THE REAL WOOD GUIDE PEOPLE AND FORESTS FOREST COMMUNITIES The importance of human rights throughout history, whether political, economic or social, can hardly be exaggerated. All supporters of the Forests Forever programme believe that the protection of these rights is fundamental. We all have the need to express concern when we feel human rights are at risk. The Forests Forever campaign transmits any such anxieties to its contacts in the supplier countries. But it recognises that it should not presume to know all the complexities involved in human rights problems in overseas forested countries. This must be a matter for the countries concerned. It is not our place to prescribe what should be the balance between the many competing pressures in producer countries which may arise, for example, from immigration, and political, communal and cultural groupings. There can be few countries where there are no disagreements between different sectors of the community. Where the question of human rights is related to forested lands, judgements by individuals and organisations in the UK about the problems of other countries should only be made on the basis of the clearest possible understanding of specific problems in specific places in a manner which hears all arguments. The need to be specific is important if arguments for human rights are to be credible. In forested countries there can be vast differences between those countries which have extremely strong communal and tribal hold through traditional land rights and tenure, for example Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and others, for example Ghana, where the strength of communities is demonstrated in their part in forestry agreements based on current legal frameworks. In seeking to give genuine forest communities sufficient protected areas in which to go about their business undisturbed by modern technology and the life styles of developed nations, the arguments should not be downgraded by the presumption that local people everywhere automatically live in harmony with the forest. Wherever local population growth gets to the level where its demands are greater than its forests can support, there will be problems. The hunting, fuelwood, pasturing, farming and foraging needs of communities all have an impact on forests. Many forest communities actively want better education, better water, better health, better homes and a higher quality of living. The UK timber using trades can only have limited influence in an arena where ultimate rights are a matter of constitutional, legal and customary practices backed by the political convictions of governments. The UK industry does not have the resources, in itself, to study and judge human rights situations in every one of the fifty or so forested countries supplying Britain. It asks its commercial suppliers to look carefully at their individual logging activities and impact on local communities and voluntarily offer reassurances to those who buy their wood that respect for human rights is observed. HUMAN PRESSURES ON FORESTS Whatever resources mankind finds useful in the forest will, in direct proportion to the intensity of their removal from the forest, have an impact. Whether it be hunting, the search for agricultural land, collection of non timber products, mining, creation of water reservoirs or logging. The concept of non timber products being beneficial compared with selective logging is only a reflection of intensity of harvesting. The ultimate total protection of forests can only be achieved by setting aside completely inviolate areas. One of the effects of realising the impact of mankind on forests insofar as wood and wood fibre are concerned is to make it clear how important timber is in human existence. The demand for wood products will increase in line with growth in the world's population and with expectations of higher standards of living. Protection of existing productive forests goes only part of the way. Increasingly it is apparent that the world in fact needs far more forests and cannot rest merely on retaining the status quo of existing forestland. Next Section: 'The Timber Trade'