Tropical Rainforest Report

Forest and Bird, Volume 19, Issue 1, 1 February 1988, Page 5

Tropical Rainforest Report

Described as ‘the most pristine tropical island of its size in the world’, Rennell Island in the Solomon Islands is currently under threat of logging by a member of the Wang group of companies. About 2000 people live on the 69,000 ha island, and apart from small areas of garden, it is covered with untouched forest. Other facts about Rennel: @ it contains the largest lake in the Pacific (15,000 ha); @ of the 50 bird species, 21 are endemic; @ itis likely that more than 40 percent of the plant species do not occur elsewhere; @ the forest is not a big one and a logging operation would not produce much revenue for the Government or people. As with many other tropical rainforest logging proposals, this one is being promoted in order to provide the Solomons with foreign exchange. As Minister of Health the Hon John Tepaika says, he favours logging because ‘‘we desperately need foreign exchange. Thus the selling of our much loved land and forest, which we do with broken hearts for the future.’’ One ray of hope for nations in such a dilemma is the ‘‘debt of nature’’ concept. In Bolivia a group called Conservation International. purchased $650,000 of Bolivian foreign debt, and in return the Bolivian Government committed itself to protecting 3.7 million acres of tropical rainforest in the Amazonian basin. In contrast to this positive move, the World Bank, United Nations agencies and major international aid agencies have come up with the Tropical Forest Action Plan, to which they have pledged $1 billion for the next eight years. Unfortunately, only 8 percent of this money will go towards protecting natural areas; most will be used for industrial uses of forests, agroforestry programmes and strengthening forestry institutions. The plan continues to propagate the myth of sustained yield logging in tropical rainforests.