HC Deb 09 May 1988 vol 133 cc8-9W
Mr. Simon Hughes

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will give figures for(a) the amount of aid and (b) the percentage of total aid given by (i) the United Kingdom and (ii) the European Community to developing nations which was designated for tropical rain forest management programmes for each year for which figures are available since 1980; and if he will give projected figures for the same items for each of the next five years.

Mr. Chris Patten

The Overseas Development Administration's statistics do not show separate figures for aid expenditure on tropical rain forest management; nor are such figures available to us for European Community aid.

British bilateral aid expenditure on all types of forestry since 1980 was as follows:

As percentage of net bilateral aid programme
£ thousands Percent
1980 3,328 0.63
1981 3,792 0.58
1982 4,845 0.91
1983 4,491 0.80
1984 6,224 1.10
1985 6,849 1.10
1986 14,921 2.20

Examples of current British aid commitments to projects concerned with rain forest management include the Korup national park (Cameroon), Maraca island (Brazil), forest reserve management (Sierra Leone), forest reserve inventory (Ghana) and tropical hardwood plantations and maintenance (Ivory Coast).

Under the fifth European development fund, which started commitments in 1981, about £9 million had been committed by September 1987 for forestry projects. Under the sixth European development fund, on which commitments started in 1986, about £27 million has been committed to forestry projects to date.

Likely expenditure in future years cannot be forecast, but I am ready to consider sympathetically sound new proposals.