HC Deb 12 December 1988 vol 143 cc643-6
69. Mr. Jack

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what programmes to safeguard the rain forests his Department is supporting; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Chris Patten

Details of our existing activities to protect rain forests are given in a supplement to "British Overseas Development", a copy of which I am placing in the Library. In future we will encourage recipient countries to direct more of our aid to forestry and will increase commitments through international research and British charities.

Mr. Jack

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer and his commitment to the rain forests. My nine-year-old son, Edmund, many members of the public and ecological bodies are worried that we are losing the race against time in the destruction of the rain forests. What hope can my hon. Friend give that a sense of new urgency will be promoted by the British Government in pursuit of further initiatives to ensure that his ecological legacy remains at the disposal of the whole world?

Mr. Patten

My hon. Friend's nine-year-old son is as worried about the subject as is my nine-year-old daughter, Alice, and they are both entirely right to be worried about this issue, to which my hon. Friend has paid such attention during his time in the House. We are funding well over 70 bilateral research and non-governmental organisation projects in the forestry sector. We have committed about £80 million to projects which are currently under way. I believe that we should do more and I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has committed us to that in her speeches to the Conservative party conference and the Royal Society. I look forward to some of the results of that in the years ahead. As my hon. Friend said, this is an extremely important subject.

70. Mr. Fearn

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he has any plans to initiate discussion with any developing countries to offer increased aid in return for guarantees about the protection of areas of tropical rain forest.

74. Mr. Kirkwood

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he has any plans to initiate discussions with developing countries to offer increased aid in return for the implementation of measures to protect areas of tropical rain forest.

Mr. Chris Patten

I shall be encouraging recipient countries to direct more of our aid to forestry, but I support the view of the Brundtland commission that aid should not be subject to blanket environmental conditionality. Instead we should help countries to improve their capacity to tackle environmental problems and encourage international agencies to take full account of environmental aspects when preparing loans.

Mr. Fearn

What have the Government's representatives in the United Nations been doing about rain forests in general?

Mr. Patten

Our ambassador to the United Nations in New York, who was formerly the permanent secretary in my Department, is one of the foremost environmentalists in this country. Like our other representatives abroad, for example, at the World Bank, he has been pressing that the environmental impact of development should be taken into account.

Mr. Kirkwood

Will the Minister acknowledge that experts say that at the present state of erosion tropical rain forests will disappear by 2020 if some urgent action is not taken immediately? Is he aware that the only way to do that effectively is to make sure that the people who are getting a commercial return from taking out the rain forests are accommodated and subsidised through the aid packages that we offer abroad? Is the Minister's Department considering that?

Mr. Patten

That is one of the approaches being considered under the tropical forestry action plan. However, the problem is more complicated than that, which is why we have put so much money into, for example, inventories and management of the rain forests of western Africa. It is why, as I said earlier, we have committed £80 million to forestry projects that are at present under way and, above all, it is why we shall commit more resources to trying to develop appropriate institutions in developing countries so that they have capacity in environmental matters, which they do not have at present.