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In an open letter that appeared on these pages on Thursday, an international group of scientists accused Alan Oxley of misrepresenting the facts about tropical deforestation. Oxley is an industrial lobbyist, former trade representative, and former Australian ambassador. His organizations, the World Growth Institute and International Trade Strategies, have been vocal supporters of plantation and other natural resource industries in the tropics, especially Indonesia.

The letter, which was signed by well-known and respected conservation scientists, including William Laurance and Thomas Lovejoy, described 10 instances in which WGI and ITS treaded “a thin line between reality and a significant distortion of facts.”

The self-described independence of WGI and ITS seems undermined both by the strong pro-industry bias in their outreach and the fact that services provided by these organizations are funded by two of the largest companies in the plantation industries.

The battle between timber production, mining and plantation industries on the one side and conservation groups on the other is a long-running one, but for some years now there has been genuine progress toward finding compromise solutions.

Good examples include the voluntary certification for timber and oil palm and improved forest management and forest use planning.

As much as big business is a threat to forests, it is also a likely source of lasting solutions. Governments generally have been ineffective in reducing deforestation, even inside many protected areas.

Non-governmental organizations are largely powerless to act at the scales necessary, although they can influence public opinion.

Small businesses such as local farmers are numerous, but lack power and coordination.

Vast areas of tropical forest are legally under the control of large companies. Improving ways these companies manage forest landscapes could have a significant impact on deforestation.

For this to happen we need to find a meaningful compromise that results in conservation as well as development.

But to achieve that, different parties must share a common language and a desire to remain on speaking terms.

The increasingly muddy debate about conservation and development is driving the two sides further apart.

The more extreme advocacy groups such as Greenpeace seem to say that industrial expansion in developing countries is the driver of environmental degradation.

In their campaigns, they appear to target single companies and particular industries, while other companies and industries avoid scrutiny.

They tend to omit discussion of issues such as human population growth, poverty, lack of education and health care, the role of local people in deforestation, poor governance and the many other dimensions of this problem that are crucial to resolving deforestation in the real world.

Organizations such as WGI and ITS heavily invest in the other side of the debate.

They promote the virtues of industrial development without acknowledging the negative impacts.

The apparent merits of industries include more rapid carbon sequestration in oil palm than in natural forests.

Industrial development can reduce poverty, they claim, but without mentioning any of the social costs, or other solutions such as land reform or improved farming.

The public statements of both groups like Greenpeace on the one side and WGI and ITS on the other are too often based on half-truths and wishful thinking.

Both sides oversimplify forest conservation issues in a way that serves a narrow special interest and offers no realistic way forward. Both sides do not adequately check their facts.

The problem is that both sides get a lot of attention, and generate a lot of emotive debate, resulting in a “you are either with us or against us” mentality.

Unfortunately, this makes it harder for centrist groups to collaborate on compromise solutions.

NGOs trying to work with companies are accused by more extreme NGOs of working with the enemy.

And for many companies, engaging NGOs looks way too risky and a waste of time and effort.

Companies and NGOs have started to avoid each other, and that is a step backward.

Lasting solutions grow out of compromise that reflects political, social and environmental realities.

The developing world needs development, but it also needs to consider the environment, its biological heritage and future generations.

Let us move on from and rise above the mud-slinging, smokescreens and falsehoods.

It gets us no closer to a solution whereby countries can fulfill their development aspirations without incurring irreparable long-term environmental costs.

 
Erik Meijaard is forest director for People and Nature Consulting International in Bali.