§ Malcolm BruceTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what financial support she gives to developing countries to help them combat illegal logging. [55292]
§ Clare Short[holding answer 16 May 2002]: Worldwide we spend just under £20 million from DFID's country programme budgets on helping countries improve their forest governance and move towards more equitable and sustainable forest management. This strengthens the capacity of Governments, NGOs and local communities to enforce forest law.
Roughly 5 per cent. of this support specifically targets better documentation and understanding of the problem of illegal logging, as well as the establishment of improved monitoring and transparency in countries.
Over the past three years we have also contributed a total of about £450,000 from our central policy budget to supporting global dialogue and information exchange on the underlying causes of deforestation, some of which is caused by illegal logging, and helping countries come together to agree policy action.
205W We are providing £300,000 to Global Forest Watch, which is based in the World Resources Institute. Last year we were active in sponsoring, jointly with the US State Department and the World Bank institute, a regional ministerial conference on forest law enforcement and governance in Indonesia, where the private sector, East Asia Governments and civil society came together to generate political will and agree policy action. We contributed £39,464 to the costs. We will jointly sponsor similar initiatives in Africa and Latin America over the coming two years.