§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) if he will make a statement on the findings of the recently published evaluation of six forestry projects funded by the Overseas Development Administration and the Commonwealth Development Corporation;
(2) if he plans to take action on the basis of conclusions reached in the recent evaluation of British Government-funded forestry projects in developing countries.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydA copy of the recently published evaluation synthesis report on six forestry projects, including one co-funded by the Commonwealth Development Corporation, was placed in the Library of the House earlier this year, together with copies of the individual evaluation reports.
Independent consultants played major roles in each of the individual project evaluations and in the evaluation synthesis study. The evaluators judged five of the projects to be partially successful and the sixth successful. Large areas of trees were successfully established and the environmental impact was generally positive. But institutional achievements were mixed and rarely sustainable, while there were also some problems with timber utilisation. These projects were started during the 1970s and early 1980s and lessons drawn from the evaluations are being applied to current programmes.
§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he plans to publish the results of work to expand and revise the World Conservation Monitoring Centre's database on timber tree species of conservation concern.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydWe have no plans to publish this work, which forms part of a continuing process of developing the World Conservation Monitoring Centre's timber database. I shall place a copy of WCMC's report to ODA in the Library of the House.
§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many environmental impact assessments have been completed in the last 12 months with respect to Overseas Development Administration or CDC-funded forestry projects.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydEnvironmental appraisal is a standard element in the examination of all project proposals following the procedures set out in the Overseas Development Administration's "Manual of Environmental Appraisal", a copy of which is in the Library of the House. Full environmental impact assessments have been undertaken on one ODA and one CDC forestry project in the last year.
§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the United Kingdom's position with respect to the renegotiation of the international tropical timber agreement.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydAlong with other tropical timber-consuming countries, the United Kingdom has proposed focussing the objectives of the new agreementt on the sustainable production of tropical timber. We have also212W proposed measures to improve the operational performance of the International Tropical Timber Organisation. We aim to enhance its capacity to meet its target for all internationally traded tropical timber to come from sustainable sources by the year 2000.
§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will provide details of the funding so far allocated to implement the tropical forestry action plan from loan compared to grant sources.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydAll the Overseas Development Administration's aid related to the tropical forestry action programme is provided on grant terms.
§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what relationship exists between the Overseas Development Administration project to expand and revise the World Conservation Monitoring Centre's database on threatened timber species and work funded by the Government of Japan into the conservation status of trees species of conservation concern carried out under the auspices of the same organisation.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThe work financed by the Overseas Development Administration was undertaken as preparation for the proposed future development of the initial study which was financed by the Government of Japan. The results were considered at a workshop held in Cambridge in March, under the auspices of the International Tropical Timber Organisation, on methodologies for the assessment of the commercial and biological conservation status of tropical timber trees. The future of this work will be discussed at the International Tropical Timber Council meeting in Kuala Lumpur next month.
§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will commit long-term funding to support for monitoring of timber species of conservation concern.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydWe are considering providing funds for this purpose.
§ Mr. MeacherTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement regarding progress made in Geneva on the renegotiation of the international tropical timber agreement.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydProgress is slow. A further meeting will take place from 21 to 25 June.