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Empresas y finanzas

Population boom will pressure forests


    LONDON (Reuters) - Booming demand for food, fuel and wood as the world's population surges from six to nine billion will put unprecedented and unsustainable demand on the world's remaining forests, two new reports said on Monday.

    The reports from the U.S.-based Rights and ResourcesInitiative (RRI) said this massive potential leap indeforestation could add to global warming and put pressure onindigenous forest dwellers that could lead to conflict.

    "Arguably we are on the verge of the last great global landgrab," said Andy White, co-author of "Seeing People Through theTrees," one of the two reports.

    "Unless steps are taken, traditional forest owners, and theforests themselves, will be the big losers. It will mean moredeforestation, more conflict, more carbon emissions, moreclimate change and less prosperity for everyone."

    RRI is a global coalition of environmental and conservationnon-government organisations with a particular focus on forestprotection and management and the rights of forest peoples.

    White's report said that unless agricultural productivityrises sharply, new land equivalent in size to 12 Germanys willhave to be cultivated for crops to meet food and biofuel demandby 2030.

    Virtually all of it is likely to be in developingcountries, principally land that is currently forested.

    The second report, "From Exclusion to Ownership", notedthat governments still claim ownership of most forests indeveloping countries, but said they had done little to ensurethe rights and tenure of forest dwellers.

    It said people whose main source of livelihood is theforests were usually the best custodians of the forests andtheir biodiversity.

    RRI said governments were failing to prevent industrialincursions into indigenous lands. Its report noted thatcultivation of soy and sugar cane for biofuels in Brazil isexpected to require up to 128 million hectares of land by 2020,up from 28 million hectares now, with much of it likely to comefrom deforestation in the Amazon.

    "We face a deficit of democracy plagued by violent conflictand human rights abuses," said Ghanaian civil rights lawyerKyeretwie Opoku, commenting on the reports.

    "We must address underlying inequalities by consulting andallowing forest peoples to make decisions the themselvesregarding the actions of industry and conservation," he added.

    (Reporting by Jeremy Lovell; Editing by Catherine Evans)