Asia's Rainforests Vanishing As Timber, Food Demand Surge: Experts.

"Asia's rainforests are being rapidly destroyed, a trend accelerated by surging timber demand in booming China and India, and record food, energy and commodity prices, forest experts warn.

The loss of these biodiversity hot spots, much of it driven by the illegal timber trade and the growth of oil palm, biofuel and rubber plantations, is worsening global warming, species loss and poverty, they said...at the Asia-Pacific Forestry Week conference in Hanoi. ...

Commercial crops 'will be the most important factor contributing to deforestation in Asia-Pacific countries,' said and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report, citing record prices for food grains, energy and commodities. ...The illegal timber trade, fuelled by poverty and corruption, is rife in much of Asia, where 78 percent of forests are state-owned and often managed by the armed forces, not the people who live in or near them, experts said. ..." [Agence France Presse (04/27)/Factiva]

The Jakarta Post notes that "Delegates from the Asia Pacific ended a meeting in Hanoi Saturday calling for forestry policies to focus on people-centered development to help alleviate global poverty. They said the now much-debated climate change issues had been one of the vehicles to return forestry affairs to the top of the world's agenda during the past two years.

'A key recommendation from the Asia Pacific Forestry Commission (APFC) is to continue efforts to enhance community-based forest management and forestry initiatives that help reduce poverty,' said Jan Heino, assistant director of the FAO, which organized the week-long Asia-Pacific forestry forum.

The commission also called for greater attention and assistance to build the capacities of forestry countries to enable them to participate in increasingly complicated mechanisms being developed as part of the climate change agenda. ...The commission said emerging forest carbon funding mechanisms must reward countries for retaining forests and reducing damage to existing forests. ...Some delegates, however, expressed concerns that the complexity of forest carbon accounting mechanisms might constrain some countries from participating in forest-based responses to climate change. ..." [The Jakarta Post (04/28)/Factiva]