Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 4 • Number 21 • 19th November 2004

World Bank Warns of ‘Silent Forests’

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A World Bank report released on 19 November — entitled “Protecting Asia’s Biodiversity: From Crouching Tigers to Hidden Langurs” — calls attention to the environmental degradation resulting from East Asia’s economic growth. The report concludes that uncontrolled logging and illegal wildlife markets create ’silent forests’ completely devoid of wildlife. The report notes that while personal wealth and standards of living have risen in the region, so too has environmental degradation, resulting from increased demand for natural resources such as land for non-timber forest resources. As a result, “the region has lost 95 percent of its primary forests; individual countries have lost 70 to 90 percent of their original wilderness; and deforestation continues to accelerate the seemingly inexorable fragmentation and loss of terrestrial and aquatic habitats”. A great proportion of the blame is placed on China, where illegal logging has often compensated for insufficient legal imports to meet China’s increased demand for wood. In addition, following China’s accession to the WTO, tariffs for most timber imports were reduced to zero, thus fuelling imports of wood and expanding exports of wood products such as paper and furniture. East Asian consumption patterns also contribute to environmental degradation, as the region consumes wildlife derivatives ranging from tiger bone medicines to shark fin cuisine and serves as a key supplier to the international wildlife market, both legal and illegal. The World Bank’s senior biodiversity specialist for East Asia and Pacific, Tony Whitten, notes that “this illicit trade certainly empties forests, even if we conserve forests, there might not be wildlife in them if we don’t put a handle on the illegal wildlife trade”.

The report was released at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Bangkok following the release last week of the World Bank East Asia Update that saluted the region’s economic growth rate of seven percent and rapid recovery from the financial crisis of 1997-1998.

The report is available at http://www.worldbank.org/biodiversity

“Environment: Beware The ‘Silent Forests’, Warns World Bank,” TERRAVIVA, 11 November 2004, “East Asia: Global Uncertainties Threaten to Mar 2005,” WORLD BANK GROUP, 9 November 2004.