Get Serious About Averting Trouble in the Forest
BOGOR, Indonesia— With much of the world's attention riveted on Afghanistan, it is easy to forget that armed conflicts are bringing death and misery to millions of people in scores of countries around the world. Since 1989 the number of civil wars has tripled.
Some are minor affairs, but others have paralyzed whole nations and have the potential to spark off wider violence. If the world wants to avoid endless turmoil, it needs to understand what causes such conflicts. It is often claimed that the wars of the future will result from rapidly rising populations fighting over increasingly scarce resources, such as water and land. At present, though, what we see is that the desire to control natural resources such as timber, diamonds and petroleum lies behind many conflicts.
Take Nicaragua, which I recently visited to do research on forests. After reaching a remote region on the Atlantic coast, I suddenly found myself surrounded by several dozen Miskito Indian guerrillas, each carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. When it became clear to them that I was there to protect the forests, not plunder them, I was allowed to go. The Miskito had taken up arms because outsiders were seeking to exploit their timber and mineral resources.
The Miskito are not alone. Many violent conflicts occur in areas of dense tropical forest, where regular and irregular armies, timber and mining companies, indigenous people and drug cartels vie for control over natural resources.
In Cambodia both the government and the Khmer Rouge financed military campaigns by procuring and selling timber.
In eastern Congo, abundant supplies of timber and minerals have attracted a ragbag of invading forces eager to profit from the spoils of war.
Rebel forces in Angola, Liberia and Sierra Leone have prospered by exploiting diamonds and timber in regions that lie far beyond government control.
There are similar cases in Indonesia's Aceh Province, on Mindanao in the southern Philippines, in Nagaland in northeast India, in parts of Burma and in other parts of the world.
There is, it seems, a standard recipe for conflict. Take a remote and inaccessible forested area inhabited by ethnic minorities with little government presence. With its natural resources, such an area is well suited to illicit activities. Outsiders surge in to exploit the potential wealth. Add automatic weapons that can easily be bought on the black market, and the profits of plunder, and you soon end up with jungle warfare between indigenous people and those they regard as invaders.
In this 21st century Wild West, both people and forests suffer. Take the recent horrors of Colombia.
While right-wing paramilitary forces have murdered tribal leaders who have sought to resist their territorial ambitions, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have forced Indians to join their ranks. Tens of thousands of people have been killed. Both sides have appropriated the Indians' ancestral lands. Both have exploited natural resources and made vast profits from the cultivation and sale of cocaine.
Even now, while attention is focused on Afghanistan, we need to plan for a safer future by nipping future resource wars in the bud. Can this be done? Yes, but it will require foresight and courage from some of the poorest governments, and considerable assistance from the rich world.
Neglecting remote, forested regions and those who live there invites future conflict. It is vitally important that governments invest in these areas to provide them with social services, such as clinics, schools and running water, and build their credibility among the local people.
Just as important is that governments promote law and order and guarantee forest dwellers secure property rights. Many of today's conflicts could have been averted if it had been clear a long time ago who owned what, and who had the rights to exploit timber and other resources.
In the meantime, greater efforts should be made to defuse current conflicts. Since the scramble for natural resources has sparked off many of these conflicts, it is clear that determining control of these resources must be central to any negotiations.
In addition, past experience in countries like Guatemala and Liberia suggests that there is often an orgy of resource grabbing once a conflict ceases. Negotiations must plan not just for peace but for the prudent use of natural resources once conflict is over.
Of course, peace comes with a price. The governments in most countries scarred by conflict lack the financial resources to invest in remote, sparsely inhabited regions.
This is where the rich world can help. Better, surely, to spend modest sums on avoiding conflict today than billions on resolving conflicts in the future. The forests and the people who live there will thank us for it.
The writer is director-general of the Center for International Forestry Research, based in Bogor. He contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.
David Kaimowitz, director general of the Center for International Forestry Research a Future Harvest Center.
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