G8 AGREES NEED FOR ACTION LOGGIN INAFRICA

[Anonymous]

G8 Agrees Need for Action on Logging,
Africa

BREADSALL,England-Environment and development ministers from the Group of Eight rich
nations agreed on Friday on the need to act against the scourge of illegal
logging and to help Africa survive global warming.
But the two-day meeting, the first of its kind,
committed the G8 members only to voluntary bilateral actions to end the
multi-billion dollar trade in illegal timber.
Environmental groups reacted angrily to the declaration,
saying it was a “missed opportunity.”
The meeting had never been expected to take any action
on Africa, as this will be the task of the G8 summit in July. And U.S.
opposition to any concerted action on tackling the illegal timber trade meant
that agenda item, too, was never going to produce any concrete results.

“What was most noticeable was the
degree to which everyone was singing from the same hymn sheet — everyone
understanding the links between dire poverty and environmental degradation,”
British Environment Minister Margaret Beckett told reporters.

But environmentalists saw the
outcome differently.

“From our point of view this is
another missed opportunity. They know what needs to be done but just lack the
political will,” Stephen Tindale, the head of Greenpeace in Britain, told
Reuters.

Tony Juniper, head of Friends of
the Earth, said: “This statement follows a long tradition of disappointments
from the G8 over environmental policy. It is predictably short of details,” he
said.

TOUGH MEASURES

Britain, as head of the G8 this
year, had wanted the group to agree a series of tough measures including new
trade laws to curb the illegal timber trade that is estimated to be worth $15
billion a year — 40 percent of which enters G8 countries.

But the United States, while
agreeing there should be help given to the logging nations in Africa, Asia and
Latin America to end the illegal side of the lucrative business, was adamant
there should be no change to existing trade rules.

In the end the meeting agreed
that each would act according to their own circumstances under existing WTO
rules to bring an end to the trade that is devastating rain forests in Africa,
Asia and Latin America.

The ministers met in a country
hotel 120 miles north of London that was surrounded by a wall of steel and 2,000
police to deter protesters.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair
has put Africa and global warming at the top of the agenda for the G8 summit at
the Gleneagles golf resort in Scotland in July, and most of this week’s meeting
was in preparation for that.

Central to the discussions on
Thursday and Friday was Blair’s Africa Commission report published last week
with ambitious plans to slash debts, make world trade fairer and give millions
of dollars more in better directed aid.

Acknowledging the report, the
meeting agreed on the need for unspecified international action to combat
climate change and mitigate its effects in Africa.

The United States has dismissed
calls for massive debt relief and British plans for a major new aid financing
vehicle, which are the core of the Africa Commission report.

The Anti-G8 movement, in a
dry-run for Gleneagles, had offered a prize for anyone hitting a minister with a
pie, planting a skull and cross-bone flag on the 18th hole of the hotel’s golf
course or invading British environment minister Beckett’s room. In the end, no
one even tried.

[Author]

March 24, 2005 at 10:12 AM