific Rim forests.  According to materials provided by the 
American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA; enclosed), "The wood and 
paper sectors in the Asia-Pacific region are experiencing dynamic growth 
and are expected to continue to boom in the next decade."  This AF&PA 
material boasts that production of paper and paper board production 
increased dramatically in the European Union, the US and Canada following 
the elimination of tariffs through other trade bodies.  A US Department 
of Agriculture study (enclosed) also indicates that an increased level 
of timber extracted from ecologically sensitive Pacific Northwest old 
growth forests would result following the elimination of restrictions 
on unprocessed logs from public lands.  

The APEC Forest Products EVSL also could weaken many regulations that 
are in place to protect forests.  These regulations include sanitary 
and phytosanitary rules on imports that protect forests against exotic 
pests and restrictions on exports of unprocessed logs.  Based on the 
biosecurity risks posed by invasive species to Pacific Northwest forests, 
environmental organizations have obtained a Federal Court injunction 
against the issuance of new permits to import unprocessed logs from 
Siberia (Russian Far East), New Zealand and Chile.  Chile is attempting 
to intervene in this lawsuit on the grounds that the injunction is a 
barrier to free trade, and New Zealand has recently stated its intention 
to use the APEC EVSL process to undermine this important environmental 
protection regime.  

During the 50th Anniversary celebration of the international trading 
system in Geneva, President Clinton spoke to the importance of 
transparency in trade policy and also said, "[W]e must do more to ensure 
that spirited economic competition among nations never becomes a race 
to the bottom -- in environmental protection, consumer protections, or 
labor standards.  We should be leveling up, not leveling down."  The 
President's words offered environmentalists new hope of a fresh start 
toward an environmentally responsible trade policy.  

On April 1994, when you signed the Uruguay Round agreement in Marrakesh, 
Morocco, you stated, "...environmental protection is not a 'maybe,' it is 
a 'must.'  And by working aggressively to improve the environment along 
with global trade, we will succeed."  Your commitment to integrating 
environmental protection into trade regimes is extremely important if 
areas of global ecological significance, such as Pacific Rim forests, 
are to survive through the next century.

We are ready to work with the Clinton Administration to make these words 
a reality.  But by refusing to acknowledge any potential negative 
environmental impacts of the APEC Forest Products EVSL, USTR's actions 
flatly contradict the President's new commitments.  We call upon you to 
intervene to halt USTR's pursuit of APEC forest products trade 
liberalization until the agency:

1)  Conducts an Environmental Impact Assessment for each tariff and 
non-tariff measure it seeks to eliminate;

2)  Engages a broad spectrum of civil society in all discussions of 
forest trade liberalization;

3)  Postpones all work on the APEC Forest Sector EVSL until all 
environmental impacts have been proven negligible and the public 
-- including independent forest ecologists and community leaders -- 
have been fully informed.

We would like to request a meeting with your staff to discuss potential 
remedies to this situation.  Doug Norlen is available at (202) 785-8700 
to coordinate environmental organization participation in this meeting.

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

Sincerely, 

A. Paige Fischer, APEC Issues Coordinator, Pacific Environment and Resources 
Center, Sausalito, California

Douglas Norlen, Policy Advisor, Pacific Environment and Resources Center, 
Sausalito, California

* * * * *THIS IS A DRAFT DOCUMENT UNTIL FORMALLY SUBMITTED WITH ALL 
SIGNATURES TO THE WHITE HOUSE* * * * * *