Topic: peru

RELEASE: 14 Latin American and Caribbean Countries Adopt an Ambitious Plan of Action to Improve Access Rights in the Region

Lauren Zelin — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:17:15 -0400

Fourteen Latin American and Caribbean countries adopted an ambitious Plan of Action to improve access rights in the region, including access to information, public participation, and access to justice. The plan, which was approved at a meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico, on April 16-17, 2013, seeks to implement the Latin American and Caribbean Declaration on Principle 10 that was signed at the Rio +20 Conference in June 2012, under which countries agreed to work towards a regional instrument to improve access rights.

The meeting began with Colombia and Honduras signing on to the LAC Declaration, a major accomplishment for all parties. The 14 countries that have now signed on include: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay.

“The new Plan of Action shows political will to transform environmental justice and transparency in the region,” said Carole Excell, Senior Associate at the World Resources Institute and The Access Initiative. “It sets the pace and the agenda to tackle the challenges of negotiating a regional instrument to ensure access rights across Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Under the new 2013-2014 Plan of Action, the LAC countries have committed to:

Promote the Principle 10 Declaration and incorporate new signatories into the process;
Strengthen and highlight the progress made on rights of access to information, participation, and justice;
Promote active participation of civil society at the national level; and
Develop working groups to deliberate capacity-building and cooperation efforts, and determine the nature and scope of the regional instrument.

Ambassador Jose Balmaceda of Chile noted that the Plan of Action “is a strong political signal to the international community that we are responding in a responsible way to this commitment [to Principle 10] … It is the first time that government representatives from 14 countries and civil society sat down to debate – with transparency and trust – relevant issues for the future of the region. This is a testament to maturity in the region. We have been able to reach consensus on the Plan of Action that will allow us to move ahead on national processes and regional efforts. I am sure that this result will motivate other nations in the region to join the process.”

The Plan of Action includes a number of innovative provisions, including procedures for public participation in the regional process and its working groups. It will create opportunities for close South-to-South cooperation on rights to promote transparency, public participation, and access to justice, as well as a focus on increased support for effective implementation at the national level.

“We hope at the end of 2014 we can count on the development of an instrument on Principle 10 that establishes concrete actions to guarantee effective and informed participation to all citizens and communities of our region,” said Daniel Barragan, Ecuadorian Center for Environmental Law (Centro Ecuatoriane de Derecho Ambinental Ambiental), an environmental law NGO. “Soon we can have a voice and be a part of the decision making on the environment and natural resources.”

In addition to adopting the Plan of Action, members elected co-chairs to run the working groups. Costa Rica and Brazil were mandated to design the regional instrument on Principle 10 and Jamaica and Columbia were given the role to facilitate work on cooperation and capacity building.

Coming Soon: Global Forest Watch 2.0

James Anderson — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 08:03:32 -0500

Welcome to the home of Global Forest Watch 2.0, a powerful near real-time forest monitoring system that unites satellite technology, data sharing, and human networks around the world to fight deforestation.

GFW 2.0 is currently under development, and will launch in late 2013.

Read more below, and email gfw2@wri.org to participate in the pilot testing period or be notified when GFW 2.0 launches. Please note that as we prepare for the launch, the original Global Forest Watch website has been redirected to this page.

Watch a Short Preview of Global Forest Watch 2.0 at the UN Forum on Forests 10, in Istanbul.

Watch the full version here

Speakers:

Zulkifli Hasan, Minister of Forestry, Indonesia
Kerri-Ann Jones, Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Wu Hongbo, Under-Secretary-General, United Nations
Naoko Ishii, CEO and Chairperson, Global Environment Facility
Tim Christophersen, Senior Program Officer, Forests and Climate Change, UNEP
Nigel Sizer, Director, Global Forests Initiative, World Resources Institute

Photo by David Gilbert

WHY FORESTS, WHY NOW?

Forests provide food jobs, raw materials, climate benefits and more. But without clear, up-to-date information, governments, companies and communities lack the tools to monitor and manage these resources.

We can track a company’s financial information daily, but information about forests is often years out of date.

Deforestation continues today in part because by the time satellite images are available, analyzed, and shared, the forest clearing is long done. The illegal loggers have moved on; cattle are already grazing amidst stumps; the oil palm plantation has been established. We simply find out too late.

New technologies can overcome these challenges

Fortunately, a convergence of technologies and human networks offers the ability to address these challenges for the first time:

Advances in satellite and remote sensing technology, including the launch of NASA’s Landsat 8 in early 2013, and new private systems, enable higher spatial resolution analysis and much more rapid updates of information. This has enabled the development of near-real-time forest cover change detection.
Brazilian partner IMAZON, is making its Amazon Alert System available through GFW 2.0, and also the DETER system which is innovating in detection of forest degradation. Brazil has seen a remarkable drop in deforestation in the Amazon of almost 80 percent partly due to improved linked to more effective use of satellite imagery.
Cloud computing and open source software can now be used to rapidly process and interpret large volumes of satellite data at low cost by utilizing clusters of servers scattered around the world. Google Earth Engine’s team is partnered with Global Forest Watch 2.0 to optimize easy access to cloud computing-based forest cover information.
High speed internet connectivity enables sending data and forest maps processed in North America, Europe, or Singapore to laptops and mobile phones in Jakarta, Kinshasa, Lima, Vladivostok, and other corners of the globe.
Smartphones are more common than ever and can be used by anyone in the field to download maps and satellite images, as well as upload GPS coordinates and photographs from the ground.
Crowdsourcing using simple web interfaces can empower thousands if not millions of people to gather and share information, participate in forest monitoring, and hold decision-makers accountable. • Social media outlets are creating a flat, networked world in which information travels fast, communities self-organize, and people get mobilized.

ABOUT GLOBAL FOREST WATCH 2.0

These enhanced technologies and social movements are the foundation for Global Forest Watch 2.0. GFW 2.0 will unite a near-real-time deforestation alert system, complementary satellite imagery and monitoring systems, WRI’s data-rich collection of maps, mobile technology, and a networked world to create never-before-possible transparency for faraway forests.

The platform is currently under development, and will be launched in late 2013.

This powerful new platform will enable responsible companies, NGOs, the media, and progressive government leaders to hold those responsible accountable for forest management.

GFW 2.0 can be useful to multiple groups of users involved with the sustainable management of forests:

Buyers of sustainable commodities. GFW 2.0 will enable buyers of sustainably sourced commodities―such as certified timber, palm oil, soya, and beef―to confirm adherence to or violations of supplier commitments to “no deforestation,” “no clearing of high conservation value forest,” and related criteria.
Suppliers of sustainable commodities. GFW 2.0 will help suppliers of sustainable commodities prove to buyers, investors, governments, and NGOs that their commodities are adhering to best forest management practices, national laws, criteria of the relevant commodity roundtables, or investor lending conditions.
Governments. GFW 2.0 is designed to help progressive elements in governments better enforce sustainable forest management and forest protection laws. GFW 2.0 is also designed to be a trusted, independent, and user-friendly way to help investors in REDD+ and other forest conservation projects monitor performance and hold countries accountable to their commitments on greenhouse gas emission reductions and forest conservation.
Conservation and community organizations. GFW 2.0 will enable NGOs dedicated to forest conservation, indigenous rights, and forest communities to identify deforestation hotspots as they arise and quickly mobilize action to curtail further clearing.
The media. GFW 2.0 will enable local, national, and international media to ring the alarm bell on deforestation hotspots around the globe at a pace never-before-possible, and thereby put pressure on governments, companies, and others to curtail forest conversion and illegal logging in time

Applying new technology

GFW 2.0 combines satellites, new algorithms, cloud computing, mobile phone technologies, and WRI databases to connect images, maps, photos, and data with forest clearing alerts ultimately within two weeks of significant deforestation occurring.

Because GFW 2.0 will be powered by Google Earth Engine and Earth Builder, it will bring to target users a seamless experience of the best technology offered by WRI, Google, and their partners, as Bloomberg does for the world’s vast, complex array of financial information.

Mobilizing human networks

GFW 2.0 will mobilize networks of people to ensure sustainable management of forests and greater forest conservation. Global Forest Watch “anchor” NGOs in each priority country or region, will actively use and contribute content in an open-source, network model.

These groups will include ScanEx and its non-profit affiliate Transparent World in Russia, Imazon in Brazil and their Amazon-wide network of partners across the seven neighboring countries, the Observatoire Satellital des Forêts d’Afrique Centrale (OSFAC) which covers the Central Africa region. More partners in Canada, China, Europe, and the United States are joining every day.

Watch a Sneak Peek of GFW 2.0 presented at Rio+20

Video streaming by Ustream

Speakers:

Carlos Souza Jr., Senior Researcher, IMAZON
Charles Barber, Forest Division Chief, Bureau of Oceans, Environment and Science, U.S. Department of State
Rebecca Moore, Google
Nigel Sizer, Director, Global Forest Initiative, World Resources Institute

Watch UNEP’s press conference featuring GFW 2.0 at COP18 in Doha

Speakers:

Mr. Heru Prasetyo, Deputy I, Presidential Delivery Unit on Development Monitoring and Oversight, Government of Indonesia
Tim Christophersen, Senior Programme Officer, Forests and Climate Change, UNEP
Jane Feehan, Natural Resources Specialist, European Investment Bank
Nigel Sizer, Director, Global Forest Initiative, World Resources Institute

Watch a Sneak Peek of Global Forest Watch 2.0 at the U.S. Pavilion, COP18 in Doha

Video streaming by Ustream

Speakers:

Nigel Sizer, Director, Forests Initiative, World Resources Institute
Nirarta “Koni” Samadhi, Head of REDD+ Task Force Working Group on Moratorium Monitoring, Presidential Work Unit on Monitoring and Development Oversight (UKP4), Government of Indonesia
Per Fredrik Ilsaas Pharo, Director, International Climate and Forest Initiative, Norwegian Ministry of the Environment, Government of Norway
Tim Christophersen, Senior Program Officer, Forests and Climate Change, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Read more about WRI’s forest work here.

EMBARQ Joins Launch of "Decade of Action for Road Safety"

Michael Oko — Thu, 12 May 2011 11:08:21 -0400

This week marks the official launch of the Decade of Action for Road Safety, a worldwide effort declared by the United Nations to save 5 million lives over a ten-year period.

Following is a statement by Claudia Adriazola, director of health and road safety for EMBARQ, highlighting the importance of sustainable transport and urban development in making streets safer:

“Traffic crashes are completely preventable. Creating more sustainable transport can really be two hands clapping on road safety. On one hand, you can reduce and prevent more driving—the real root of car crashes. On the other hand, you can improve safety for the most vulnerable and victimized—pedestrians and bicyclists. When this comes together, it can lead to not just safer cities, but also more humane and pleasant places that foster active lifestyles and cleaner air, saving even more lives and dire economic costs.”

Additional background on global road safety:

Nearly 1.3 million people are killed on the world’s roads each year, and 50 million more people are injured, with many of them disabled for life. 90 percent of road deaths occur in developing countries. If nothing is done to make roads safer, traffic crashes could double by 2030, overtaking AIDS, tuberculosis and lung cancer as the world’s fifth leading cause of premature death.

Part of the problem is the explosive growth in the number of vehicles — from cars to motorcycles — exacerbated by high speeds and a lack of regulation. Children and young people are the most at risk: Road traffic injuries are the number one cause of death among people aged 10-24 years. Pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists are also especially vulnerable.

The United Nations Road Safety Collaboration and its partners, including EMBARQ, developed the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 to guide activities planned by governments, civil society and the private sector over the next ten years to address the tremendous global burden of traffic-related fatalities and injuries.

One of the key “pillars” of activities outlined in the plan are improving the safety of road infrastructure and broader transport networks. This highlights the critical role that cities can play in making streets safer.

EMBARQ’s role in road safety:

EMBARQ— WRI’s center for sustainable transport— currently works to improve health and road safety in Mexico, Brazil, India, Peru and Turkey. At the project level, EMBARQ completes “road safety audits” in cities like Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro to improve the design of bus rapid transit (BRT) corridors before they are constructed. Problems that need to be addressed could include dangerous left turns, insufficient bicycle signage or poor lighting. EMBARQ recommends preventive measures to improve road safety along these corridors, like improving pedestrian crossings or including physical barriers between BRT lanes and car lanes. EMBARQ also evaluates the public health impact of mass transit and bicycling initiatives, measuring levels of traffic crashes, air pollution and physical activity in select cities, such as Arequipa, Peru.

In November 2009, EMBARQ was awarded a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies as part of the Bloomberg Global Road Safety Program, to implement programs in 10 low-and middle-income countries that have a high burden of road traffic injuries and fatalities, representing nearly half (48%) of traffic deaths globally. EMBARQ has also formed partnerships with the Pan American Health Organization and the U.N. Road Safety Collaboration.

# # # #

The World Resources Institute (www.wri.org) is an environmental think tank that goes beyond research to find practical ways to protect the earth and improve people’s lives.

EMBARQ - The World Resources Institute Center for Sustainable Transport (www.embarq.org) catalyzes environmentally and financially sustainable transport solutions to improve quality of life in cities.

Declarations and Due Care: Insights from Another Lacey Case

Craig Hanson — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 09:11:37 -0400

En Español

Enforcement of the amended Lacey Act has begun, both on and off the public radar. Here are tips on how to remain in compliance.

In November 2009, U.S. federal agents raided Gibson Guitar Corporation’s manufacturing facility in Nashville, Tennessee as part of an investigation into the illegal trade of a rare wood species allegedly used in some of Gibson’s musical instruments. Although the seizure made headlines, few people are aware that this was not the first enforcement of the 2008 amendments to the U.S. Lacey Act which banned commerce in illegal timber and paper products in the United States. There was one before it that has received little attention, until now.

A plank of tigrillo (Swartzia arborescens) on the left and of tigre caspi (Zygia cataractae) on the right. Photos: www.woodworkerssource.com

Five months earlier, agents of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service seized three pallets of tropical hardwood as they entered the Port of Tampa, Florida from Iquitos, Peru. Originating deep in the Amazon, the pallets contained numerous species of decorative woods, including tigrillo (Swartzia arborescens), palisangre (Brosimum rubescens), and tigre caspi (Zygia cataractae). Unlike the Gibson case, agents confiscated the wood on grounds that the shipment violated Lacey’s declaration requirements. The seizure was supported by substantial evidence that the exporter was using stolen and forged documents. [Details of the U.S. Department of Interior Decision are available here (PDF)]

It appears that the amended Lacey Act has teeth. Enforcement has begun, both on and off the public radar. This is a good development for the world’s forests and for all law-abiding businesses.

The century-old U.S. law has been an effective means of curtailing illegal wildlife trade. It was amended in 2008 to cover products made from trees and other plants. In effect since May 22, 2008, the law:

Learn More in our Lacey Act Fact Sheet

Prohibits trade into and within U.S. borders of any product made from trees or other plants that were logged or traded in violation of a law in the country of harvest. Products include paper, lumber, and furniture;
Requires importers of plant products to declare the country of harvest, the genus and species of the plant, as well as the product’s volume and value (this is the “declaration requirement”); and
Establishes penalties for violations, including forfeiture of goods and vessels, fines of up to $500,000, and prison terms of up to five years.

The seizure of Peruvian tropical hardwood provides several insights into enforcement of the amended Lacey Act and what one needs to do to remain in compliance, namely:

1. Take the declaration requirement seriously—the U.S. government does. Declarations are the first line of defense against the import of illegally harvested wood and other plant products. Because of this focus, it is important to correctly fill out your declaration forms.

2. Heed red flags. Peculiarities that arise in the course of a business transaction should trigger an importer or buyer to ask more questions about the product’s origin and legality and, if necessary, step away from the transaction. The Peru case had at least four peculiarities. First, this was the first time the buyer had imported from Peru, thus it was purchasing from an unfamiliar source market. Second, an exporter in Peru contacted the buyer out of the blue with wood to sell; the buyer did not initiate the deal. Third, prior to the transaction, the buyer had received an email indicating that the company supplying the material had suspended its business operations. Fourth, the supplier in Peru requested receiving payment via money order made directly to an individual, not a company. Red flags, anyone?

3. Demonstrate due care. At the core of the amended Lacey Act is the responsibility of each buyer—no matter where in the supply chain—to conduct “due care.” Due care is the legal term for exercising the level of appropriate action that would be taken by a reasonably prudent person under the same circumstances to minimize the risk of purchasing plant products that were harvested or traded illegally. The Office of the Solicitor stated that the buyer of the Peruvian wood “did not do all he could within his power to comply with regulations and ensure that the shipment was authorized by an export permit that properly documented the required information and was declared appropriately under the Lacey Act upon arrival to the United States.”

What could someone in the buyer’s position have done? Well, is this the first time you are buying wood or paper from a particular country? Then learn about the degree to which illegal logging is prevalent there and assess your comfort level with assuming this risk. Is this a new supplier? Then do your homework on it. Did you learn of problems affecting the supplier? Then probe further to understand the nature of the problems and the level of risk they pose to you. If this and other research still leaves you suspicious, find another supplier. Document your efforts in writing.

4. Be aware that there are many ways to detect Lacey violations. False declaration statements, satellite imagery of logging in protected areas, fiber testing to identify protected species in a sheet of paper, random wood inspections, and undercover investigations of illicit transactions are but a few of the ways people can detect violations of the Lacey Act. Two played an important role in the Peru case. First, on the declaration form, the buyer’s import broker classified the three pallets as containing finished wood products when, in fact, the pallets contained raw wood. This incorrect classification enabled the importer to avoid having to fill out more detail about the shipment since, at the time, full declarations for finished wood products had not been phased in. But a visual inspection can detect the difference. Second, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service received a tip in May 2009, based on substantial evidence, that a shipment of wood from Iquitos, Peru with stolen and forged documents was on its way to Tampa on the ship Yacu Puma. The “tipster” had become aware of the cargo when he received a bill from the shipper for a shipment that was not his. There are many “eyes and ears” out there, some from unsuspected places.

5. Manage your supply chain. Lacey Act violations can occur anywhere along the forest product supply chain. Thus the well worn adage “a chain is only as good as its weakest link” applies here too. In the Peru case, actions by the broker had ramifications for the buyer.

6. Ignorance is no excuse. In the words of the U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of the Solicitor involved in this case, “a company that specializes in international shipments should be well versed in the applicable laws that govern such transactions and should also be up to date on any amendments to the laws. The Lacey Act amendments were passed in 2008, giving the industry time to adjust and become familiar with the changes before enforcement began.”

One concluding insight is that there is a lot going on behind the scenes. This wood seizure occurred in June, 2009 but is now just coming into public light. How many more actions have occurred and how many investigations are currently underway that are still confidential for legal reasons? Nobody knows.

But what we do know is that the U.S. government has given the amended Lacey Act teeth.

For more information about how you can conduct due care when purchasing forest products, visit www.forestlegality.org.

En Español

Declaraciones y el Concepto de “Debido Cuidado”: Lecciones de Otro Caso Lacey

En noviembre del 2009, agentes del gobierno federal de los Estados Unidos hicieron una redada en la planta de fabricación de la empresa Gibson Guitar (Gibson Guitar Corporation) en Nashville, Tennessee. La redada formó parte de una investigación sobre el tráfico ilegal de una especie de madera rara que se alega fue usada en la fabricación de instrumentos musicales de la marca Gibson. Aunque este evento se convirtió en una noticia de primera plana, pocos saben que esta no fue la primera acción de aplicación de la Ley Lacey que, gracias a una enmienda en 2008, prohíbe la comercialización en los Estados Unidos de productos de madera y papel de origen ilegal. Hubo otra acción de aplicación que, hasta ahora, no ha recibido suficiente atención.

Tabla de tigrillo (Swartzia arborescens) (izquierda) y de tigre caspi (Zygia cataractae) (derecha). Fuente: www.woodworkerssource.com

Cinco meses antes de la redada en la fábrica de Gibson, agentes del Servicio de Pesca y Vida Silvestre de los Estados Unidos (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) confiscaron tres palés de madera tropical dura cuando arribaron al puerto de Tampa, Florida, procedentes de Iquitos, Perú. Los palés contenían numerosas especies madereras ornamentales de árboles que viven en el corazón del Amazonas; estas especies abarcaban tigrillo (Swartzia arborescens), palisangre (Brosimum rubescens), y tigre caspi (Zygia cataractae). A diferencia del caso Gibson, los agentes del gobierno federal confiscaron la madera porque se encontró que la documentación del embarque violaba los requisitos de declaración que estipula la Ley Lacey. También había evidencia sólida de que el exportador estaba usando documentos robados y falsificados.

Parece ser que la enmienda de la Ley Lacey tiene garra. La aplicación de la Ley está ocurriendo tras bambalinas y en la escena pública. Estos acontecimientos son positivos para los bosques del mundo, y para los negocios que operan en cumplimiento con la ley.

La centenaria Ley Lacey de los Estados Unidos ha sido una herramienta eficaz para combatir el tráfico ilegal de vida silvestre. En el 2008 la Ley fue modificada para abarcar productos fabricados con árboles y plantas. La Ley entró en efecto el 22 de mayo de 2008 y:

Prohíbe la importación y comercialización en los Estados Unidos de cualquier producto que haya sido fabricado con árboles y otras plantas que hayan sido talados o comercializados infringiendo las leyes del país de origen. Los productos abarcan papel, madera, y muebles;
Requiere que los importadores de productos de origen vegetal declaren el país de donde la materia prima fue obtenida, el género y especie de la planta, y el volumen y valor del producto (estos son los “requisitos de declaración”); y
Establece penalidades por violaciones, abarcando embargo de bienes y vehículos de transporte, multas de hasta $500,000 dólares, y encarcelamiento de hasta cinco años.

El embargo de la madera dura tropical proveniente de Perú proporciona varias lecciones sobre la aplicación de la enmienda de la Ley Lacey, y acciones clave que son necesarias para cumplir con la ley, en especial:

Tomar en serio los requisitos de declaración, tal como lo hace el gobierno de los Estados Unidos. Las declaraciones de aduana constituyen la línea primordial de defensa para prevenir la importación de madera de origen ilegal, y de otros productos vegetales de origen ilegal. Debido a esto, es importante llenar correctamente los formularios de declaración.
Prestar atención a las señales de alerta o “red flags”. Hay una serie de hechos singulares que, si emergen durante el curso de una transacción de negocios, deberían de hacer que el importador o comprador haga más preguntas sobre el origen y la legalidad del producto y, si es necesario, suspenda la compra. En el caso de Perú hubo, por lo menos, cuatro rasgos. Para empezar, esta era la primera vez que el comprador importaba productos de Perú, y estaba comprando en un mercado con el que no estaba familiarizado. Segundo, un exportador en Perú contactó al comprador con la mercancía de manera inesperada; el comprador no inició la transacción de compra. Tercero, antes de la transacción, el comprador recibió un correo electrónico indicando que la empresa que estaba proporcionado la mercancía había suspendido sus operaciones. Cuarto, el proveedor en Perú solicitó que el pago se hicieran a través de giro postal, pago directo a un individuo, no a una empresa. ¿Se necesita más alertas?
Demostrar que se ejerció el cuidado debido. El aspecto central de la enmienda de la Ley Lacey es la responsabilidad que tiene cada uno de los compradores―sin importar a qué nivel se encuentren en la cadena de suministro―de ejercer el “cuidado debido.” El cuidado debido es un concepto legal que significa el tomar la(s) acción(es) apropiada(s) que una persona razonablemente prudente ejercitaría en circunstancias similares para minimizar el riesgo de compra de productos vegetales que fueron extraídos o comercializados ilegalmente. La Oficina del Abogado del Departamento del Interior que investigó el caso indicó que el comprador de la madera proveniente de Perú “no hizo todo lo que podía haber hecho para cumplir con las regulaciones y asegurarse de que el envío estaba autorizado por un permiso de exportación que documentaba apropiadamente la información requerida, y que contenía la declaración apropiada requerida por la Ley Lacey una vez que llegó a los Estados Unidos.”

¿Qué puede hacer alguien que se encuentra en una situación como esta? ¿Es la primera vez que está comprando productos de madera o papel en un país? Entonces infórmese sobre la prevalencia de la tala ilegal en el país, evalúe el riesgo y determine su nivel de confianza con dicho riesgo. ¿Está negociando con un proveedor nuevo? Averigüe más sobre el proveedor. ¿Está enterado de los problemas que tiene su proveedor? Entonces haga preguntas para entender mejor los problemas y evaluar el nivel de riesgo que puede representar para su negocio. Si después de todas estas averiguaciones existen sospechas, busque otro proveedor. Documente por escrito todos estos esfuerzos.

Sepa que existen muchas maneras de detectar violaciones de la Ley Lacey. Declaraciones falsas, uso de imágenes de satélite para detectar tala de árboles en áreas protegidas, análisis de papel para identificar el uso de fibras de especies protegidas, inspecciones aleatorias de la madera, e investigaciones con operaciones encubiertas son algunas de las muchas maneras que pueden ser usadas para detectar violaciones a la Ley Lacey. Hubo dos elementos de este tipo que fueron importantes en el caso de Perú. Primero, en la clasificación de tipo de producto en el formulario de la declaración, el agente de importaciones del comprador declaró que los palés contenían productos de madera terminados cuando en realidad contenían madera en bruto. Con esta clasificación incorrecta, el importador se evitó agregar más detalles sobre el embarque porque, en ese tiempo, el requisito de declaración de la Ley Lacey para productos terminados no había entrado en efecto. Sin embargo, la inspección visual puede detectar estas diferencias. Segundo, en mayo 2009 el Servicio de Pesca y Vida Silvestre de los Estados Unidos recibió un aviso, basado en evidencia sólida, de un envío de madera en la embarcación Yacu Puma, proveniente de Iquitos, Perú, y con destino a Tampa, que tenía documentación robada y falsificada. La persona que dio el aviso se enteró de la existencia del envío porque recibió una factura de la compañía naviera por un envío que su empresa no había hecho. Hay “muchos ojos y oídos,” y algunos están en lugares inesperados.
Gestione su cadena de suministro. Las violaciones a la Ley Lacey pueden ocurrir en cualquier punto a lo largo de la cadena de suministro de los productos de bosque. El dicho “la fortaleza de una cadena depende del eslabón más débil” (“a chain is only as strong as its weakest link”) se aplica en este caso. En el caso de Perú, las acciones del agente de importaciones tuvieron ramificaciones para el comprador.
La ignorancia no es una excusa. Usando las palabras de la Oficina del Abogado del Departamento del Interior de los Estados Unidos, para este caso, “una empresa que se especializa en hacer envíos internacionales debería conocer bien las leyes relevantes que gobiernan este tipo de transacciones, y debería estar actualizada con cualquier enmienda que se haga a dichas leyes. La enmienda de la Ley Lacey se aprobó en 2008, dándole a la industria el tiempo suficiente para ajustarse y familiarizarse con los cambios antes de que comenzara el cumplimiento.”

Una conclusión final es que hay muchas cosas ocurriendo tras bambalinas. El embargo de esta madera ocurrió en Junio 2009, pero apenas está saliendo a la luz pública. ¿Qué otras acciones han ocurrido? y ¿Cuántas otras investigaciones hay en curso que todavía son confidenciales por razones legales? Nadie lo sabe.

Lo que sí sabemos es que el Gobierno de los Estados Unidos le ha dado garra a la enmienda de la Ley Lacey.

Para mayor información sobre cómo se puede conducir el cuidado debido en la compra de productos forestales, visite el sitio de Internet www.forestlegality.org.

REDD Alert: Lessons from Peru’s Camisea Pipeline Project

Janet Ranganathan — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:48:31 -0400

Can forest-rich countries learn from the mistakes of extractive projects and avoid unleashing their own resource curse?

For poor developing countries, exploiting natural wealth such as minerals and metals should prove a blessing, offering the potential to generate huge revenues and help lift them out of poverty. Instead many have been inflicted by the “natural resource curse”, in which countries with an abundance of natural resources enjoy less economic growth and worse development outcomes than those endowed with less of Nature’s bounty.

Despite efforts to improve governance and oversight related to extractive industries projects, the natural resource curse persists today. A recent WRI, Oxfam and Bank Information Center report shines the spotlight on the Camisea natural gas project in Peru and highlights the importance of investing in sub-national governance and capacity building before scaling up investments in natural resource projects.

$1 billion in gas revenue, but poverty remains

The findings of the report, People, Power and Pipelines, as described in this article, have implications not only for extractive industry projects, but also for forest management in developing countries. In particular, international financial institutions, national governments and other stakeholders involved in REDD - that seek to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation - should learn from the mistakes of extractive projects and avoid unleashing their own resource curse.

Read the Report

The massive Camisea project’s gas production infrastructure and pipeline physically impacted five of Peru’s 24 regions, three of which are among the poorest in the country. Between 2004 and 2009, over $1 billion in gas revenues were distributed to sub-national governments. Yet the social benefits have arguably been slight. In 2008 close to 60% of Peru’s rural population remained mired in poverty, including regions benefiting from pipeline revenues, and despite the fact that national poverty levels declined steadily from 2006 through 2008. In addition, the project took a heavy toll on local ecosystems with three major oil spills occurring within the first 15 months of construction.

Local governments unprepared for influx of funds

Peru embarked on a substantial decentralization process in 2002, handing more political and fiscal control to sub-national governments. This meant that provincial and district governments in the vicinity of the project were unprepared, only two years later, either to manage the significant social and environmental risks associated with a major gas pipeline or to effectively deploy the massive revenues generated.

Peru: Camisea Pipeline Path and Poverty

Against this backdrop, People, Power and Pipelines analyzed the experience of sub-national government in the Cusco region in managing the natural gas project’s impact and associated revenues between 2005 and 2007, researching public records and conducting interviews with key players. The report’s findings highlight five challenges, stemming largely from weaknesses in sub-national planning and capacity, which may provide an instructive lesson for similar situations in other countries and sectors.

Significant surplus revenues were carried over from year to year by sub-national Governments, without applying an investment strategy. This resulted in missed opportunities to gain returns on these funds, address the risks of oil price volatility and to prepare for the eventual decrease in gas revenues.
While institutions, procedures and plans for fiscal management were in place, interviews with municipal officials suggested that these were rarely used in day to day administration.
A lack of strategic planning hindered municipal governments’ ability to coordinate large land use projects, plan for the future, and manage the impacts of infrastructure expansion in environmentally and socially sensitive regions. For example, a road was built through the Megantoni National Sanctuary without assessments of impacts on the local environment or on indigenous populations.
Visible investments, such as roads and buildings, were favored over less visible investments that would enhance social capital such as health, education, and agriculture.
Public access to information on how gas revenues were being used was limited and insufficient for citizens to hold government accountable.

Lessons for REDD Revenues

Peru’s experiences from the Camisea project could prove instructive for REDD as the international community ramps up efforts to provide a financial compensation mechanism for developing country actions to reduce emissions from forest loss. Although funding for REDD will likely take different forms, a frontrunner option is to link it to carbon markets in developed countries. Companies would then meet their emission reduction commitments by channeling funding to REDD projects in forest-rich countries.

If REDD does not work as intended, its failure could not only undermine climate reduction goals in developed countries but also inflict a new kind of resource curse on developing nations.

Like Camisea, and extractive projects more broadly, carbon markets would generate funding for poor, but natural- resource- rich, nations, at a scale rarely seen before. There is a risk, though. If REDD does not work as intended, its failure could not only undermine climate reduction goals in developed countries but also inflict a new kind of resource curse on developing nations.

Drawing on Peru’s Camisea experience, international financial institutions and others designing REDD should therefore:

Withhold access to carbon markets until in-country governance and capacity is sufficient to manage the scale up of funds. Indicators developed by WRI’s Governance of Forests Initiative (GFI), for example, can be used to assess the strengths and weaknesses of forest governance in a given country.
Support sub-national capacity building for long-term strategic planning and programs that strengthen transparency and accountability mechanisms for tracking revenues and expenditures in areas where REDD funds are channeled.
Draw on and adapt best practices from successful extractive industry projects to avoid known pitfalls.

Above all, careful sequencing of governance and capacity building should be employed before scaling up revenue flows. This will help ensure that urgently needed REDD and extractive industry payments are used in a way that generates long term development benefits, especially for the poor. It will create incentives for strengthening developing country governance and capacity. And it will help architects of REDD avoid inflicting a new “REDD resource curse” on nations whose wealth lies in forests.

Linnea Laestadius is an intern with the Office of the Vice President for Science and Research at WRI. She is a PhD student in Health and Public Policy and a CLF Farming the Future Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Tracking Transformative Forest Actions to Reduce Emissions: An Illegal Logging Case Study

Maggie Barron — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:09:37 -0400

Executive Summary

Climate-related forest actions

The world’s forests play a unique and complex role in the global carbon budget, as emissions from land use change—particularly deforestation— represent around 12–15% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, yet forests also act as an essential carbon sink through storage and sequestration (van der Werf et al. 2009). Efforts to maintain standing forests or enhance total forest area will therefore be a vital component of international climate mitigation efforts.

At the 2007 meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), countries adopted the Bali Action Plan as a roadmap to a new international climate agreement. The Plan included a commitment to develop and implement “policy approaches and positive incentives on issues relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries,” commonly known as REDD (UNFCCC 2007, p. 3). During subsequent negotiations, the scope of REDD has expanded to include activities to manage forests sustainably and to increase and conserve carbon stocks (collectively known as REDD+).

While there continues to be a number of unresolved issues in the REDD+ negotiations, including how REDD+ activities would be financed and whether or not industrialized countries would be allowed to buy the emissions reductions generated by developing countries to meet their own targets, on one key element the negotiations have remained relatively steady: the need for a “performance-based” or “results-based” approach for recognizing and supporting actions taken under the Bali Action Plan. In practice this means countries need to have the ability to measure, report, and verify that they have taken promised actions to mitigate emissions (UNFCCC 2007; AWG-LCA 2009; UNFCCC 2009). For REDD+, these discussions have focused on the ability to quantify emissions reductions, including the capacity of all countries to complete and improve national GHG inventories over time.

In addition to the discussions in the UNFCCC, there are parallel conversations in which the issue of measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) has emerged as an important topic. These have occurred in programs that provide upfront finance for countries taking readiness and emission reduction activities like the UN Collaborative Programme on REDD (UN-REDD), the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and Forest Investment Program (FIP), and in bilateral discussions between countries.

Finally, staff in countries responsible for developing REDD+ strategies have themselves identified the need to be able to track where REDD+ strategies are being successfully implemented in order to ensure proper policy design and implementation.

While it is not yet clear how all these initiatives will overlap in terms of the MRV discussion, in all three spaces there are several reasons why countries may wish or need to track activities and outcomes other than those represented by emissions reductions to demonstrate effectiveness in meeting their commitments to various stakeholders. First, given the complexity of the actions that will need to be taken, it may be difficult to track the performance of actions taken purely by looking at emissions reductions, particularly in the short term. Second, many developing countries will need financing support—in the form of grants, loans, or sales of future emissions reductions—to develop and implement national strategies designed to reduce emissions. Depending on country circumstances and the types of activities undertaken, demonstrating results to donor countries or initiatives may require tracking results using metrics other than emissions reductions. Third, and most importantly, domestic decision makers will need a broad array of data at their disposal to assess whether they are on course to achieving their climate mitigation goals and other linked objectives.

About this paper

This paper explores the types of information and supporting data that domestic actors will need to ensure that national strategies to reduce emissions are being developed and implemented effectively. It does so by focusing on measures to address illegal logging, drawing on specific strategies and recommendations from stakeholder processes in Peru and Indonesia, to consider:

the types of actions that countries may need to undertake;
the types of information they will need to gather to track implementation of mitigation actions over time and how they might begin collecting this information; and
the differential data needs for domestic and international MRV.

Based on this bottom-up information, we then provide options for how a performance-based approach in the UNFCCC and/or for upfront climate financing programs or initiatives could be developed without creating an additional burden on developing countries.

People, Power, and Pipelines: Lessons from Peru in the Governance of Gas Production Revenues

admin — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Countering the resource curse

For poor countries with abundant natural resources, extractive industries offer the potential of generating enormous revenues. These revenues can fuel economic growth and be directed to combat poverty and improve the well-being of local communities. Experience has shown, however, that large-scale mining and oil and gas prospecting and extraction carry serious environmental and social risks for host countries, with many of the impacts borne by local communities. Host countries also face the risk of the “resource curse,” where poor management of the revenues generated from extractive industries slows economic growth, increases economic volatility and corruption, and sometimes leads to conflict, rather than creating prosperity.

Developing countries that are advancing their extractive industries sectors face the challenges of managing and mitigating the associated risks of development, while ensuring that the economic benefits are channeled to alleviate poverty. Many of these countries are taking measures to address these risks with help from public international financial institutions (IFIs), such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).1 In this context, these institutions can play an important role by offering support for public-sector reforms to improve the transparency and accountability of extractive sectors at the national level.

Where fiscal decentralization schemes are in place, subnational governments (SNGs) assume a particularly vital role in managing extractive industry revenues. IFIs can help build the capacity, transparency, and accountability of SNGs, so SNGs can manage extractive industry revenues in a manner that provides long-term benefits to local communities. In many countries, IFIs also lend money to governments and the private sector in direct support of extractive projects, which enables them to use their influence as lenders and investors to empower government agencies to promote revenue-distribution schemes that benefit local community areas affected by projects.

This report suggests ways in which IFIs can improve their role in the extractives sector by giving greater support to SNGs in managing extractive industry risks and revenues and by drawing lessons from recent experiences in Peru. For IFI-supported initiatives in the extractive industries to be successful in reducing poverty and improving well-being, the initiatives must be linked to and preceded by support for programs to increase government capacity to regulate activities with high social and environmental risks and to manage revenue flows at both the national and subnational levels. Without this support, government agencies may find themselves unable to manage a myriad of challenges at each stage in the development of large-scale projects. The 2004 Extractive Industries Review (EIR),2 an independent review of the World Bank’s extractive industry lending, concluded that for the World Bank’s interventions to lead to sustainable development, governance systems must be strengthened before investments in extractive industries sector are made. The EIR spurred a number of initiatives to strengthen the quality of governance by increasing the transparency of private and public extractive industry revenue flows at the national level (see Box 1). Nevertheless, more attention is needed— particularly from the IFIs—on building the capacity of SNGs to manage these flows and to ensure that revenues are invested in the well-being of local communities.

In context: Peru

Peru—which is highly dependent on income from extractive industries revenue—has been undergoing an aggressive process of political and fiscal decentralization and introduced policies to increase the transparency of its subnational revenue flows. As a result, SNGs3 in Peru must play a crucial role in managing the risks associated with extractive industries within their jurisdictions, while also ensuring that the revenues generated by the sector support local development that alleviates poverty and improves the well-being of local communities.

IFIs have supported the process of political and economic decentralization in Peru and have also invested in the extractive industries sector. They have provided technical and financial support to public-sector agencies, including support for public revenue management systems. IFIs also directly finance a number of extractive industries projects. The decentralization reforms and the expansion of extractive industries projects have increased the volume of funds being transferred to rural areas. However, official figures show that while national poverty rates declined steadily between 2005 and 2008 in Peru, as of 2008 close to 60 percent of the rural population remained in poverty.4 Given the important role IFIs have played in shaping this sector in Peru, they are well positioned to diagnose why poverty persists in the context of such wealth and to determine the role that IFIs, Peru’s national government, and SNGs each should play to address this challenge.

To inform such a diagnosis, this report examines Peru’s Camisea natural gas project and draws lessons from the challenges faced by SNGs in managing the revenues from that project. Between 2004 and 2009, the Camisea project generated approximately $1.13 billion5 in public revenues for SNGs, which the Peruvian national government distributed through mechanisms called “the gas Canon” and the Camisea Fund for Socioeconomic Development (FOCAM). The Peruvian national government uses gas and mining Canons (transfers of natural-resource-based revenues) to distribute half the revenue it collects from extractive industries to SNGs. The government created the FOCAM inter-governmental transfer to allow all regions impacted by the Camisea project—not just those containing physical gas reserves—to receive compensation.

The Camisea project—the largest producer of hydrocarbons in Peru— benefited from both public and private financing. The public banks that provided financing included the IDB, the Andean Development Corporation, Brazilian National Development Bank, and Peru’s Banco de Crédito. A second phase of the project, the Peru Liquefied Natural Gas Project (Peru LNG, also known as Camisea II) supports the export of natural gas from the Camisea fields through a new pipeline to a natural gas liquefaction plant on the Pacific coast. This $3.9 billion project, due for completion in 2010, received financing from a consortium of lenders, including the IDB, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Export-Import Bank of the United States, Export-Import Bank of Korea, and SACE S.p.A. of Italy.

To put the Camisea project into context, the report describes Peru’s turbulent history with extractive industries development as well as the recent decentralization process that has devolved revenue management authority to subnational governments. The report also examines the risks and governance challenges posed by the project and the mechanisms by which its revenues are distributed to subnational governments. Finally, the report analyzes SNG management of Camisea revenues generated between 2005 and 2007.

The report finds that planning failures by both the Peruvian national government and IFIs undermined governance by not building greater SNG capacity before massive extractives revenue transfers began to flow in 2006. The fragile SNG capacity places in question the long-term development impact of Camisea wealth.

IFIs have played an important role in catalyzing and providing investment in oil and mining projects, and thus they share with the Peruvian government the responsibility to ensure that the financial benefits of extractive industries projects are directed towards poverty alleviation and sustainable development. By highlighting the challenges of promoting good governance at the subnational level in the context of dramatic increases in revenue transfers in a region with limited strategic planning capacity, this report informs the design of future IFI investments in similar contexts.

In this report

Section 1 briefly examines the context of extractive industries development in Peru, including the decentralization process—which created regional governments and devolved authority and resources to local governments—and the role of public IFIs.
Section 2 provides an overview of the Camisea natural gas project, including its structure and financing and the associated risks and challenges. An overview of selected IFI programs to support SNGs revenue management capacity can be found in Annex 4.
Section 3 describes how Camisea project revenues are distributed to the regions directly and indirectly impacted by the project’s operations.
Section 4 outlines key findings from the evaluation of SNG experiences in the region of Cusco in managing revenues from the Camisea project between 2005 and 2007. The evaluation examines government performance in managing these revenues at three levels: regional, district, and project. This section also provides an overview of the Cusco case study scope, methodology, and limitations.
Section 5 outlines recommendations for specific areas where IFIs could target their efforts as they support programs to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of SNG management of public revenues.
Section 6 suggests next steps that IFIs could take to address the report findings.
Section 7 provides a summary statement.

Key findings

The report findings—which inform efforts to support subnational government capacity building by IFIs and others—address SNG capacities for strategic planning, fiscal administration, and operational management.

They also provide insights into SNG mechanisms for transparency and public accountability, as well as into local citizen awareness of Camisea revenue transfers.

The study produced a number of findings related to the management of gas production revenues from the Camisea project in Peru:

SNG expenditures have increased substantially, with the majority of investment spending in infrastructure. However, SNGs are carrying over significant surplus revenues from year to year and are missing opportunities to address risks of oil price volatility and to prepare for the eventual decrease in gas revenues.
SNGs have made progress in establishing the institutions and procedures needed for effective fiscal management.
A lack of planning documents at the municipal level suggests that SNG strategic planning capacity is weak and that investment choices have not been based on a medium-to-long-term view or on a coherent strategy.
SNGs have made progress in designing mechanisms for providing public access to information, but these mechanisms still fall short of what is required by Peruvian law and of what is necessary to enable citizens to hold SNGs accountable. Also, public knowledge of the gas Canon among urban residents of the municipalities benefiting from Camisea revenue is limited, decreasing citizens’ ability to monitor public spending and to hold local governments to account.

Recommendations

Our analysis suggests a number of actions by IFIs to address the findings documented in this report:

Withhold project support to commercial extractive industry companies until in-country governance conditions and government capacity is sufficient to manage the financial windfall associated with these projects for development and poverty-reduction purposes. This recommendation is in line with the recommendations of the World Bank’s independent EIR. Prior to investment, IFIs should determine minimum threshold governance indicators and disclose their assessment prior to project financing. When IFIs do chose to finance extractive industry projects, they should consistently include in their loans accountability performance indicators focused on local outcomes.
Provide support for programs to build SNG capacity for long-term strategic planning that are designed to address poverty alleviation while minimizing the environmental and social tradeoffs of infrastructure investments.
Provide support for programs that strengthen the transparency and accountability mechanisms that promote and facilitate public oversight at the local level in areas with extractive industries.
Provide support for initiatives that help SNGs review their progress, document lessons learned, and exchange this information with peer institutions and the public.
Evaluate and share lessons learned across IFI programs and projects aimed at building SNG capacity for extractive industry revenue management and foster multi-stakeholder dialogue to replicate successful approaches.

MEDIA ADVISORY: CTS-Brasil, Challenge Bibendum Unite Latin American Mayors to Advance Sustainable Urban Transport

Paul Mackie — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:24:02 -0500

WHAT: The 2009 Sustainable Mobility Convention in Urban Renewal, hosted by the Center for Sustainable Transport in Brazil (CTS-Brasil), a member of the World Resources Institute’s EMBARQ Network, and Challenge Bibendum, an initiative sponsored by Michelin. The two-day event will gather mayors and transport officials from the 120 biggest cities in Latin America to discuss innovative initiatives for urban renewal and sustainable transport. For more info, go here.

WHEN: Wednesday, November 25 and Thursday, November 26, 2009

WHERE: Sofitel Rio de Janeiro Copacabana Av. Atlântica, 4240, Copacabana, 22070-002, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Phone: (+55) 21 25251232

WHO: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, will present at the Opening Ceremony, along with the governor of Rio de Janeiro, Sergio Cabral, and the mayor of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes. The Convention will also attract leaders like Jaime Lerner, former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, who conceived and implemented the first bus rapid transit system in the world, and Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, who greatly improved mobility and accessibility in the capital.

WHY: Participants will discuss alternatives for a more equitable and sustainable use of road space, opportunities for integrating the use of private and public transportation, and best practices of non-motorized transport in the urban context.

RSVP: Rejane Fernandes, CTS-Brasil communications and institutional relations coordinator +55 (51) 3312-6324, rfernandes@ctsbrasil.org

Bloomberg Philanthropies Awards EMBARQ, Partners $125 Million for Global Road Safety Work

Paul Mackie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:11:34 -0500

EMBARQ – The World Resources Institute Center for Sustainable Transport is one of six organizations awarded a total of $125 million by Michael Bloomberg to implement programs in low- and middle-income countries to prevent death and disability from road traffic crashes. This is the largest single donation ever for international road safety.

“Bloomberg Philanthropies is an ideal global strategic partner that will allow EMBARQ to continue to achieve results in some of the world’s most iconic and populated cities,” said Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute. “It is a significant milestone that Bloomberg recognizes the value of sustainable urban mobility in improving road safety and public health.”

Road traffic crashes kill 1.2 million people and injure up to 50 million each year, according to the World Health Organization. Road traffic injuries are projected to be the fifth leading cause of death globally by 2030. To reverse these trends, Bloomberg’s five-year program will focus on 10 low- and middle-income countries that have a high burden of road traffic injuries and fatalities, representing 48 percent of traffic deaths globally.

EMBARQ’s programs will focus on incorporating sustainable transport and reduced emissions in urban planning. “Helmets and seatbelts are very important, but you also have to think about policies that protect all urban residents, not just transport users,” said Nancy Kete, director of EMBARQ, which includes a network of Centers for Sustainable Transport based in Mexico, Brazil, India, Turkey and the Andean Region. “We’re tackling the problem at the root by considering all of the health and safety benefits associated with mass transit, cycling, walking, clean fuels and vehicles, and vibrant public spaces. These solutions not only provide safer streets, but they also lead to cleaner air, reduced carbon emissions, more physically active citizens, and greater social inclusion.”

Other organizations involved in the initiative include the World Health Organization, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the World Bank Global Road Safety Facility, Global Road Safety Partnership and the Association for Safe International Road Travel.

“We look forward to collaborating with the other Bloomberg partners,” said Claudia Adriazola, EMBARQ’s expert on road safety. “Our success will depend on a coordinated effort to achieve results, and that’s what makes this program so powerful.”

Learning to Walk in Arequipa, Peru

Ethan Arpi — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:30:25 -0400

EMBARQ’s Ethan Arpi brings an update from Arequipa after the city turns its main commercial drag into a zone for pedestrians.

This post originally appeared onThe City Fix.

Over the summer I had the opportunity to visit Arequipa, Peru’s southern-most major city, and see first hand all the work that the city and regional governments have done to make the city more pedestrian friendly. So far, Arequipa has completed one major project, the pedestrianization of Mercaderes, the main commercial drag in the heart of the city. This street was once jam packed with cars, many of which were old and belched out dirty fumes that darkened the air.

Now, the street is remarkably clean and quiet. It’s a pleasant place to stroll, go shopping, and people watch. I talked with a few pedestrians and merchants whose stores lined the street and they all agreed that Mercaderes was much improved without the car traffic. Some even suggested that more streets in the city should ban cars and become more like Mercaderes.

In fact, the city is planning to do exactly that. Its goal is to connect several of the more important streets in the city’s historic downtown, a UNESCO world heritage site, by making them pedestrian only. It also plans to replace the city’s chaotic transit system of small vans and buses with a bus rapid transit system that has fixed stops and bus-exclusive lanes. If the transit project goes through, it will be a boon for city residents and will dramatically improve the quality of life for people who live in Arequipa.

The Access Initiative: a Network in Action

Monika Kerdeman — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:07:44 -0400

Here is a quick summary of recent progress by Access Initiative partners working to strengthen civil society, increase participation, and improve environmental policy choices.

Over the past 10 years Access Initiative (TAI) partners from 50 different countries have played important roles in strengthening civil society and government capacity in order to build the foundations needed to move access rights forward. 2009 is proving to be no different. Partners from around the world are helping to open up the decision-making the processes for environmental issues, by widening the range of voices heard and improving the quality of policy choices available.

In the past year and a half, TAI partners have taken part in activities to reform transparency laws, train government officers to involve people in development planning, help build awareness among judges and media about the public’s ability to influence decisions that affect the environment. This work has lead to changes at the national and regional levels.

Some specific changes resulting from the work of TAI partners include:

Access to participation in decision-making enhances the ability of a government to be responsive to public concern and demands, to build consensus, and to improve acceptance of and compliance with environmental decisions.

Access to justice allows people to hold government agencies, companies and individuals accountable.

Meaningful participation requires access to information that forms the basis for decisions, the opportunity to voice opinions and the ability to influence choice among possible outcomes.

Voice and Choice: Opening the Door To Environmental Democracy

Indonesia enacted a new Freedom of Information Act, with the help from our TAI Indonesia partners.
The new constitution in Thailand ensures that the public has the right to receive information and participate in the decisions concerning new development projects that affect the environment.
The TAI network has expanded its work in Argentina, Benin, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, India, Republic of Macedonia and Zambia by undertaking regional or national assessments of environmental laws in regards to access to information, access to justice, public participation and capacity building.
TAI had its second annual Global Gathering of partners, hosted by our Irish partners at the Sligo Institute of Technology.
In Cameroon, TAI partner Foundation for Environment and Development (FEDEV) litigated and won, as the main plaintiff, three high court cases. The implications of these cases have significant impacts on fundamental human rights, access to environmental justice and law enforcement in Cameroon allowing the public to sue to protect human life and environment.
In Bolivia, partners helped advance access right (access to information, public participation access to justice and capacity building) to shape constitutional reform. The new Bolivian Constitution was approved by a referendum this year and now includes access to information, participation and tribunal for environmental issues, as well as other environmental provisions.
Ireland established the Fifth Pillar of Social Partnership, the Environmental Pillar. This ensures Environmental NGOs are treated as equal partners with the Trade Unions, Employers, Farmers and the (wider) Community and Voluntary Pillars in researching, developing and monitoring the implementation of national policies on all aspects of society. As a consequence of the new status, NGO’s now have the right to regular constructive contact with all government departments at the highest level; seats on the National Economic and Social Council; and established our right to nominate people to seats on the advisory bodies at all levels of governance, local, regional and national.
TAI Sri Lanka partner Public Interest Law Foundation has been working with Minister of Urban Development and Sacred Area Development to draft ministerial guidelines on information disclosure in the urban sector, as part of the recommendations from the TAI national assessment.

Here is a quick summary of the work already underway in 2009 for 22 TAI partner countries, as part of the work funded by the World Bank, Development Governance Grant:

Argentina: Center For Human Rights And Environment (CEDHA)

The Center for Human Rights and Environment is prioritizing reforms by conducting Argentina’s first national TAI assessment.

Bangladesh: Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA)

The Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association is managing a regional exchange program for community leaders intended to develop a network of forest dwellers in South Asia and advance their capacity towards participatory governance. This includes a regional training workshop on access issues relating to the forest.

Benin: Eco-Ecolo

Eco Ecolo is prioritizing reforms by conducting Benin’s first national TAI assessment.

Bolivia: PRODENA - Bolivian Wildlife Society

PRODENA is developing the main indicators for the National System of Environmental Information (NSEI) recommended by the TAI assessment and advocating for its implementation. PRODENA is also advising the government environmental authority on how to organize the NSEI.

Cameroon: Bioresources Development And Conservation Programme (BPDC)

The Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme is working to create a task force to supervise public participation in the development of access and benefit sharing (ABS) policies. BPDC is also integrating civil society recommendations into a draft of the ABS policy framework.

Cameroon: Foundation For Environment And Development (FEDEV)

The Foundation for Environment and Development is organizing and conducting workshops to train judges, magistrates, and lawyers on environmental law and access rights.

Chile: Participa

Participa is developing indicators to evaluate regional advocacy success. Participa is also prioritizing reforms by conducting Chile’s second national TAI assessment.

China (Guizhou): Center For Moutainous Resource Conservation And Development Study (CMCRDS)

The Center for Mountainous Resource Conservation and Development Study is prioritizing reforms by conducting the first regional Guizhou TAI assessment.

China (Yunnan): Centre For Montain Ecosytstem Studies (ICRAF-China)

TAI Yunnan partners are translating TAI indicator toolkit and concepts into Mandarin and conducting workshops to train Guizhou TAI coalition. TAI Yunnan is also advocating for public access to environmental information on water quality and pollution.

Ecuador: Coalicion Acesso And Centro Ecuatoriano De Derecho Ambiental (CEDA)

TAI Ecuador partners Coalicion Acesso and CEDA are conducting dialogues with government, civil society and the public to gather input on environmental concerns and access rights that can be used to draft a national strategy proposal for access to environmental information.

Gabon: Croissance Saine Environnement (CSE)

Croissance Saine Environnement is prioritizing reforms by leading Gabon’s first national TAI assessment.

India: Environics Trust

Environics Trust is prioritizing reforms by conducting India’s first national TAI assessment.

Macedonia: Florozon – Association For Protection Of Natural Environment And Sustainable Economic Development

TAI partner Florozon is organizing and conducting training workshops with government officials and civil society members as recommended by the 2008 TAI national assessment to increase attentiveness to access rights. Florozon is also launching a large media campaign to increase public awareness and demand for access rights.

Malawi: Centre For Environmental Policy And Advocacy (CEPA)

The Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy is working to strengthen and implement proposed environmental and access bills that would provide improvements in access rights. CEPA is also publicizing proposed legislation and holding workshops to advance public participation and capacity building.

Nepal: Pro Public

Pro Public is advocating for the inclusion of access rights and good environmental governance in the proposed Constitution of Nepal through capacity building measures including the training of the writers of the constitution, government officials, civil society members, and the public.

Paraguay: Instituto De Derecho Y Economia Ambiental (IDEA)

The Environmental Law and Economics Institute is working to revise access to information legislation and will present a final draft to government officials, civil society members, and the public through a series of workshops intended to integrate their comments on the legislation before formally submitting them to Congress.

Peru: Sociedad Peruana De Derecho Ambiental (SPDA)

The Peruvian Society for Environmental Law is working with Latin American partners to organize a regional meeting and conduct workshops intended to compile a set of practical advocacy tools, strengthen advocacy capacity, and train civil society members on access issues.

Philippines: Ateneo School Of Government

TAI member ATENEO is developing a single-volume reference ‘bench book’ intended to provide judges on the recently established environmental courts with complete answers to frequently raised questions. ATENEO is also advocating for the passage of the freedom of information bill via media briefings, videos, workshops, and a website.

Sri Lanka: Public Interest Law Foundation (PILF)

Lawyers from the Public Interest Law Foundation are working closely with government officials to draft and implement guidelines for information disclosure PILF is also conducting training workshops on the new guidelines for relevant officials.

Thailand: Thailand Environment Institute (TEI)

The Thailand Environment Institute is advocating for the amendment and implementation of Thailand’s Official Information Act of 1997 through a multi-stakeholder dialogue that will publish recommendations.

Turkey: Environmental Management And Law Association (EMLA)

The Environmental Management and Law Association is determining the capacities and receptiveness for a TAI assessment in Turkey. EMLA is conducting a workshop on TAI methodology for interested parties.

Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA)

Lawyers from Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association are working closely with the Ministry of Environment to develop and implement guidelines for how information is released to the public.

Whose Amazon Is It?

Ruth Nogueron — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:35:04 -0400

Following the recent violence over natural resource use, Peru has an opportunity to balance economic development with human rights protections.

The tension between natural resource development and the protection of human rights reached a breaking point in Peru this month. In early April, indigenous groups initiated nearly 50 days of protests as a public outcry for laws that violated their right to decide if and how large-scale development happens on their territory. Fatal violence erupted when police and the military attempted to break a road blockade near the city of Bagua, in the northern region of Amazonas and close to the border with Ecuador. The victim count remains controversial. The official death toll is 33, with 24 policemen and 9 civilians killed. Other estimates range from 40 to 250 indigenous people dead.

The government responded to the protests with heavy-handed tactics, calling a state of emergency and calling in the military and national police. (A move denounced by human rights organizations). Also, there has been a national and international outcry at the use of violence by both sides. Public demonstrations and strikes were held in Lima and other cities in Perú, with protests in other major cities around the world. The International Human Rights Commission, leaders of the Peruvian Catholic Church, as well as Peruvian and international NGOs, all made statements calling for investigations and a stop to the violence.

The ingredients for violent conflict have been simmering for several years. The Peruvian government’s aggressive economic development strategy centers on promoting private investment in the natural resources based sectors. Between 2004 and 2009, the oil and gas concessions in the Peruvian Amazon increased their coverage from 15% to 72%. The vast majority of these concessions overlap with indigenous people’s territories, including titled and demarcated communities, communities in process of being titled, territorial reserves and proposed reserves. However, the government did not consult with these indigenous communities before it drew the concession boundaries and awarded the concessions to oil and gas companies.

Adding fuel to the fire is the 2006 US-Perú Trade Promotion Agreement, the free trade agreement (FTA) signed by President George W. Bush and Peru’s President, Alan García. The FTA included a variety of groundbreaking provisions for labor, public participation and consultation, and forest management, which were included after the agreement was re-negotiated in 2007. These provisions were meant to improve forest sector governance and promote legal trade in timber products. The FTA also included language meant to prohibit the weakening of existing environmental laws in both countries.

To make sure the agreement could be certified before President Bush left office in January 2009, the Peruvian Congress granted Peru’s executive branch special powers to enact laws and regulations needed to be in compliance with the FTA. Between February and June 2008, the executive branch used these powers to pass a series of Legislative Decrees meant to attract and facilitate large-scale private investment in the extractive industries, forestry and agriculture in the Peruvian Amazon.

Much attention has been paid to two of the more contentious decrees–Legislative Decree 1064 and Legislative Decree 1020. Decree 1064 removes previous requirements for companies to negotiate with a community prior to moving in, and it reclassifies communal land rights as subordinate to individual and private ownerships, giving favor to individuals, companies, and settlers who invade indigenous territories. Decree 1020 outlines a plan to regulate investment in the Amazon, but protesters say it frees roughly 60 percent of Peru’s forests for potential development.

As with the oil and gas concession awarding process, indigenous communities were not consulted on the content of the decrees. This is despite the fact that Peru has signed onto several international conventions and declarations that commit the government to providing specific protections to indigenous peoples, including the right to free, prior and informed consent on development activities that would threaten their territory or way of life.

Community Engagement & Natural Resource Use

WRI’s 2009 report, Breaking Ground: Engaging Communities in Extractive and Infrastructure Projects recommends 7 principles to help companies adapt to the changing rules of natural resource extraction by more effectively involving communities in project decision-making:

Prepare communities before engaging.
Determine what level of engagement is needed.
Integrate community engagement into each phase of the project cycle.
Include traditionally excluded stakeholders.
Gain free, prior and informed consent.
Resolve community grievances through dialogue.
Promote participatory monitoring by local communities.

Read the full publication here.

Last year, after public protest and indigenous peoples’ demonstrations called the decrees into question, a special investigative Commission created by the Peruvian Congress found the decrees to be unconstitutional. When debate in the Congress on the Commission’s findings was blocked and formal spaces for dialogue appeared to be ineffective, indigenous communities took to the streets to protest.

Since the events in Bagua, the Congress has repealed the controversial decrees, and President Garcia has recognized the lack of consultation and declared that it is time to start over again.

The government has set up a national working group made up by members of the executive branch, the presidents of the regional governments of the Amazonian States, and 10 indigenous representatives. The working group is tasked to prepare a sustainable development plan for the Peruvian Amazon. While the Minister of Foreign Relations has said that Peru has the support of the U.S. Government and Congress to find negotiated solutions to improve the laws, the U.S. itself has said or done very little about the situation.

An unprecedented opportunity for Peru

The “new start” offers the government an unprecedented opportunity to put effective measures in place to protect all of its citizens from the unintended negative consequences of development, and make sure that they receive its full benefits through a participatory process.

At the national level, the government needs to make sure that laws and policies:

Provide information: Give citizens adequate access to clear and accurate information about planned development, and that citizens are given an opportunity to understand the full implications of development. The government should conduct analysis and provide maps that show the location of indigenous territories and the overlaps with possible conflicting land uses for example, oil and gas concessions or forest and mining concessions.
Allow citizen participation: Give citizens formal opportunities to participate in credible decision-making processes to ensure sure that their views and opinions are reflected in final decisions.
Provide access to justice: Give citizens access to effective forms of justice so that if they have a grievance, they don’t feel they need to take the law into their own hands.

Finally, companies operating on indigenous territory should also play their part. Since the majority of oil and gas concessions in the Peruvian Amazon overlap indigenous territories, those operating in these concessions should have a policy regarding indigenous peoples, and an effective policy on community engagement and free prior and informed consent.

Letter to World Bank, Re: Environmental Development Policy Loan to Peru

Jon Sohn — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0400

The following letter was sent to the Socially Sustainable Development Unit of the Latin America and the Caribbean Region of the World Bank on October 12th, 2007, regarding the proposed Environmental Development Policy Loan to Peru.

Download as PDF (PDF, 191 Kb)
(includes WRI’s Analysis of Environmental & Social Challenges in Peru’s Hydrocarbon Sector)

Ms. Laura Tuck
Sector Director
Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Unit
Latin America and the Caribbean Region
World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433

Subject: Environmental Development Policy Loan to Peru – Oil & Gas Sector Issues

Dear Ms. Tuck:

We are writing with regard to the proposed environmental development policy loan (DPL) to the Government of Peru that is currently in preparation.

As the World Bank recognized in its 2007 Country Partnership Strategy for Peru, responding to environmental challenges, especially in the context of increased investment in the extractive industries, will require new and strengthened environmental institutions with adequate resources to fulfill their responsibilities. We support the Bank’s initiative to raise the profile of environmental issues in Peru and to provide assistance to the Government of Peru in order to build its capacity to address environmental concerns. While the success of the DPL will ultimately depend on the political will of the Peruvian government, we are encouraged that the Ministry of Economy and Finance as well as several sector ministries have been actively involved in this process since its inception.

As you undoubtedly understand, there has been significant growth in Peru’s oil and gas sector over the past three years. As of July 2007, nearly 70% of the Peruvian Amazon had been allocated for oil and gas activities, up from 13% at the beginning of 2005. Peru’s previous experience with the hydrocarbon sector illustrates the numerous environmental and social impacts that can occur in the absence of effective environmental governance—including deforestation, erosion, increased migration, loss of biodiversity, contamination of water supplies, and health risks to impacted communities. In the context of numerous potential projects ecologically and culturally sensitive areas, developing the institutional capacity for better environmental and social management will be critical for minimizing future impacts of the oil and gas industry.

Given this critical need for strengthened environmental governance in the hydrocarbon sector, we are pleased to hear that the DPL will include support for reforms impacting the Ministry of Energy and Mines. While the Bank’s attention to date has focused primarily on the mining sector, we encourage you to work with the Government of Peru and civil society in order to identify priorities for reform in the hydrocarbon sector.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Instituto del Bien Comun (IBC) are developing a partnership that seeks to minimize the environmental and social footprint of the oil and gas sector in the Peruvian Amazon, maximize opportunities for local communities to benefit from oil and gas activities, and ensure that areas with highly vulnerable populations (such as isolated indigenous peoples) and sensitive biodiversity are not harmed by oil and gas activities.

In this context, we write to share a brief analysis of some of the underlying challenges in the hydrocarbon sector and concrete recommendations for reforms the Government of Peru could adopt in order to address these challenges. Given that the World Bank has already developed a substantial body of work regarding the mining sector, and that the mining and hydrocarbon sectors face similar environmental and social challenges, an effort is made to highlight differences between the two sectors.

Additionally, creating a national environmental authority that is independent of the sector ministries and has the technical and budgetary capacity to enforce environmental regulations will be instrumental in the improvement of environmental and social management in all environmentally sensitive sectors. The World Bank has repeatedly recognized this need in recent reports on Peru.1 Still, additional analysis of the various alternatives up for discussion – which range from strengthening the National Council for Environment (CONAM) to creating a new Ministry for the Environment, among other options – will be necessary to ensure that the resulting institution has the capacity and authority to efficiently and effectively protect the environment.

Finally, while we recognize that there are plans for consultations with civil society, the private sector, and professional societies further along in the formation of this development policy loan, we encourage you to establish a formal process for engaging with non-governmental organizations within this initial stage of project development, when there is still an opportunity to influence which objectives will be included under this loan. There are numerous groups within Peru, with expertise in sector-specific issues as well as the broader issue of environmental institutionality, who have been working with allies in government in order to advance the types of reforms that will be included under this loan. Such groups have the capacity to play a critical role, both in informing the conditions of this loan, as well as in ensuring their fulfillment by the government in Peru.

We look forward to continued engagement with the World Bank regarding this loan. We welcome any questions, comments, or requests for additional information.

Sincerely,

Jon Sohn, Senior Associate, World Resources Institute, Washington, DC
Sarah Paraghamian, Project Consultant, World Resources Institute, Lima, Peru
Richard Chase Smith, Director Ejecutivo, Instituto del Bien Común, Lima, Peru