THE LAST FRONTIER FORESTS - World Resources Institute · the last frontier forests: ecosystems & economies on th edge e what is the status of the world's remaining large, natural

THE LASTFRONTIER FORESTSE C O S Y S T E M S & E C O N O M I E S O N T H E E D G E

DIRK BRYANT, DANIEL NIELSEN & LAURA TANGLEY

WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTEFOREST FRONTIERS INITIATIVE

DATA COLLABORATORS:

1 3 WORLD CONSERVATION MONITORING CENTRE AND THE WORLD WILDLIFE FUND

Major Findings 1

Board of Directors 2

World Resources Institute 3

Acknowledgments 4

Foreword 5

Introduction 6

Why Do Frontier Forests Matter? 7

What Do We Know About the World's Forests? 9

WRI's Frontier Forests Assessment 10

Falling Frontiers 12

Today's Threats 15

Destruction's Roots 17

The Frontier Forest Index 19

Regional Overviews 22

The Closing Frontier: A Call to Action 34

Technical Annex 37

Notes 41

Box 1: Definitions Used in This Study 11

Box 2: Frontier Forest Myths 14

Box 3: Different Ways of Ranking Countries 18

Box 4: Restoring Frontier Forest: the Guanacaste Example 34

Box 5: A New Vision of Frontier Forest Stewardship 35

Box 6: Plan Piloto: Sustainable Forest Development 36

Basemap data from ArcWorld. Assistance in data preparation, mapping, and analysis provided by $& World Wildlife Fund & 1§ World Conservation Monitoring Centre.Data sources i.) Forest cover data provided by World Conservation Monitoring Centre, ii.) Frontier forests data derived through expert assessment and from other sources.

FRONTIER FORESTS 8,000 YEARS AGO

W O R L D RESOURCES INST ITUTE FOREST FRONTIERS IN IT IAT IVE

FRONTIER FORESTS TODAY:

large, intact natural forest ecosystems that arerelatively undisturbed and large enough tomaintain all of their biodiversity.

[ ~ | CURRENT NON-FRONTIER FORESTS:

secondary forest, plantations, degraded forest,and patches of primary forest not meeting thisstudy's criteria as frontier.

THE LASTFRONTIER FORESTS:E C O S Y S T E M S & E C O N O M I E S O N T H E E D G E

WHAT IS THE STATUS OF THE WORLD'S REMAINING LARGE,

NATURAL FOREST ECOSYSTEMS?

DIRK BRYANT, DANIEL NIELSEN & LAURA TANGLEY

\1A Contribution to the

Forest Frontiers Initiative

CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS:

NIGEL SIZER, MARTA MIRANDA,

PAIGE BROWN, NELS JOHNSON,

ANDREW MALK AND KENTON MILLER

1997

WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTEFOREST FRONTIERS INITIATIVE

DATA COLLABORATORS:

WORLD CONSERVATION MONITORING CENTRE AND THE WORLD WILDLIFE FUND

KATHLEEN COURRIERPublications Director

Hyacinth BillingsProduction Manager

Designed by:Papyrus Design & Marketing, Washington, DC

Each World Resources Institute report represents a timely, scholarly treatment of a subject of public concern.WRI takes responsibility for choosing the study topics and guaranteeing its authors and researchers freedom of inquiry.

It also solicits and responds to the guidance of advisory panels and expert reviewers.Unless otherwise stated, however, all the interpretation and findings set forth in WRI publications are those of the authors.

Copyright © 1997 World Resources Institute. All rights reserved.

ISBN 1-56973-198-5

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 97-060277

Printed in the United States of America on Recycled Paper.

MAJOR FINDINGS

Almost half of Earth's original forest cover is gone, much ofit destroyed within the past three decades.

Today, just one fifth of the world's original forest coverremains in large tracts of relatively undisturbed forest -what WRI calls frontierforest

Three countries - Russia, Canada, and Brazil - housealmost 70 percent of the world's remaining frontier forest.

40 percent of forest on Earth today qualifies as frontier forest.

Seventy-six countries assessed in this study have lost all oftheir frontier forest.

39 percent of Earth's remaining frontier forest isthreatened by logging, agricultural clearing, and otherhuman activity.

Only 3 percent of the world's frontier forest falls entirelywithin the temperate zone (regions characterized bymoderate climate, including much of the U.S and Europe).Today, temperate forests are the most endangered frontierforests of all.

Half of today's frontier forest lies in boreal regions withinCanada, Russia, and Alaska - inhospitable northern zonesbetween temperate forest and tundra.

Outside of boreal regions, about 75 percent of the world'sfrontier forest is threatened.

Eleven countries - including Finland, Sweden, Vietnam,Guatemala and Thailand - are on the verge of losing theirfrontier forest. These countries maintain less than 5 percentof their original forest as frontier, and all of it is threatened.

WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE 1 FOREST FRONTIERS INITIATIVE

B O A R D OF D I R E C T O R S

Maurice F. StrongChairman

John FirorVice Chairman

John H. Adams

Manuel Arango

Robert 0. Blake

Derek Bok

BertBolin

Robert N. Burt

David T.Buzzelli

Michael R. Deland

Sylvia A. Earle

Alice F. Emerson

Shinji Fukukawa

William M.Haney, III

Cynthia R. Helms

Calestousjuma

Yolanda Kakabadse

Jonathan Lash

Jeffrey T. Leeds

Thomas E. Lovejoy

Jane Lubchenco

C. Payne Lucas

Robert S. McNamara

Scott McVay

William F. Martin

Matthew Nimetz

Paulo Nogueira-Neto

Ronald L. Olson

Ruth Patrick

Florence T. Robinson

Roger WSant

Stephan Schmidheiny

Bruce Smart

James Gustave Speth

Mostafa K. Tolba

Alvaro Umana

Victor L. Urquidi

Pieter Winsemius

Jonathan LashPresident

J. AlanBrewsterSenior Vice President

Walter V. ReidVice President for Program

Donna W WiseVice President for Policy Affairs

Robert RepettoVice President and Senior Economist

Thomas H. FoxVice President

Marjorie BeaneSecretary-Treasurer

W O R L D R E S O U R C E S I N S T I T U T E F O R E S T F R O N T I E R S I N I T I A T I V E

W O R L D RESOURCES I N S T I T U T E

T he World Resources Institute (WRI) is an independent center forpolicy research and technical assistance on global environmentaland development issues. WRTs mission is to move human society

to live in ways that protect Earth's environment and its capacity to providefor the needs and aspirations of current and future generations.

Because people are inspired by ideas, empowered by knowledge, andmoved to change by greater understanding, the Institute provides - andhelps other institutions provide - objective information and practicalproposals for policy and institutional change that will foster environmentallysound, socially equitable development. WRI's particular concerns are withglobally significant environmental problems and their interaction witheconomic development and social equity at all levels.

The Institute's current areas of work include economics, forests, bio-diversity, climate change, energy, sustainable agriculture, resource andenvironmental information, trade, technology, national strategies for envi-ronmental and resource management, business liaison, and human health.

In all of its policy research and work with institutions, WRI tries tobuild bridges between ideas and action, meshing the insights of scientificresearch, economic and institutional analyses, and practical experiencewith the need for open and participatory decision-making.

WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE

1709 New York Avenue, N.WWashington, D.C. 20006, U.S.A.http://www.wri.org/wri


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

DATA COLLABORATORS:World Conservation MonitoringCentre, and World Wildlife Fund - USConservation Science Program.

REGIONAL DATA

COORDINATORS:

Conservation International (LatinAmerica), and the Pacific EnvironmentResources Centre (Russia).

EXPERTS W H O HELPED WRI

M A P THE FRONTIER FORESTS:

Africa:Conrad Aveling (ECOFAC); Joerg Balsiger;

Bryan Corran; Lee Hannah (Conservation

International); John Hart (Wildlife

Conservation Society); Illonga Itoua (World

Wildlife Fund); Robert Kasisi; Dr. Nadine

Laporte (University of Maryland); Jean

Lejolly (Departement de Biologie Vegetale

Universite Libre de Bruxelles); Michel F.

Massart (NASA Landsat Pathfinder

Program/Central Africa); Aissitou Ndinga

(IUCN); Simon Rietburgen (The World

Bank); Nicodene Tchamou (IITA); David

Wilkie (Biodiversity Support Program).

Asia:Michael Green (World Conservation

Monitoring Centre); Xiaojun Li (The

Nature Conservancy); Kathy MacKinnon

(The World Bank); John MacKinnon;

Dennis Neilson; Evan Shield; Chris

Wemmer (Conservation and Research

Center); Tony Whitten (The World Bank);

Eric Wikramanayake (World Wildlife

Fund).

Oceania(including PNG):Bruce Beehler (U.S. State Deptartment);

Christopher Bragg (Department of

Primary Industries-QFS); Gary Hartshorn

(Organization for Tropical Studies); Don

Henry (World Wildlife Fund); John Herbert

(New Zealand Forest Research Institute);

Jamie Kirkpatrick (University of

Tasmania); Kathy MacKinnon (The World

Bank); Dennis Neilson; Dr John Nelder

(Queensland Herbarium); Stewart Noble

(Environmental Resources Information

Network); Evan Shield, Tony Whitten (The

World Bank); Jann Williams (Centre for

Plant Biodiversity Research); John

Woinarski (Parks and Wildlife Commission

of the Northern Territory).

South America:Jose Marcio Ay res (IBAMA); Aaron

Cavieres; Thomas Defler (Caparu

Biological Station); Louise Emmons (The

Smithsonian Institution); Philip Fearnside

(Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da

Amazonia); Gustavo Fonseca

(Conservation International); Robin Foster

(Field Museum of Natural History);

Rodolfo H. Gajardo Michell (Universidad

de Chile); Gary Hartshorn (Organization

for Tropical Studies); Otto Huber (Instituto

Botanico); Rod Mast (Conservation

International); Russ Mittermeier

(Conservation International); Silvio

Olivieri (Conservation International);

Enrique Ortiz (Conservation

International); Claudio Padua (University

of Brazil); Carlos Peres (Universidade de

Sao Paulo); Anthony Rylands

(Conservation International); Jaime Salzar

(Fundacion Inguede); Stephan

Schwartzman (Environmental Defense

Fund); Wouter Veening (Netherlands

Committee for IUCN).

Europe and Russia:Dmitry Aksenov and staff (Biodiversity

Conservation Center); Dr. Isaev Alecsander

(Yakut Institute of Biology); David Gordon

(Pacific Environment & Resources Center);

Roger Olsson (Naturinformation Ab); Risto

Paivinen and staff (European Forest

Institute); Anatoli Shvidenko

(International Institute for Applied Systems

Analysis); lisa Tracy (Pacific Environment

& Resources Center); Boris Voronov

(Institute for Water and Ecological

Problems).

North and CentralAmerica:Liz Barratt-Brown (Natural Resources

Defense Council); Jean- Frangois Bergeron

(Ministere des Ressources Naturelles,

Gouvernement du Quebec); Dan Bullock

(Manitoba Natural Resources); Chuck Carr

(Wildlife Conservation Society); James

Cayford (The Canadian Institute of

Forestry); Rex Crawford (The Nature

Conservancy); Barry Davidson (Wildlife

Habitat Canada); Bob Demulder (Forest

Inventory Development Group); Louise

Emmons (The Smithsonian Institution);

Robin Foster (Field Museum of Natural

History); Tim Grey (Wildlands League);

Randy Hagenstein (The Nature

Conservancy); Mark Heathcott (Parks

Canada); Harry Hirvonen (Environment

Canada); Vicky Husband (Sierra Club BC);

Laura Jackson (Protected Areas

Association); Deborah Jensen (The Nature

Conservancy); Kevin Kavanagh (World

Wildlife Fund - Canada); Andy MacKinnon

(BC Forest Service); Elizabeth May (Sierra

Club Canada); Reed Noss (Oregon State

University); Chris O'Brien (Ecology North);

George Powell; Chris Shank (Wildlife

Management Division, Government of the

Northwest Territories); Jorge Soberon

Mainero (Comision para el Conocimiento

y Uso de la Biodiversidad); Amanda Will

(Protected Areas Association); Tim Wilson

(Conservation Mapping); Dr. Ken

Winterberger (U.S. Forest Service); Terje

Void (BC Forest Service); Gaile Whelan

Enns (World Wildlife Fund Canada); Steve

Zoltai (Canadian Forest Service).

Reviewers:We would like to thank the following people

who, in addition to the individuals named,

provided valuable review comments and

other input at various stages of this project:

Janis Alcorn, Mark Aldrich, Kim Awbrey,

Victoria Berry, Clare Billington, Susan

Braatz, Louis Carbonnier, Domenick

Dellasala, Eric Dinerstein, Yves Dube, Nigel

Dudley, Lorene Flaming, Jerry Franklin,

Mark Graham, David Harcharik, Rudolf

Heinrich, Jurgen Hoth, Sue Iremonger,

Klaus Janz, Val Kapos, Andrei Laletin,

Jean-Paul Lanly, Claude Leger,

Massimiliano Lorenzi, Richard Luxmoore,

Michael McCloskey, Jeff McNeely, Norman

Myers, David Olson, Jean Poitevin, Peter

Raven, Kent Redford, Heather Rosmarin,

Nick Salafsky, Jaime Salazar, Andre

Savoie, Jeff Sayer, Peter Schlesinger, K.D.

Singh, Bruce Stein, Tom Stone, Fred

Swartzendruber, Frances Sullivan, and

Derek Thompson. Within WRI we would

like to express our gratitude to Chip

Barber, Alan Brewster, Jake Brunner,

Bruce Cabarle, Allen Hammond, Jonathan

Lash, Mary Paden, Walter Reid, Leslie

Roberts, Eric Rodenburg, Kirk Talbott,

Peter Veit and Deanna Wolfire.

Researchers:Steve Walters and Changhua Wu helped

immensely throughout the initial stages of

this report. We are indebted to them for

their invaluable assistance.

WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE FOREST FRONTIERS INITIATIVE

FOREWORD

T he word "frontier" con-jures up notions of newchallenges, of new lands,

or new intellectual endeavors ripefor human exploitation and devel-opment. If a frontier is out there,people will not be far behind.

The frontier vision often sawtrees as a commodity at best orsimply an obstacle in the way ofprogress. Over many centuries,about half of the world's forests -almost 3 billion hectares - wereburned, cleared, or cut down. Justone fifth of the world's originalforest cover remains in largeundisturbed tracts today, and thecutting has accelerated: about 16million hectares are cut or burnedeach year. In the course of thisdevastation, we are losing speciesand a valuable cornucopia ofresources, altering theatmosphere's composition andbrutally degrading ecosystems.

Road building and otherinfrastructure development, oftenaccompanying logging, mining,or other large investments, arealso proceeding quickly. Once theway is paved, population pressureand landlessness in some parts ofthe world, especially developingcountries, can prompt migrationinto frontier regions and rapiddeforestation by small land hold-ers and large land speculators.

There are better ways to use,manage and preserve forests. Thereach of human ingenuity extendsto the stewardship of trees, but atthe frontiers the destructioncontinues.

This report describes for thefirst time the location and status ofthe world's frontier forests - thelarge, ecologically intact, and rel-atively undisturbed natural foreststhat still remain. Working withseveral partners, including theWorld Conservation MonitoringCentre, the World Wildlife Fund,and 90 forest experts, WRI devel-oped a first map of frontier forestareas, assembling in one placeunprecedented location-specificinformation on current and futurethreats to forest integrity.

Using a geographic infor-mation system, WRI has developeda single global database and apreliminary series of regionalmaps depicting the world's frontierforests - both first of their kinds. Inthe coming years, WRI will updateand improve these maps and gettheir obvious message to theworld's decision-makers.

This report is the openingsalvo of WRI's Forest FrontiersInitiative, a five-year, multi-disciplinary effort to promotestewardship in and around theworld's last major frontier forestsby influencing investment, policy,and public opinion.

For each forest frontierregion - in Amazonia, CentralAfrica, Asia, North America, andRussia - WRI is building anetwork of policy-makers, activists,investors, and researchers topromote alternatives to forestdestruction that take advantage ofthe full economic potential offorests, not just immediaterevenue from logging and forestclearing. As part of this effort,WRI will help build the capacity oflocal organizations to carry onthis work independently.

The business community isan important partner in this effort.We are working with others todevelop case studies with innova-tive firms to demonstrate the busi-ness impacts and opportunitiesthat sustainability presents.

We must act quickly.Transnational logging companiesare already operating in Siberiaand Canada and rapidly expandingoperations into South America, theCaribbean Rim, and CentralAfrica. Within the next five years,many pending and proposedcontracts will be signed, and theleverage of governments and non-governmental organizations willbe greatly diminished.

At the same time, mainstreamindustry and investors are increas-ingly open to change. There is asignificant opportunity to increasemarket demand for "green" timber.WRI is already a backer of theForest Stewardship Council, thefirst international organizationcreated to evaluate, accredit, andmonitor organizations that certify-sustainably produced forest prod-ucts. Meanwhile, many developingcountries are searching for practicalpolicy alternatives to destructivetimber harvest agreements.

We are deeply grateful to theAVINA Group and the NetherlandsMinistry of Foreign Affairs for theirgeneral support for the ForestFrontiers Initiative and to theWallace Global Fund for supportingthis project.

Jonathan LashPresidentWorld Resources Institute


INTRODUCTION

By now, most people whoread a newspaper orwatch television know

that deforestation is a seriousproblem, particularly in thetropics. This World ResourcesInstitute (WRI) analysis showsthat we have lost almost half—almost 3 billion hectares - of theforests that once blanketed theearth. Every year at least 16 mil-lion additional hectares fall to theax, torch, bulldozer, or chain saw. u

Hidden behind such familiarstatistics, however, is another,equally sobering reality. Of theforests that do remain standing,the vast majority are no morethan small or highly disturbedpieces of the M y functioningecosystems they once were. Thesemodified forests should not be

Hidden behind familiar statistics is an equally sober-ing reality. Of the forests that do remain

standing, the vast majority are no more than smallor highly disturbed pieces of the fully functioning

ecosystems they once were.

forgotten, of course. They are thelast refuge for some of the world'smost endangered species and theyprovide important economicproducts and environmentalservices. Yet, they may have losttheir ability to sustain themselvesin the long term. To support theirfull complement of plant andanimal inhabitants, fragmentedforests will probably need regularinterventions by resourcemanagers.

In contrast, frontier forests -large, ecologically intact, and rela-tively undisturbed natural forests -are likely to survive indefinitelywithout human assistance. (SeeBox 1 and the TechnicalAnnex.) Within these forests,natural ecological and evolutionaryprocesses will continue to

generate and maintain thebiodiversity upon which we allrely. Frontier forests also contributea large portion of the ecologicalservices - such as watershedprotection and climatestabilization - that make theplanet habitable. And they arehome to many of the world'sremaining indigenous peoples.

Keeping Earth's last frontierforests will require a fundamentalshift in how we view them. Fromthe American Wild West of the1800s to Russia's Far East and theSouth American Amazon today,frontiers have been seen aslimitless providers of land, timber,gold, wildlife, and other sourcesof wealth. Careless and wasteful,a typical frontier economy minesthe forest for a quick profit andmoves on.

We believe it is time toreplace this outdated thinkingwith a concept of frontier that isbased on stewardship - takingresponsibility for the forest andensuring that its riches will beavailable for future generations.Good stewardship may meancomplete protection of somefrontier forests combined withcareful management of portionsof others for both timber andnon-timber products.

The change must happensoon: over the coming years,citizens, policy-makers, industryleaders, and others have a chanceto decide the fate of the world'slast frontier forests. The keydecisions before us are windowsof opportunity that may neveropen again.

W O R L D R E S O U R C E S I N S T I T U T E F O R E S T F R O N T I E R S I N I T I A T I V E

W H Y DO FRONTIER FORESTS MATTER?

A s large, intact ecosys-tems, frontier forests dif-fer fundamentally from

the fragmented or otherwisemodified forests that dominate thelandscape today. For one thing,frontier forests are large enoughto provide a safe haven for all oftheir indigenous species. Toensure long-term survival, far-ranging animals such as grizzlybears, harpy eagles, and wolvesneed blocks of natural habitatthousands, if not tens ofthousands, of square kilometers in

size.3A5

Fragmented forests, on theother hand, are probably toosmall to support their full com-plement of species in the comingcenturies.6 Smaller tracts arealso vulnerable to processesbeyond their borders. In theUnited States, for example, thenests of songbirds in small forestpatches are under heavy attack bycowbirds, bluejays, raccoons, andother animals that thrive alongforest edges.7 Many non-frontierforests also lack the natural fea-tures that native species rely on:In the U.S. Pacific Northwest, thespotted owl and marbled murrelet- birds that depend on large,standing dead trees typicallyfound in old-growth forests - arethreatened by logging of theseecosystems.8

Secure habitats for indige-nous species, frontier forests areinvaluable refuges for global biodi-versity. Between 50 and 90 percentof all terrestrial species inhabit theworld's forests,9 and many ofthem are threatened by extinc-tion, primarily because of habitatloss. (See Figure 1) By main-taining these last strongholds weprotect the biodiversity withinthem and provide a source forrecolonizing non-frontier andrestored forests with nativespecies. Beyond its obvious intrin-sic value, biodiversity supplieshumans with food, medicines,and many other staples needed tosurvive and make a living.

More than safe houses forgenes and species under siege,frontier forests maintain complexand inimitable ecological com-munities and processes. Vast andundisturbed, they give free play tonature and to such natural eventsas wildfires and seed dispersal bylarge herbivores, both of whichdetermine the composition anddistribution of species. Such nat-ural processes create unique habi-tats, including ancient stands of"old-growth" forest.

Percent of the world's endangered animal species threatened by the loss of forest and other natural habitat

I

Source: IUCN Species Survival Commission, 1996 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals (IUCN, 1996, Gland), p. 36.


// is time to replace out-dated thinking with aconcept of frontier that

is based onstewardship.

As large, intact ecosystemsgoverned by nature, frontier forestsprovide baseline information onhow such systems should work.Just as doctors use standard bodytemperature and blood pressure todetermine health, ecologists studynatural forests to evaluate theimpact of different human inter-ventions - asking, for instance,how forest clearing might affectlocal rainfall patterns. The resultshelp land managers find ways tolighten the human footprint inheavily used landscapes.

All forests help maintain theenvironmental conditions thatmake life possible, from regionalhydrologic cycles to global cli-mate. But huge frontiers are par-ticularly important. Frontier forestecosystems store tremendousamounts of carbon, for example -approximately 433 billion tonnes,or more than all carbon that willbe released from fossil fuel burn-ing and cement manufacture overthe next 69 years, at current glob-al emission rates.10 Without theseforests, this carbon would gostraight into the atmosphere ascarbon dioxide, a powerful green-house gas.

Protecting and responsiblymanaging our last frontiers todaywill help countries avoid payingthe high costs associated withmassive forest loss and degrada-tion. History abounds with exam-ples of civilizations that founderedafter deforestation led to soil ero-sion, river siltation, wood short-ages, and other banes ofagricultural and industrial produc-tivity. These doomed civilizationsinclude ancient societies inMesopotamia, the Mediterranean,and Central America."

More recently, erosion since1950 due to deforestation is respon-sible for the loss of 580 millionhectares of fertile land worldwide,an area bigger than all of WesternEurope.12 Loss of large forestedwatersheds is blamed for heavierflooding in India's Ganges Valley,and government losses of $1 bil-lion a year in property damage.13

By carefully managing what's leftof the world's frontier forests, wecan dramatically reduce suchenvironmental side effects andcosts.

Dwindling frontier forestsare also home to many of theworld's last indigenous cultures.About 50 million indigenous peo-ple live in tropical forests alone.14

Amazonian forests house at least400 indigenous groups - 1 millionpeople in all.15 Wiping outindigenous cultures by transform-ing forests is a moral crime. Andwhen these cultures vanish, sodoes a gold mine of useful infor-mation about the natural world.

Frontier forests areinvaluable refuges forglobal biodiversity.

A legacy inherited from ourancestors, Earth's last frontierforests may indeed be the mostvaluable gift we can leave for ourchildren. Guardians of biodiversity,indigenous cultures, and ecologicalprocesses, frontiers also providerecreational and ecotourismopportunities. Because so manyirreplaceable forests have alreadydisappeared, the worth to futuregenerations of those that remain isgreater than ever.

Above and beyond practicalconsiderations is the very realaesthetic and spiritual need just toknow that remote and wild placesremain on our crowded planet.One concrete reflection of thisneed is the considerable sum ofmoney many people pay to visitsuch places. But even to manypeople who will never see them,wild plants and animals, alongwith the forests that house them,have an inalienable right to exist.Certainly, as Earth's most power-ful species, we have a responsibil-ity to ensure their survival.


WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE WORLD'S FORESTS?

S urprisingly, we knowvery little about the statusof the world's forests as awhole. Most monitoring

efforts are confined to individualcountries, and the results often donot compute across borders.

Sponsored by the UnitedNations (U.N.), the most compre-hensive study of the world'sforests to date estimates recentdeforestation, but gives noinformation on the overallcondition of remaining forest.16

This U.N. study cost $4 million -less than one eighth the amountU.S. citizens spend each day onnewspapers. 17'18

People need to know that remote and wild placesremain on our crowded planet,

To help fill the gap, WRI askedthe World Conservation MonitoringCentre (WCMC) to develop a mapof Earth's forest cover as it appeared8,000 years ago. The result repre-sents the first detailed attempt toshow what the world's originalforest cover looked like beforehumans began transforming it.

The WRI map also showscurrent forest cover, drawingfrom an earlier WCMC map thatprovides the most comprehensiveimage of total forest cover today.Though based on the best availabledata, the WCMC current forest

cover map is far from complete.Many areas depicted as forestedcan hardly be considered forest.Some are heavily degraded bylogging and other activities, whileothers are single-speciesplantations. A rough picture ofwhere forests are is invaluable,but until WRI's assessment virtuallynothing was known about theircondition on a global scale.

Total Area in Original, Current and Frontier Forest

REGION

ORIGINAL

FOREST

(OOO KM2)

TOTAL REMAINING

FOREST

(FRONTIER AND

NON-FRONTIER

FOREST)

(OOO KM2)

TOTAL

REMAINING

AS A % OFORIGINAL

FOREST

TOTAL

FRONTIER

FOREST

(000 KM2)

FRONTIER

FOREST

AS A %OF TOTAL

ORIGINAL

FOREST

FRONTIER

FOREST

AS A %OF TOTAL

REMAINING

FOREST

AfricaAsiaNorth & Central America

Central AmericaNorth America

South AmericaRussia & Europe

EuropeRussia

Oceania (i)

6,79915,13212,656

1,77910,8779,736

16,4494,690

11,759

1,431

2,302

4,275

9,453970

8,4836,8009,6041,521

8,083

929

34%28%

75%55%78%70%58%

32%69%

65%

527

844

3,909172

3,737

4,439

3,46314

3,448

319

8%6%

31%10%34%46%21%

0.3%29%22%

23%20%41%

18%44%65%36%

1%43%34%

World 62,203

Notes: (0 Oceania consists of Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand

33,363 13,501 22%


WRI's FRONTIER FORESTS ASSESSMENT

Most information on

forests is scattered far

and wide and buried

within the walls of

isolated institutions.

Much lives only in the

minds of biologists

and foresters who are

experts on a single

forest region.

M ost of the tremendousamount of informa-tion on individual

forests that exists is scattered farand wide and buried within thewalls of isolated institutions.Much of it lives only in the mindsof biologists and foresters who areexperts on a single forest region.

Working with severalpartners - including WCMC andthe World Wildlife Fund -WRIwove together some of thisdiverse data, knowledge, andexpertise. First we developed apreliminary map of "candidatefrontier forests" - large forestedareas with few roads or modernsettlements - and sent it to 90forest experts around the world.Using criteria WRI developed, tento fifteen experts for each regioncommented on proposed frontierareas - confirming sites as fron-tier forests, rejecting sites, orredrawing their shape andboundaries. (See Box 1) 19

Experts also supplied infor-mation on the status of frontiersthey identified - if and how theseforests are endangered by devel-opment. They also answered ourqueries about future threats, spec-ifying whether frontiers were intimber concessions or housedsuch high-value resources astimber, oil, or gold.

Using a geographic informa-tion system,20 WRI combined allof these site-specific data into asingle global database and a seriesof regional maps. (See Maps 2-7.)Far from perfect, these mapsnonetheless provide the first real-istic picture of the location andstatus of the world's frontierforests. In the coming months andyears, WRI will work with partnersaround the globe to update andimprove the maps as more infor-mation becomes available and toget them to decision-makers inwhose hands the fate of frontierforests rests.

WRFs maps provide

the first realistic

picture of the location

and status of the

world's frontier forests.


•"FRONTIER FORESTS are the

world's remaining large intactnatural forest ecosystems. Theseforests are - on the whole -relatively undisturbed and bigenough to maintain all of theirbiodiversity, including viablepopulations of the wide-rangingspecies associated with each foresttype. As defined in this assess-ment, a frontier forest mustmeet seven criteria:

1. It is primarily forested.2. It is big enough to supportviable populations of allindigenous species associatedwith that forest type - measuredby the forest's ability to supportwide-ranging animal species(such as elephants, harpyeagles, or brown bears).3 . It is large enough to keepthese species' populations viableeven in the face of the naturaldisasters - such as hurricanes,fires, and pest or disease out-breaks - that might occur therein a century.

D E F I N I T I O N S U S

4. Its structure and compositionare determined mainly by naturalevents, though limited humandisturbance by traditionalactivities of the sort that haveshaped forests for thousands ofyears - such as low-densityshifting cultivation - is accept-able. As such, it remains rela-tively unmanaged by humans,and natural disturbances (suchas fire) are permitted to shapemuch of the forest.5. In forests where patches oftrees of different ages wouldnaturally occur, the landscapeexhibits this type ofheterogeneity.6. It is dominated by indigenoustree species.7. It is home to most, if not all,of the other plant and animalspecies that typically live in thistype of forest.

THREATENED FRONTIER

FORESTS are forests whereongoing or planned humanactivities (such as logging,agricultural clearing, andmining) will eventually degradethe ecosystem (through, forexample, declines in or localextinctions of plants and animalsor large-scale changes in theforest's age and structure).

ED IN T H I S S T U D Y

LOW-THREAT POTENTIALLY

VULNERABLE FRONTIERFORESTS are those not nowconsidered under enoughpressure to degrade ecosystems.But because they are unprotectedand contain valuable naturalresources, or because humanencroachment is likely, most ofthese forests are vulnerable tofuture degradation anddestruction.

NON-FRONTIER FORESTS

are dominated by secondaryforests, plantations, degradedforest, and patches of primaryforest that do not meet thisstudy's frontier criteria (eventhough some might be restoredas frontier forest). This categoryincludes some of the world'smost unique, valuable, andendangered forest types, includ-ing the biologically rich, highlyfragmented forests of Madagascarand Central Europe's last standsof old-growth forest. Suchforests are high priorities forconservation. Non-frontierforests are also importantbecause they provide us with awide range of economic goodsand services.

ORIGINAL FOREST is that

estimated to have covered theplanet about 8,000 years ago,before large-scale disturbanceby modern society began.

A note about the data:This study's resultsrepresent estimates of theextent and location offrontier forests as well asthreats to their survivalIncomplete informationfrom some parts of theworld and difficultiesestimating the magnitudeof threats make the datasuitable only for regionalcomparisons and fordistinguishing majordifferences amongcountries forests. Thisstudy did not assesswoodland areas of theworld, or forests withinmany island countries.(See Technical Annex)

\\


FALLING FRONTIERS

N early half - 46 percent- o f the world's foresthas been converted to

farms, pastures, and other usesover the past 80 centuries. Whilejust over half remains, most of ithas been heavily altered by peopleand bears little resemblance topristine forest. According to thisassessment just 22 percent ofEarth's original forest remains inlarge, relatively natural ecosystems.(See Figure 2.)

Of the remaining frontierforest that is left, nearly half isboreal forest. (See Figure 3J Abroad belt of primarily coniferoustrees, boreal forests lie betweenarctic tundra to the north andwarmer, temperate forests to thesouth. They blanket much ofAlaska, Canada, Russia, andScandinavia.

For two reasons, borealforests have been less disturbedthan have other forest types. First,long winters, poor soils, and otherfactors make farming difficult, solittle forest has been converted toagriculture. Second, boreal trees,particularly in northern areas,tend to be slow-growing,scrawny, and widely dispersed.So until modern technology,increasing wood demand andother factors changed the picture,commercial loggers traditionallyhad little incentive to exploitboreal forests.

Temperate forests, on theother hand, are the most heavilyfragmented and disturbed of allforest types. This study concludesthat just 3 percent of today's fron-tier forests are temperate stands(another 5 percent contains bothtemperate and either boreal ortropical frontier forest). Thrivingin a moderate climate, pristinetemperate forests once extendedthroughout most of Europe, muchof China and the continentalUnited States, as well as parts ofCanada, Australia, New Zealand,Chile, and Argentina.

Thanks to their favorableclimate and fertile soils, temperateforests were the first to be clearedwholesale by humans. By 1000B.C., most of eastern China'sforests had been converted tofarmland.21 More than 2,000years ago, the Greeks andRomans destroyed much of theforest that rimmed theMediterranean.22'23 Today, thefrontier forests of the Middle Eastand Mediterranean Basin arecompletely gone. WesternEurope's frontier forests wereleveled during the Middle Ages asnew cities and towns spreadthroughout the region.24

According to thisassessment just

22 percent of Earth'soriginal forest

remains in large,relatively natural

ecosystems.

What Happened to the Forests That Once Covered the Earth?

RUSSIA &EUROPE

ASIA NORTH &CENTRAL AMERICA

SOUTHAMERICA

AFRICA OCEANIA

FRONTIER FOREST NON-FRONTIER FOREST CLEARED


Temperate forests of theAmericas, Australia, and NewZealand were opened relativelyrecently - over the past few cen-turies - by European explorersand settlers. Although indigenouspeoples had long lived in andshaped these forests, newcomerswrought far more dramaticchanges. (See Box 2.) Even so,almost all of the world's remain-ing temperate frontier forests arein these three regions.

The lion's share of today's frontier forests - more than75 percent-is located in just three large tracts

covering parts of seven countries.

48%-Boreal

Tropical

4 %Both boreal & temperate

3 %Temperate

Until this century, tropicalforests - located in warm regionswithin 30 degrees of the equator -remained largely intact. In thepast few decades, however, theyhave fallen with alarming speed.Between i960 and 1990, some 450million hectares were cleared - afifth of the world's entire tropicalforest cover. (See Figure 4.)

Millions more hectares havebeen degraded by logging,agricultural clearing, and theremoval of vegetation forfuelwood, building materials, andlivestock feed. In Asia and Africa,for example, this study found thatthough roughly a third of theoriginal forest cover remains, lessthan 10 percent of this originalcover still qualifies as frontierforest. (See Table 1)

Temperate Frontier Forests Are the Most Endangered..

P E R C E N T O F T H E W O R L D ' S F R O N T I E R F O R E S T S

4

1%Both temperate & tropical

Worldwide, most frontierforests are now restricted to scat-tered, widely dispersed pockets,many located in inaccessiblemountains or swamps. Europe -which has already lost two thirdsof its historical forest cover -maintains only a few small patchesof frontier forest totalling less than1 percent of the original, all inSweden and Finland.

The lion's share of today'sfrontier forest - more than 75 per-cent - is located in just three largetracts covering parts of sevencountries: two blocks of borealforest - one stretching acrossmuch of Canada and Alaska andthe other in Russia - and onelarge relatively undisturbed chunkof tropical forest spanning theNorthwestern Amazon Basin andGuyana Shield.


Percentage of the World's Tropical Forest Cleared Between i960 and 1990

50

aUJee

UL

EA

IR

ES

T

o

_ i

oa.oee

45

40

35

30

25

20 ;

10^

5

0 -:liililigilliliiiilliittjii

s

Source: Singh and Marzoli, 1995

DAs places that conjure up

images of vast, empty spaces,frontiers are associated with manypopular myths that contribute totheir destruction. In each case, thereality is far more complex. Threeof the more common myths aboutfrontier forests are:

FRONTIERMYTH: Frontiers are comprisedof empty wilderness.

REALITY: People have lived inmany forests for hundreds ofgenerations, mostly in smallgroups. Forests today house severalhundred million people in Asiaalone,25 while at least 20 millionpeople live in the Amazon Basin.26

Low-level human activity overthousands of years within theseareas has helped shape the foreststructure and species mix in frontierecosystems.

FOREST MYTHSMYTH: Forest peoples live inUtopian harmony with nature.

REALITY: Long before Europeancolonization, forest peoples managedtheir natural resources according tocustomary practices. Evidencesuggests that some human culturesdestroyed their own forest ecosystemsthrough abuse, and others in tribalwarfare.27'28 Today, risingpopulations, land shortages, andaccess to sophisticated technologiespose further managementchallenges for forest peoples.

MYTH: Frontiers consist of fertileland, ripe for development.

REALITY: In many places, frontierforests remain undeveloped becausetheir soils are poor and they don'thave much commercially valuabletimber per hectare. In many tropicalforests, for instance, intensive agri-cultural activity can rapidly depletesoils that need natural debris fromthe tree canopy. Then too, forestsare finite, and some are inaccessible.Forests in Amazonia and in CentralAfrica, for example, are rich inbiodiversity but they often lack highdensities of valuable timber speciesor good soils.29

W O R L D RESOURCES INSTITUTE 14 FOREST FRONTIERS INIT IATIVE

TODAY'S THREATS

M any of the frontierforests that havesurvived into this

century may not make it into thenext. Results from this studysuggest that 39 percent of theworld's remaining frontiers arethreatened - that is, undermoderate or high threat - bylogging, agricultural clearing, andother activities, often along theforest edges. Many frontier forestsnot yet threatened - particularlythose in the tropics - are stillvulnerable because they containvaluable timber, oil, or minerals.

Most of the safest frontierforests are in the far north, whereresource-extraction costs arehigh. Taking these forests out ofthe global calculus changes it sig-nificantly: outside Russia andCanada, three quarters of theworld's frontier forests - includ-ing virtually all temperate forestfrontiers - are at risk.

The most important threatsto frontier forests are describedbelow:• LOGGING: This studysuggests that commercial loggingposes by far the greatest danger tofrontier forests. In all six regionsassessed, WRI's advisors citedlogging as the predominate threatto forests - affecting more than 70percent of the world's threatenedfrontiers. (See Table 2.) Loggingcan significantly "rewrite" thestructure and composition offorests. Yet, some of its mostnegative effects are indirect:

Example of Pressures on Forests: People are Using More Paper Products

Q_O

200

150

50

0 1961 1964 1967 1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 1996. Food For All.Address on World Wide Web: <www.fao.org>.

INDUSTRIALIZEDCOUNTRIES

WORLD

logging offsets the cost of road-building to extract the timber,which in turn opens forests tohunting, fuelwood gathering, andclearing for agriculture. Widelyconsidered the primary cause oftropical deforestation (when fron-tier and non-frontier forest aretaken together), agriculturalclearing, in particular, is hastenedonce loggers open forests up.30'31

• ENERGY DEVELOPMENT,

MINING, AND NEW

INFRASTRUCTURE: Large-scalemining and exploration for petro-leum and natural gas also bringnew roads and settlements thatopen once-inaccessible forests toother human activities. Dammingrivers for hydroelectric powerfloods millions of hectares of

DEVELOPINGCOUNTRIES

forest and disrupts freshwaterecosystems. These operations alsotake up forest land and spewpollution into the environment.Energy development, mining,and the roads, pipelines, andsettlements that come with itrepresent the second biggestthreat to frontier forests globally,affecting close to 40 percent of allfrontiers classified as undermoderate or high threat.


• LAND CLEARING FOR

AGRICULTURE: One fifth of the

world's threatened frontiers aredirectly endangered by farmerswho clear forest for cropland andpasture. Land clearing is particu-larly rapacious in Asia, Africa,and Latin America. This threatcan only grow as populationincreases. For the record, resultsfrom WRI's study suggest thatnon-frontier forests - often criss-crossed by roads and easily acces-sible - are under much greaterpressure from farmers than arefrontier forests.

• EXCESSIVE VEGETATION

REMOVAL: Apart from loggingand outright clearing, humansare removing millions of tons ofvegetation from frontier forests,pulling at the fabric of theseecosystems. WRI found thatabout 14 percent of the world'sthreatened frontiers are beingdegraded by overgrazing or theovercollection of firewood, build-ing materials, and other vegeta-tion. Besides damaging terrestrialhabitats, excessive vegetationremoval causes the rivers andstreams that run through theseforests to silt up.

Wood Consumption Projected to Increase by 56% by 2010

2,500

2,000

5 1,500

500

• OVERHUNTING: As eCOSyS

terns, frontier forests comprisemore than just trees. Localextinctions of animal species canaffect the integrity of the entireforest. Many species - includingelephants in Africa and beaver inNorth America - distribute treeseeds and otherwise shape foreststructure. In Africa, one third ofthe forest frontier which isthreatened is at risk throughcommercial hunting, drivenlargely by urban demand forbushmeat.

1993

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 1996. Food For All.Address on World Wide Web: <www.fao.org>.

• OTHER THREATS: On a

smaller scale, other activities alsoendanger frontier forests. Theyrange from the obvious - forestconversion to, say, tree planta-tions or ski resorts - to the not soobvious. Among the latter areforest managers who suppressnatural fires which help shapemany frontier ecosystems, far-offfactories that emit wind-bornepollutants harmful to trees, andexotic animal species introducedeither accidentally or deliberatelyby people who don't know ordon't care that the newcomerscan outcompete native plants andanimals for scarce resources. (InNew Zealand, our advisors con-cluded that introduced and feralspecies - domestic species gonewild - pose the single greatestdanger to frontier forests.)

In most cases, frontier forestsare endangered by more than oneof these threats. One future threatnot covered in this study is thepotential impact of global warmingon forest ecosystems. Nativespecies that can't adapt or migrateto new habitats quickly enoughcould die out rapidly as climatechanges and new diseases, pestinfestations, and natural distur-bances increase as a result.32


DESTRUCTION'S ROOTS

Frequentlygovernments and

industry reap the profitswhile frontier peoplesreceive only a sliver ofthe benefits but bearthe environmental

brunt of forestmismanagement

L ike symptoms of disease,

visible threats to forests are

often best treated by

addressing their underlying causes.

Behind the obvious activities

endangering the world's frontier

forests are a nest of interrelated

root causes:

• GROWING ECONOMIES

AND CONSUMPTION: Even in

parts of the world where popula-

tion is not growing significantly,

demand for certain forest

resources - for both local and

export markets - is intensifying

as economies expand. Between

1961 and 1994, per capita

consumption of paper increased

by 86 percent globally and by 350

percent in developing countries.

(See Figure 5.) Industrialized

countries still use more than 10

times as much paper per person

than people in developing regions

do. Global consumption of indus-

trial wood products is expected to

jump by more than 50 percent by

. (See Figure 6.)

• POPULATION GROWTH

AND DEMAND FOR NEW

LAND: Just since 1950, the

world's population has more than

doubled.33 As a result, in many

regions, forests have been cleared

to grow food and to make way for

new settlements. Population

growth also drives up demand for

timber, paper, fuelwood, and

other products from an ever-

shrinking forest base.

Threats to Frontier Forests

P E R C E N T O F T H R E A T E N E D F O R E S T F R O N T I E R S A T R I S K F R O M :

REGION

PERCENT OFFRONTIER FOREST

UNDER MODERATEOR H I G H THREAT (i) LOGGING

M I N I N G ,ROADS

AND OTHERINFRASTRUCTURE

AGRICULTURAL

CLEARING

EXCESSIVEVEGETATION

REMOVAL OTHER (ii)

Africa

AsiaNorth & Central America

Central AmericaNorth America

South AmericaRussia & Europe

EuropeRussia

Oceania (iii)

77602987265419

1001976

79508354846986808642

121027172753510

5125

17203

232

32404

15

891

290

1429202938

41241413145

180

1827

World 39 72 38 20 14 13

N o t e s : (i) Frontier forests considered under immediate threat, as a percent of all frontier forest assessed for threat. Threatened frontier forests are places where ongoing or planned human activities are likely, if con-tinued over coming decades, to result in the significant loss of natural qualities associated with all or part of these areas (for example, causing declines in, or local extinctions of, wildlife and plant populations, or large-scale changes in the age and structure of these forests).

(ii) "Other" includes such activities as overhunting, introduction of harmful exotic species, isolation of smaller frontier forest 'islands' through development of surrounding lands, changes in fire regimes andplantation establishment.

(iii) Oceania consists of Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand.

See Technical Annex.


• BAD ECONOMIC POLICIES:

In weighing land-managementoptions, economists and policy-makers often overlook the costs oflosing frontier forest. Such costsmay come in the form of soilerosion, the loss of water foragriculture, and release of carboninto the atmosphere. Lost oppor-tunities should count too,including foregone income fromecotourism, "bio-prospecting",and other lucrative uses of wholeand healthy forests. Even logging,mining and other exploitativeuses often don't bring in therevenues they could: trying toattract foreign investors, manynational governments all but giveaway valuable rights to exploittheir forests. Such economicdecisions are common becausethe costs of destruction are not feltor paid by those doing the dam-age. Frequently, governments andindustry reap the profits whilefrontier peoples receive only asliver of the benefits but bear theenvironmental brunt of forestmismanagement.

E l DIFFEROF RANKII

WRI's Forest Frontiers Indexspeaks volumes about the coun-tries' opportunities to protect fron-tier forests and about the immedi-acy of threats to these frontiers.Alternative methods for rankingcountries tell different stories.Table 4, for example, identifiesthe 12 countries with the largestarea of frontier forest. All told,these countries account for 90percent of what remains onEarth. Table 5 lists countries withfrontier forest likely to be of

EIMT W A Y SMG COUNTRIES

exceptional biodiversity value(based on the large numbers ofplant species estimated to befound within them).

One important story -beyond the scope of this assess-ment - would be to rank countriesaccording to the amount ofthreatened forest lying outsidefrontiers. Such an index would beuseful for identifying countrieswhere unique forest ecosystemsare on the verge of extinction.

• SHORT-SIGHTED

POLITICAL DECISIONS: In much

of the world, frontier forests aresacrificed for short-term politicalgain - to appease interest groupsor to line the pockets of politiciansand their allies. In endangeredU.S. and Canadian old-growthforests, for example, governmentsallow logging to provide question-able job security for a very smallnumber of people who may soonbe sidelined by technological andmarket changes within the indus-try anyway. In tropical countriessuch as Brazil, Indonesia, andMalaysia, decision-makers attackpoverty by moving millions ofpeople to the forest frontier, eventhough this approach is only atemporary fix for the poor andcan permanently destroy theforests.

• CORRUPTION AND

ILLEGAL TRADE: Corruptionamong officials in government,industry, and other organizationsoften hastens frontier forest loss.In Cambodia, for example, themilitary takes part in a thrivingillegal timber trade with neigh-boring Thailand.34 In Burma, thegovernment and rebel groupshave both financed a decades-long civil war with illegal loggingproceeds.35 In Alaska, Malaysia,Suriname, and elsewhere, timbercompanies have been accused ofengaging in timber smuggling,trying to bribe governmentofficials to procure lucrativeconcessions, and other illegalpractices.36'37 Even demand forillegal drugs fuels forest destruc-tion: in Colombia, for example,clearings are carved out of remotefrontier forests to grow coca,marijuana, and opium poppies.38

• POVERTY AND

LANDLESSNESS In Brazil,Guatemala, and elsewhere, thepoor flock to frontier forests insearch of agricultural land andother economic opportunities.Rather than grapple with suchpolitically thorny issues as landredistribution and tenure,governments often encourage theclearing of forest lands poorlysuited to agriculture. In Brazil, forexample, migrants have had toclear forest to establish landownership, a "don't think twice"policy that spawned more defor-estation and discouraged settlersfrom managing frontiers for theirforest products.39


T H E FRONTIER F O R E S T INDEX

W RI's Frontier ForestIndex shows thatmost of the world's

nations have already lost, ormight soon lose, their last frontierforests. (See Table 3.) The indexranks countries according to thepercentage of frontier forest lostand to the proportion of remain-ing frontier that is moderately orhighly threatened - in otherwords, high-scoring countrieshave lost much of their frontier,and most of what remains isthreatened.

Seventy-six countries havelost it all. These include almost allof the countries of Europe andEastern Africa and all of NorthAfrica and the Middle East. Forthese countries, forest restorationshould be a priority. (See Box 4.)

Another 11 countries -including Nigeria, Thailand,Sweden, Finland and Guatemala -are classified as on the edge. Theyhave at most 5 percent of theiroriginal frontier left, and it isthreatened. While core areas ofthese isolated frontiers may beprotected in parks or reserves,logging and other activities out-side (and sometimes inside)protected areas threaten theecosystems as a whole. Unlessthese countries act immediately,they are likely to lose most of thelittle frontier they have left.

In 28 countries, there is notmuch time to protect remainingfrontier forests. Most of thesenations have lost most of theiroriginal frontier, and much of theremainder is threatened. Thesecountries include the United States(which, if not for Alaska's vastboreal forest, would rank amongcountries "on the edge"), PapuaNew Guinea, Malaysia, Panama,Mexico, Argentina, India, andAustralia.

Only seven countries -Brazil, Suriname, Guyana,Canada, Colombia, Venezuela, andRussia - and one OverseasDepartment of France (FrenchGuiana), still have a largeproportion of their original forestcover remaining in an unthreat-ened state. These nations havegreat opportunities to sustainlarge areas of frontier forest ifthey begin to follow stewardshipprinciples now. (See Box 5J

Even in these eight places,some frontiers are under siege. InCanada, two thirds of BritishColumbia's temperate coastalrainforest - one of Earth's biologi-cally richest temperate ecosystems- has been degraded by loggingor other development, and muchof what remains intact outsideprotected areas is slated forlogging in coming years. **International timber companieshave been trying to negotiatecontracts to log much of theremaining Amazon and GuyanaShield frontier - including onethird of Suriname's forests.41

Decisions made within the nextfew years will decide the fate offrontier forests within thesecountries.


Frontier Forest Index

COUNTRY

PERCENT OF

ORIGINAL FRONTIER

FOREST LOST

PERCENT OF

CURRENT FRONTIER

FOREST THREATENED

FRONTIER FOREST

INDEX

( 9 9 = WORST POSSIBLE SCORE)

LOST IT ALL (These countries have lost all oftheirfrontier forest. Restoration should be a priority.)

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Benin, Botswana, Bulgaria, Burundi, Byelarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea,Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, France, The Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Hungary, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Democratic People's Republic of Korea,Republic of Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Liberia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Moldova, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, Pakistan, Paraguay, Philippines,Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan,Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yugoslavia (former), Zambia, Zimbabwe.

O N THE EDGE (Unless they act immediately, these countries risk losing much of their remaining frontier forest)

NigeriaFinlandVietnamLaosGuatemalaCote d'lvoireTaiwanSwedenBangladeshCentral African RepublicThailand

99

9l969695

100100100100100100100100100100100

99

NOT MUCH Time (Frontierforest in these countries will continue to fall without further action.)

9l969695

ArgentinaNew ZealandChinaCosta RicaCambodiaCameroonBruneiHondurasUnited StatesNicaraguaBhutanMexicoGabonSri LankaPanamaEcuadorZaireIndiaBoliviaBurmaAustraliaPapua New GuineaCongoBelizeMalaysiaPeruIndonesiaChile

9491

9092

94787692

6563849956948260716585437245

100100931001009710010085100100771007610099705797566384656648955476

GREAT OPPORTUNITY (Given careful stewardship, these countries have a real chance to keep most of their original frontier forest.)

BrazilVenezuelaRussiaColombiaCanadaGuyanaSurinameFrench Guiana

584171644218

3719192141220

949191909090

7978767168676563595655525250464341413935

281513128720


1

GLOBAL RANK

123456789

101112

COUNTRY

RussiaCanada

Brazil

PeruIndonesiaVenezuelaColombia

United StatesZaire

BoliviaPapua New Guinea

Chile

Countries With Most of the World's

TOTAL

FRONTIER FOREST

(000 KM2)

3,448

3,4292,284

540530391348307292255172162

TABLE 4

Remaining Frontier Forest

PERCENT OF THE

WORLD'S TOTAL

FRONTIER FOREST

262517443322211

Total frontier forest area of the top 12 countries as a % of the global total: 90

GLOBAL RANK

123456789

10

COUNTRY

BrazilColombiaIndonesiaVenezuela

PeruEcuador

BoliviaMexico

MalaysiaPapua New Guinea

FRONTIER FOREST

(000 KM2)

2,28434853039154080

2558747

172

Ten Countries with the Highest Plant Biodiversity in Their Frontier Forest

ESTIMATED NUMBER OF PERCENT OF THE

PLANT SPECIES WITHIN COUNTRY'S PLANT

FRONTIER FORESTS SPECIES FOUND WITHIN

(THOUSANDS) FRONTIER FORESTS

363418

15

131210

98

7

~65~70~65~75~75~65~60~35~50~70

Note: Forest frontier plant species richness was estimated by multiplying the country's higher plant species totals per unit area (standard-ized for size, using a species-area curve) by the country's total frontier forest area.


REGIONAL OVERVIEWS

NORTH AND CENTRAL

AMERICA

After Russia's, the world'slargest expanse of frontier forest isan unbroken 6,500-kilometer arcof boreal forest stretching fromNewfoundland to Alaska. TheseNorth American forest ecosystems- still vast and relatively undis-turbed in northernmost Canadaand interior Alaska - store a sig-nificant proportion ofthe globaltotal of biotic carbon and supplymuch of the world's growingdemand for forest products. Theyalso provide livelihoods for thou-sands of indigenous people and arefuge for woodland caribou,grizzly bear, grey wolf, and otherlarge mammals that once rangedwidely across the continent.42 Asa group, these frontiers rankamong the least threatened in theworld (approximately a quarter ofthe area is threatened). Even so,they are being pushed steadilynorthward by mineral extraction,hydroelectric development, andskyrocketing demand for woodfiber, especially paper products.

To the south, NorthAmerica's temperate frontierforests have retreated to a fewremote mountainous pockets inthe western United States andCanada. Within the lower 48 U.S.states, frontiers account for about1 percent of original forest cover.

North American forest ecosystems store asignificant proportion ofthe global total of bioticcarbon and supply much ofthe world's growing

demand for forest products.

What remains lies primarily with-in three assemblages of nationalparks and wilderness areas in thenorthern Rockies and one block inthe North Cascades of Washingtonstate. While each forest block islargely protected, they are classi-fied as threatened because theyare becoming too isolated to sup-port populations of some of theirlarge mammal species over time. ̂

In Mexico, one relativelylarge frontier remains in theSierra Madre Occidental, a biolog-ically diverse temperate coniferforest severely threatened byrapidly expanding logging androad construction. Mexico's otherfrontier forests are in Oaxaca,Chiapas, and the Maya forestregion (which extends into Belizeand Guatemala). These tropicalforests - along with a chain ofothers stretching south throughthe Miskito coast of Honduras andNicaragua, the La Amistad regionon the Costa Rican-Panamanianborder, and the Darien forests onPanama's border with Colombia -are almost all highly threatened.

Central America's frontierforests are under many kinds ofassault. In the Darien region, themajor threat is completion ofthePan American highway. (Seebelow.) In other areas,agricultural expansion, logging,and infrastructure developmentare the dangers. Guatemala's for-est frontier, for example, shrankdramatically in the past decade aslogging roads opened the area tolandless peasants and to wealthyagricultural business interests.

On the whole, NorthAmerica still has a good numberof frontier forests in its northern-most regions that remain rela-tively safe. Yet from its southernband of boreal forests all the wayto Panama's Darien Gap,virtually all the rest ofthe conti-nent's frontiers stand to lose theirfrontier status within the nextdecade or two.

THREATENED FRONTIERS INCLUDE:

Frontier:1. TONGAS NATIONAL FOREST

Forest type: TemperateGeographic location: Alaska,United StatesThreat: LoggingAt risk: One of the world's largesttracts of temperate old-growthforest, as well as a unique ecosys-tem type: coastal temperate rain-forest.

Frontier:2 FORESTS OF THE DARIEN GAP

Forest type: TropicalGeographic location: Panamaand ColombiaThreat: Logging, other woodremoval, proposed highway con-struction, and coca cultivationAt risk: A proposed highwayacross the Darien Gap wouldprovide a route for non-indigenousspecies - such as organisms thatcause hoof-and-mouth disease -with potentially disastrous long-term biological and economicconsequences to both regions.44/45

Road construction, logging, andother activities threaten forests thatare home to three indigenouscultures and rich nativebiodiversity.


THREATENED FRONTIER FORESTS OF NORTH AMERICA

•FRONTIER FORESTS UNDERLOW OR NO THREAT:

large, intact natural forest ecosystemsthat are relatively undisturbed andlarge enough to maintain all of theirbiodiversity.

•FRONTIER FORESTS UNDER

MEDIUM OR HIGH THREAT:

ongoing or planned human activities(e.g. logging, agricultural clearing,mining) will, if continued, significant-ly degrade these frontiers.

NON-FRONTIER FORESTS:

secondary forest, plantations, degradedforest, and patches of primary forestnot meeting this study's criteria asfrontier.

•FRONTIER FORESTSUNASSESSED FOR THREAT:

insufficient information preventedevaluating the threat level of thesefrontiers.

Map Projection: Lambert-Azimuthal. Basemap data from ArcWorld. Assistance in data preparation, mapping, and analysis provided by (££ World Wildlife Fund & SH World Conservation Monitoring Centre.Data sources (i) Forest cover data provided by World Conservation Monitoring Centre, (ii.) Frontier forest data derived through expert assessment and from other sources.


THREATENED FRONTIER FORESTS OF SOUTH AMERICA



•FRONTIER FORESTS UNDERMEDIUM OR HIGH THREAT:






Basemap data from ArcWorld. Assistance in data preparation, mapping and analysis provided by & World Wildlife Fund & Wk World Conservation Monitoring Centre.Data sources (i.) Forest cover data provided by World Conservation Monitoring Centre, (ii.) Forestfrontiers data derived through expert assessment and from other sources.


Logging is themain threat

to South America'sfrontier forests.

SOUTH AMERICA

Throughout South America,large-scale resettlement andagricultural and resource develop-ment projects claimed much ofthe 645,000 square kilometers offorest lost in this region between1980 and 1990-the greatestamount of forest loss in the worldduring these years. Brazil alonelost close to 370,000 square kilo-meters - more than a fifth of alltropical forest lost worldwide dur-ing that time. *

Still, South America main-tains vast areas of intact tropicaland temperate forest. TheNorthern Amazon Basin and theGuyana Shield house the largesttropical frontier forests anywhere47

On the rim of the AmazonBasin, forests of the NorthernAndes (Peru, Ecuador, andColombia) rank among Earth'sbiologically richest.48 Chile andArgentina share the largest singleblock of remaining temperatefrontier forest in the world.

Logging is the main threat toSouth America's frontier forests,endangering about 70 percent ofall frontiers classified undermedium or high threat. Energyexploration, mining, and newroads are encroaching on abouthalf the region's threatenedfrontiers. Clearing for agriculturejeopardizes almost a third of allthreatened frontier forests.

In recent decades, nationaldevelopment policies have fueledmuch of the region's deforestation.During the 1960s and 1970s, theBrazilian government's "modern-ization" policy prompted majorforest clearing in the Amazon.The government had hoped tosolve land-tenure problems inother regions by establishingcolonies of small-holder farmersin the forests, to integrate theregion into the rest of the countrywith a massive road network,earn revenues by developing nat-ural resources and strengthenBrazil's borders by populating itsfrontier. Government policies trig-gered both planned and sponta-neous immigration of landlesspeasants from throughout thecountry, and resulted in large-scaleclearing of the forest by landspeculators hoping to profit fromsubsidies provided to cattleranchers. 49/5°

In Bolivia, Guyana, andSuriname, a drive to exploitnatural resources over the pastdecade - partly to respond toeconomic crises - has acceleratedthe loss of frontier forests. OnlyVenezuela and Colombia havestrongly restricted logging, mining,and other extractive activities, andVenezuela may soon buckle undersevere economic pressure toexploit its rich natural resources.

Chile's temperate frontierforests are increasingly threatened,primarily by logging to providewood chips (for export mainly toJapan) and fuelwood. WhileEucalyptus and pine plantationsprovide much of the timber neededfor export and industry, preciousnative forests are cleared to makeway for new plantations.51/52


Frontier:1. THE ATLANTIC RAINFOREST

Forest type: TropicalGeographic location: CoastalBrazilThreats: Logging, agriculturalclearing, excessive vegetationremoval, pollutionAt Risk: Only 5 percent of theoriginal Atlantic Rainforest is left,and just a fraction of this vestigecan be considered frontier. TheAtlantic Rainforest is particularlyrich in biodiversity: 70 percent ofits plants and most of its 20 pri-mate species are found nowhereelse in the world, and the wildrelatives of many important foodcrops (including pineapple,cassava, sweet potato, andpapaya) are found there.

Frontier:2. COASTAL CHILEAN FORESTS

Forest type: TemperateGeographic location: SouthernChileThreats: Clearing for plantations,logging for the wood-chip industry,fuelwood productionAt Risk: One third of the world'slargest tract of relatively undis-turbed temperate forest. Chile'stemperate forests contain at least50 species of timber trees (95 per-cent of them endemic) and morethan 700 vascular plant species(half of them endemic).53 Thealerce cedar, the SouthernHemisphere's largest conifer and atree that can live over 3,000 years,is found here.54 More than 35,000families in this region face severepoverty and expulsion as largetimber companies buy land forwood-chip production and treeplantations.

Frontier:3. BOLIVAR STATE

Forest type: TropicalGeographic location:Southeastern VenezuelaThreats: Logging, mining(gold and diamonds), and oilexploration.At Risk: Venezuela's Bolivar Stateis a part of the Guyana Shield-Amazon Basin complex, thelargest tropical frontier forest.Rich in species, the area is hometo the Pemon and several otherindigenous groups.

Only BrazilSuriname, Guyana,Canada, Colombia,Venezuela, Russia,

and French Guianastill have a large

proportion of theiroriginal forest cover

remaining in anunthreatened state.


AFRICA

Except for the Congo Basin,Africa's frontier forests havelargely been destroyed, primarilyby loggers and by farmers clear-ing land for agriculture. In WestAfrica, nearly 90 percent of theoriginal moist forest is gone, andwhat remains is heavily frag-mented and degraded. Today, WestAfrican frontiers are restricted toone patch in Cote d'lvoire andanother along the border betweenNigeria and Cameroon.

To the east, very littleremains of Madagascar's oncemagnificent tropical forests. Longisolated from mainland ecosys-tems, these forests are home to anexceptional number of plants andanimals found nowhere else.Unfortunately, none ofMadagascar's forest fragments islarge or natural enough to qualifyas a frontier today.

Large blocks of intact natur-al forest do remain in CentralAfrica, particularly in Zaire,Gabon, and the Congo. In Zaire -which contains more than halfthis region's forest cover - manyforests remain intact, in partbecause the nation's poortransportation system can't easilyhandle timber and mineralexploitation.55 Some areas havefewer passable roads today thanin I960, the year the countrybecame independent, and somefrontiers have lost populationduring this period.

Today, most of Africa'sremaining frontier forests are atrisk. The two major threats arelogging and commercial huntingto meet growing urban demandfor bushmeat. (Overhuntingremoves populations of keyspecies that help maintain naturalforest ecosystems.) In CentralAfrica, over 90 percent of all log-ging occurs in primary forest -one of the highest ratios of anyregion in the world.56 In someareas, logging itself causesrelatively little damage becauseonly a few high-value tree speciesare removed. Still, logging roadsopen up a forest to hunters,would-be farmers and other prof-it-seekers. One region warrantingspecial concern is eastern Zaire:Civil unrest in Rwanda, Burundi,Sudan, and Zaire has driven hun-dreds of thousands of people intothis area, where they escalatedemands on the forest.


Frontier:I . T A I NATIONAL PARK AND

SURROUNDING FORESTS

Forest type: TropicalGeographic location: Cote d'lvoireThreats: Logging, agriculturalclearing, hunting, potentialinvasion by war refugeesAt Risk: The only remaininglarge and relatively intact piece ofa forest block that once coveredmore than 830,000 square kilo-meters in eight countries west ofthe Dahomey Gap (a naturalsavanna that divides West Africa'sforests into two distinct sections).

Frontier:2. CROSS RIVER AND KORUP

NATIONAL PARKS AND

SURROUNDING FORESTS

Forest type: TropicalGeographic location: Borderbetween Nigeria and CameroonThreats: Logging by Asian andEuropean timber companies inunprotected forests, new settle-ments, agricultural clearing,huntingAt risk: Rich in plant species, thisforest may provide a wealth ofpotential new drugs and industrialproducts. Extracts from the newlydiscovered Ancistrocladus koru-pensis vine, for example, offerhope for a new AIDS treatment.

Except for the CongoBasin, Africa's

frontier forests havelargely been destroyed,

and most of thoseremaining are at risk

Frontier:3. EASTERN ZAIRE FORESTS

Forest type: TropicalGeographic location: ZaireThreats: Agricultural clearing,invasion by throngs of warrefugeesAt risk: The greatest biologicaldiversity of any forests on the con-tinent. Also, the Ituri forest (foundwithin this frontier) is home tomany of Africa's remainingpygmy peoples.


THREATENED FRONTIER FORESTS OF AFRICA





• 1 NON-FRONTIER FORESTS:




Basemap data from ArcWorld. Assistance in data preparation, mapping and analysis provided by & World Wildlife Fund & SB World Conservation Monitoring Centre.Data sources (i.) Forest cover data provided by World Conservation Monitoring Centre, (ii.) Forestfrontiers data derived through expert assessment and from other sources.


T H R E A T E N E D F R O N T I E R F O R E S T S OF E U R O P E & R U S S I A









Map Projection: Equidistant. Basemap data from ArcWorld. Assistance in data preparation, mapping and analysis provided by (&£ World Wildlife Fund & U World Conservation Monitoring Centre.Data sources (i.) Forest cover data provided by World Conservation Monitoring Centre, (ii.) Forestfrontiers data derived through expert assessment and from other sources.


EUROPE AND RUSSIA

Once blanketed by forest,Europe and Russia have both lostvirtually all of their temperatefrontier forest. Most of Europe'sforests were leveled centuries ago.Although forest area within theregion has increased since 1950,nearly all of it consists ofplantation or highly managedforest.57

Europe's last few large tractsof relatively natural forest are inSweden and Finland. Significantportions of this frontier fall out-side parks and reserves, and allfrontier forests are threatened byroad development, fire suppres-sion, grazing, logging, and otheractivities.

Containing Earth's largestexpanse of frontier forest (mostlyin Siberia), Russia's boreal forestsare still largely intact. The countryhouses almost three quarters of allboreal forest and nearly one fifthof the world's total forest area.58

An immense storehouse of livingcarbon, the nation's frontierforests cover more than 4 millionsquare kilometers. Clearing themcould contribute significantly toglobal warming. Russia's FarEastern frontier is also the lasthabitat for such highly endangeredspecies as the Amur tiger, the FarEastern leopard, the Far Easternforest cat, the red wolf, and thesikha deer.59

Endangered frontier forestsin Russia are threatened mainlyby logging, named by WRI's advi-sors as the chief risk in about 85percent of the region's threatenedfrontier forest. Mineral andenergy exploration and set firesalso impinge.

Already, portions of Russia'sFar East and much of EuropeanRussia (west of the Ural moun-tains) have been heavily logged.Until now, lack of infrastructureand outmoded harvesting prac-tices kept much of Siberia's fron-tier forest undeveloped. Recenteconomic and political liberaliza-tion may change the situation,however. International timberand trading corporations,particularly Asian companies, arelooking to Siberian forests as anew source of supply as burgeoningglobal demand for timber stripsother regions of valuable,accessible trees.60 Over the nextdecade or two, foreign capital,machinery, and road-buildingcould open much of Siberia's forestto logging, mining, and otherdamaging activities.


Frontier:1. NORTHERN PRIMORSKI KRAI

Forest type: Temperate and borealGeographic location: RussianFar EastThreats: Logging, mining, androad developmentAt risk: Habitat for some of theworld's rarest species, includingthe Amur tiger. This forest also ishome to Udege, Nanai, Ul'ta, andother indigenous groups.61

Frontier:2. FRONTIERS ENCOMPASSING THE

GREEN KARELIAN BELT

Forest type: BorealGeographic location: Russia andFinlandThreats: Logging for export toFinland and related roadconstructionAt risk: One of Europe's lastremaining frontiers and thetraditional home of the Karelianpeople.

WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE 2 9 FOREST FRONTIERS INITIATIVE

ASIA

Asia has lost almost 95 per-cent of its frontier forests. Apartfrom the Mediterranean andMiddle East - where all suchforests have disappeared - thisrepresents the world's greatestloss of frontier forest outside ofEurope. China and India todayhave just 20 percent of their origi-nal forest cover. Of these remain-ing forests, less than 10 percentcan be classified as frontier. In the20 years between i960 and 1980alone, Asia lost almost a third ofits tropical forest cover, the high-est rate of forest conversion in theworld.62

On mainland Southeast Asia,most frontiers are gone. The iso-lated pockets left are confined pri-marily to Burma, Laos, andCambodia, where war and civilunrest until recently inhibiteddevelopment. With peace havecome new threats from commer-cial loggers who have alreadyexhausted forests in Thailand andpeninsular Malaysia - where har-vest and import restrictions nowencourage logging companies tomove on to neighboring nations.

Most of Asia's remainingfrontier forest is confined to theislands of Borneo, Sumatra,Sulawesi, and Irian Jaya. Evenhere, however, loggers haveexploited most accessible forestsalong coasts and major rivers.Agriculture and poorly plannedresettlement programs also take atoll. Between 1969 and 1994,Indonesia's transmigration pro-gram moved 8 million people tothe nation's forested islandswhere 1.7 million hectares of trop-ical forest were soon stripped.63

More than half of Asia's lastfrontiers are under moderate tohigh threat, particularly from log-ging. An even greater long-termworry is Asia's burgeoning popu-lation and its ever increasingdemand for food and agriculturalland. Between 1990 and 1995alone, the region's largely ruralpopulation grew by more than270 million people. The world'smost densely populated region,Asia had more than 1 person forevery hectare of land in 1995.64


Frontier:1. RATANAKIRI PROVINCE

Forest type: TropicalGeographic location: CambodiaThreat: Illegal logging for exportto Vietnam. Outside protectedareas, most of the province isalready under concession toforeign logging companies.At risk: Resident minority groups,already evicted from other areasby logging companies. Rice farm-ing and local fishing here andelsewhere in the Mekong Riverwatershed. Kouprey and otherhighly endangered species.

Frontier:2. SUNDARBANS

Forest type: TropicalGeographic location:Bangladesh and IndiaThreat: Logging, fuelwoodcollectionAt risk: The world's largest man-grove forest. Habitat for theworld's largest - and possiblyonly viable - population of theBengal tiger. Fish and forest prod-ucts provide a living for up to300,000 local families.65

Frontier:3. NORTH HEILONGJIANG PROVINCE

Forest type: BorealGeographic location: ChinaThreat: Logging: 80 percent ofthis frontier is slated to be cut.At risk: One of China's fewremaining large intact tracts ofprimary forest. Habitat for sever-al important wildlife species.Protection for the headwaters ofthe Amur River.

Asia has lost almost95percent of its frontierforests, and most ofwhat remains is con-

fined to the islands ofBorneo, Sumatra,

Sulawesi, andMan Jaya.

W O R L D RESOURCES I N S T I T U T E 30 FOREST FRONTIERS INIT IATIVE

THREATENED FRONTIER FORESTS OF ASIA





I l l NON-FRONTIER FORESTS:




Basemap data from ArcWorld. Assistance in data preparation, mapping and analysis provided by & World Wildlife Fund &Data sources (i.) Forest cover data provided by World Conservation Monitoring Centre, (ii.) Forestfrontiers data derived tk

World Conservation Monitoring Centre,assessment and from other sources.


THREATENED FRONTIER FORESTS OF OCEANIA







•FRONTIER FORESTS

UNASSESSED FOR THREAT:


Basemap data from ArcWorld. Assistance in data preparation, mapping and analysis provided by (£» World Wildlife Fund & U World Conservation Monitoring Centre.Data sources (i.) Forest cover data provided by World Conservation Monitoring Centre, (ii.) Forestfrontiers data derived through expert assessment and from other sources.


A high percentage ofAustralia's native

species live nowhereelse on Earth.

OCEANIA (PAPUA NEW

GUINEA, AUSTRALIA, AND

NEW ZEALAND):

Oceania has lost almost 80percent of its frontier forests.About three quarters of whatremains is under moderate orhigh threat. Within the region, thestatus of forests varies greatly bycountry and forest type.

New Zealand has lost thehighest percentage of frontier for-est: less than 10 percent of its orig-inal forest cover remains as afrontier. Colonized by the Maoriabout a thousand years ago, theseforests were the last of the world'slarge land areas to be settled byhumans, but clearing for agricul-ture has destroyed about twothirds of all frontier forests sincethat date, and another 5 percentor so has been converted to plan-tations. Although most of NewZealand's remaining frontiers arelegally protected, all are threat-ened by introduced species, suchas the Australian brush-tailedpossum, which are taking aheavy toll on the nation's endemicflora.66'67

A high percentage ofAustralia's native species livenowhere else on Earth, and muchof this biodiversity resides withinthe nation's forests. To date, thecontinent has lost more than 80percent of its original frontierforest, including large areas ofspecies-rich, unique forest types.Three-fourths of Australia's tropi-cal rainforest, for example, hasbeen cleared since the late 1700s.68

Australia's remaining fron-tier forests are confined largely toTasmania, Cape York, and thenorthwestern region.69 Grazing byferal and domestic animals posesa major threat, and fire manage-ment practices are also a majorconcern in some areas. Logging'stoll within many non-frontierareas is a serious problem.Temperate rainforests, now largelyfragmented, are still cut inTasmania and southeasternAustralia - fodder for woodchipsfor export to Japan, which con-verts them into paper, packagingmaterials, and other products.70-71

Papua New Guinea (PNG)still possesses large areas of intacttropical forest - 40 percent of itsoriginal forest. Along with neigh-boring Irian Jaya, PNG is consid-ered a global "biodiversity hotspot."The country probably contains atleast 5 percent of the world'sspecies within less than 1 percent ofits land area.72

About 85 percent of PNG'sfrontier forests are under moder-ate or high threat, primarily fromlogging, agricultural clearing, andmining. One legacy of large clear-felling operations is soil erosion.Sediment washed by rivers to thesea threatens PNG's species-richcoral reefs and coastal fisheries.


Frontier:1. CENTRAL NORTH ISLAND

(KAWEKA/RUAHINE RANGE)

Forest type: TemperateGeographic location: NewZealandThreat: Introduced species(Australian brush-tailed possumand feral horses)At risk: A high concentration ofindigenous species, as well as aglobally unique forest ecosystemwith great biodiversity, recre-ational, and scenic value.

Frontier:2. WESTERN AND GULF PROVINCES

Forest type: TropicalGeographic location: PapuaNew GuineaThreats: Logging and pipelinedevelopment. (A large oilfield hasbeen discovered about 180 milesinland.)At risk: A vast tract of relativelyundisturbed tropical forest ofexceptionally high species rich-ness. Homelands for severalgroups of indigenous people.

WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE 3 3 FOREST FRONTIERS INITIATIVE

T H E C L O S I N G F R O N T I E R : A CALL TO A C T I O N

The news is not allbad. The opportunityto protect a pricelessnatural inheritancefor ourselves and

future generations isstill ours.

T his assessment found thatfew large intact forestecosystems are left on the

planet, and that many of these lastfrontiers are threatened by logging,agricultural clearing, and otheractivities. But the news is not allbad: even after thousands of yearsof forest clearing and degradation,some frontier forests remain. Theopportunity to protect a pricelessnatural inheritance for ourselvesand future generations is still ours.

But this assessment also sug-gests that unless we take actionquickly, this opportunity is likely topass. Against a backdrop of popu-lation growth and mountinghuman needs, preventing furtherfrontier losses will require a newand balanced approach to forestmanagement - one that protectsforests' biodiversity and otherassets while simultaneously pro-viding for people and ecosystemservices.

Stewardship Options for Managing Frontier Forests

SUSTAINABLE FOREST PRACTICES

FRONTIER FOREST BOUNDARY

OPTION ONEMaintain the entire frontier forest as a protected park or reserve.Develop sustainable land-use practices in surrounding non-frontier forest so thatthis forest serves as a buffer zone.Retain biodiversity, carbon balances, and watershed quality as they are now.

OPTION TWOi Establish protected areas where needed within large portions of the frontier

forest to preserve biodiversity.I Connect these areas with corridors or bridges of land that remain in natural,

intact forest.I Introduce sustainable forest-use practices in the remaining frontier forest,

whether timber extraction, hunting, tourism and ecotourism, fishing,bioprospecting, or the gathering of traditional medicinal and ritual items ofvalue to local communities.Ensure the maintenance of biodiversity, retention of carbon, and watershedprotection.

FRONTIER FOREST BOUNDARY /

D RESTORINEven a degraded and frag-

mented once-frontier forest invaded

by exotic species may not necessarily

be gone forever: scientists practicing

restoration ecology are developing

techniques to regrow native forests.

One of the world's most

ambitious - and thus far successful

- forest restoration efforts is in north-

western Costa Rica, where local,

national, and international

researchers are together restoring a

G FRONTIER FOREST: THE GUANACASTE EXAMPLElarge tract of tropical dry forest in

Guanacaste Conservation Area.73

Launched in the mid-1980s,

the project features a three-pronged

approach.

First, participants kicked off

an aggressive fire-control program

to stop human-caused fires, which

were encouraging the growth of

exotic grasses in cleared forest areas

and killing native seedlings. Once

fires were stopped, scientists allowed

wind and animals to carry in native

tree seeds from an adjacent national

park, helping nature when there was

money by planting typical species in

appropriate places and combinations.

They brought in cattle to help

control the grasses.

Today, the incidence of fire in

Guanacaste is down 90 percent, and

the introduced grass, jaragua, is vir-

tually gone from the area. Thickets

of 10- to 15-foot native trees now

dominate the landscape. Within 20

to 50 years, researchers expect the

canopy to close, killing off all

remaining jaragua and stopping set

fires completely. They also hope

that by then the forest will house

viable populations of all the plant

and animal species that once

inhabited the area.74


A stewardship approach toforest management wouldachieve such badly needed bal-ance. (See Box 5) Such anapproach should, in fact, beapplied to all of the world's forestsbecause non-frontier forests alsoprovide humans with a range ofimportant functions and manyare high conservation priorities.Stewardship will mean pursuingdifferent options in different partsof the world. Where few large,intact forest ecosystems remain- in temperate regions, forexample - frontier forests shouldbe largely protected in parks orreserves. Where human needsare pressing and where very largetracts of frontier forest remain,

careful development is still anoption if ecologically viable coreareas of forest are protected andsurrounding lands managedsustainably. (See Figure 7)Activities such as logging shouldcause minimal environmentaldamage and return maximumeconomic benefits to local people.Figure 7 illustrates how variousdevelopment activities can bebalanced.

How much frontier forestdoes the world need? At a mini-mum, we must maintain repre-sentative samples of all types offorest ecosystems. There are nosubstitutes for living examples ofhow each system functions or forrefuges for most of the world'sforest species.

As "insurance," we recom-mend that nations:

• Maintain more than one tractof each ecosystem type.

• Protect frontiers even whenneighboring countries maintainecologically similar forests.

• Manage land outside protectedareas in ways that protect theecological integrity of forestfrontiers; and

• Try to restore fragmented anddegraded forests. (See Box 4.)

If forest management is toreflect the needs of all, successfulstewardship must include theactive participation of these andother stakeholders.

NATIONAL AND LOCAL

GOVERNMENTS:

Government policies mustpromote economic developmentwithout destroying the resourcebase and the environmental ser-vices provided by forests.Specifically, they should:

• Immediately halt further lossof frontier forests and restoredegraded forests;

• Expand and better manageprotected area systems;

• Create incentives for theprivate sector to managefrontier forests sustainably;

• Monitor forest quality tomeasure the success ofmanagement programs; and

• Encourage stewardship andeducate the public aboutfrontier forests.

• A NEWForest management based on

stewardship should include:

• Collecting all relevant informa-tion on forests and how they arebeing used and making it readilyavailable to anyone with a stake inforests;• Managing forests for long-termeconomic and other benefits andinvolving stakeholders and the pub-lic in forest-management decisions;

VISION OF FRONTIER FOREST STEWARDSHIP• Charging fees for using publicforest lands and returning revenuesto both the nation and localcommunities;• Designing and enforcing feeregulations that discourage corrup-tion and wasteful use of forests forshort-term gain;• Developing balanced land-useplans that set aside portions offorests for tourism, biodiversity con-servation, and watershed protection;

• Attracting investors interested inusing forests sustainably and mak-ing their continued access to forestscontingent upon their environmen-tal and social record;• Including an unambiguous rolefor government in all large-scaleforest development plans - includ-ing authority to ensure equitabledistribution of revenues and long-term ecosystem viability;

• Developing capacity in public,private, or non-governmental forestagencies to plan, negotiate, imple-ment, monitor, and enforce forest-management agreements; and• Setting aside and conservingspecial forested areas in well-delin-eated national parks, indigenousreserves, or other protected areas.

W O R L D RESOURCES INST ITUTE 35 FOREST FRONTIERS INIT IATIVE

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL

DONOR ORGANIZATIONS:

To promote the survival ofglobal treasures that also providesignificant environmentalbenefits - including carbonstorage and biodiversityprotection, donors should:

• Increase support for forest-richcountries, particularlyneglected ones;

• Coordinate efforts amongdonors to maximize impact;

• Form partnerships amongorganizations - including theprivate sector - workingtoward forest stewardship; and

• Support projects that promoteboth conservation and thesustainable use of frontierforests.

BUSINESS AND THE PRIVATE

SECTOR:

Traditionally viewed as ene-mies of conservation, privateindustry - from logging, mining,and oil companies to trade andretail industries - can become anagent of sound forest managementif it is willing to protect jobs andcultivate long-term profits by:

• Working with non-governmental organizations,governments, and others todevelop markets for productsfrom well-managed forests;

• Avoiding investments inprojects that degrade ordestroy frontier forests; and

• Lobbying and encouraginggovernments to try policiesthat promote foreststewardship.

CITIZENS:

As voters and consumerspartly responsible for the fate ofthe world's last large intact forests,citizens should:

• Ensure that decision-makersmanage forests with the generalpublic's needs in mind (at leastin countries where citizenshave voting power and candirectly influence their leaders);

• Keep informed about policyissues affecting frontier forests;and

• Voice their concerns - throughprotests and boycotts, ifnecessary - when governmentsmismanage these forests.

Especially within wealthycountries, consumers can createdemand for products that comefrom well-managed forests if they:

• Purchase only wood, paper,and other forest products thatare independently certified assustainably harvested;75

• Demand that retailers makesuch products available; and

• Reduce pressure on frontierforests by recycling and limitingconsumption - not only ofwood and paper, but also ofenergy and mineral resourcesfrom forested regions.

FRONTIER PEOPLES:

People who live within andnear the world's last frontierforests stand to lose the most ifthese ecosystems are destroyed.Managing forests for non-timberproducts, ecotourism, or even sus-tainable logging and otherresource extraction could bothprotect these forests and providelocal income now and for future

generations. As on-the-spot foreststewards, local populations shoulddemand that the government andprivate sector provide opportunitiesfor long-term economic and cul-tural security without environ-mental destruction.

NON-GOVERNMENTAL

ORGANIZATIONS, INCLUDING

ADVOCACY GROUPS:

Non-governmental organiza-tions (NGOs) can mobilize criticalsupport for conservation andstewardship. Information is one oftheir most powerful tools. Byassessing and monitoring foresthealth and use, for example,NGOs can uncover evidence thatgovernments, private industry, orothers are mismanaging forests -or for that matter, doing theirjobs. These organizations alsoshould collect and disseminateinformation on forest stewardshipin practice. Given limited time andfinancial resources, NGOs mustcoordinate their efforts and formpartnerships with governmentagencies and private businesses.

Q PLANIn Mexico's state of Quintana

Roo, an organization of 16 commu-nal groups, or ejidos, is managing360,000 hectares of subtropicalmoist forest to benefit their mem-bers and, at the same time, main-tain the forest.76'77 Of the totalforest area, 150,000 hectares are set

PILOTO: SUSTAINaside for permanent production,primarily of mahogany and cedar.After negotiating with loggingcompanies, participants - 3,000 as of1991 ~ began to process logs, whichadds value to their product andbrings communities more incomethan shipping out raw timber does.

ABLE FOREST DEVBefore ejidos managed the

forest, local communities derived nobenefits from logging operations.Now, participants are working tomaintain the natural forest bycutting trees on a 25-year cycle,allowing native species to regenerate,and increasing the proportion of

ELOPMENTmahogany and cedar throughenrichment planting. After eightyears, communities already are seeinggood regeneration of natural forest- along with an income, an incentiveto keep up the good work.78


TECHNICAL ANNEX

METHODOLOGY:

CURRENT FOREST COVER:

WRI used the only existingglobal map of current forest cover- that produced by the WorldConservation Monitoring Centre(WCMC) in 1996, in collaborationwith the World Wildlife Fund andCIFOR - as a base coverage forthis assessment. The sources forthis map include many countryand regional maps derived fromnational and internationalsources, mostly accurate to a1:1,000,000 scale. (All coveragesused in the Frontier ForestAssessment were degraded to a1:8,000,000 scale.) The quality,accuracy and dates of thesenational and regional maps vary.For details, please refer to:

The World ConservationMonitoring Centre, The WorldForest Map, (WCMC, Cambridge,1996).

MAPPING OF FRONTIER FOREST AREAS:

The frontier forest mapswithin this report reflect theknowledge and input of morethan 90 experts and reviewersfrom around the world. Work onthe Last Frontier Forests assess-ment began in May 1996, whenWRI hosted meetings and reviewsessions (in Washington,Cambridge, U.K, and Rome) atwhich outside experts were askedto help define frontier areas andpropose a methodology for map-ping them. Mapping itself was athree-step process:

1. WRI first developed regionalmaps of "candidate frontier areas"by overlaying - using aGeographic information System(GIS) - the World ConservationMonitoring Centre's current closedforest cover map with SierraClub's "wilderness areas" map79

to define large wooded blocksdevoid of human infrastructure(roads, settlements, etc.) wherenear-pristine forest might befound;

2. Approximately 90 regionalforest experts were then asked toannotate these maps. Ten to fif-teen individuals per region withbroad knowledge of forest extentand condition reviewed the mapsof candidate frontier areas and,using a checklist survey, either:(i.) nominated candidate sites as"frontier forests"; (ii.) redefinedthe boundaries of candidate sitesor (iii.) rejected candidate sites,and;

3. WRI digitized the revisedboundaries of these areas.

Experts were also asked tofill in a questionnaire for eachfrontier area assessed. This surveywas used to build a database foreach frontier site, which includesinformation on:

I. Forest type (based on surveyresults). Experts were asked toclassify frontiers according to oneor more of the following cate-gories: "boreal," "temperate hard-wood," "temperate mixed conifer-ous and deciduous forest," "south-ern temperate/astral forest,""humid tropical forest," "dry trop-ical forest."

II. Size (this was calculated usinga GIS). WRI also asked experts toroughly estimate the size of eachfrontier assessed, where known.

III. Threats to ecosystem integrity(based on information containedwithin the questionnaires).Experts were asked to rank sitesas under high, medium, or lowthreat from "commercial logging,""other biomass harvest (removalof fuelwood and constructionmaterials, grazing)," "forest clear-ing (for agriculture, residentialhousing etc)," "road constructionand other infrastructuredevelopment (e.g. powerlines,pipelines)," and "other," and toprovide additional details onknown threats.


iv. Potential threats to ecosystemintegrity (also based on informationfrom the questionnaires). Expertswere asked to: (i.) note wheresignificant portions of a frontiersite have been allocated for currentor future harvest (e.g. zoned asproduction forest, given over toconcessions) and to estimate thepercentage of each site allocatedfor harvest, where known; and(ii.) indicate if a site containshigh-value timber species, orother high-value resources (e.g.gold, oil), and to estimate theapproximate proportion of the sitewithin which such resourcesoccur.

v. Source of expert informationand level of knowledge (for mostsites, based on the input of severalreviewers). The names of theseindividuals are listed within WRI'sdatabase, along with a ranking ofhow well these experts claim toknow each frontier area (expertswere asked to rank themselves ona 1-5 scale according to how wellthey know a given site).

In many cases, sites werenominated and reviewed indepen-dently by several experts. WRIharmonized these results by: (i.)consulting with reviewers whentheir results differed for a givensite to come up with a consensusview; (ii.) in some cases, givingextra weight to results fromindividuals who ranked theirknowledge of a site as significantlyhigher than that of others whoreviewed that frontier forest.

WRI also held three reviewsessions (one covering temperateand boreal regions, a second cov-ering tropical frontiers, and athird to review all areas of theworld) to help fill in data gapsand to solicit input on draft fron-tier maps. Approximately 60ecologists, foresters, and otherswith broad knowledge of forestissues across various regions ofthe globe attended these sessions.

Note that five frontier forestsites within Western Zaire wereidentified using maps of currentroad and forest cover (the latterderived from recent satelliteimagery). These sites - lackingroads, or significant areas ofdegraded forest - were addedbecause experts working on theWRI study suggested forest in thisregion qualified as "frontier,"however they were not sufficientlyfamiliar with the area to identifythe boundaries of these sites.

MAPPING OF ORIGINAL FOREST COVER:As part of this project,

WCMC developed the first detailedmap of estimated forest cover"prior to the impact of modernman" (circa 8,000 years ago),using many global and regionalbiogeographic maps. Theseincluded World Map of PresentDay Landscapes (Moscow StateUniversity/UNEP), Ecoregions ofLatin America and theCaribbean (Dinerstein et al.),Vegetation of Africa (White),Review of the IndomalayanProtected Areas (MacKinnon),Australia Natural Vegetation(Australian Surveying and LandInformation Group), and GeneralMap of Natural Vegetation forEurope (Bohn and Katenina).WRI adjusted this map - notablyby using current forest cover inthe northernmost 200 km of forestas a surrogate for historic cover soas to capture the natural patchydistribution of forest in thistundra-forest transition zone.


The WCMC map is an indi-cator, not a direct measure oforiginal cover. It depicts whereforest might be expected to occurtoday in the absence of humans,based on climate, topography,and other variables. The distribu-tion of forest cover 8,000 yearsago probably varied somewhatfrom region to region, due tolong-term climate change. Fordetails on the original forest covermapping methodology, pleaserefer to:

Clare Billington, ValerieKapos, Mary Edwards, SimonBlyth and Susan Iremonger,Estimated Original Forest CoverMap -A First Attempt (WCMC,Cambridge, UK, October 1996).

FRONTIER FOREST INDEX:

The frontier forest indexranks countries on a scale of 0 to99. The index was created bymultiplying the percentage oforiginal frontier forest lost (thatestimated to cover the country8,000 years ago) with the per-centage of remaining frontier for-est area classified under moderateor high threat to total assessedfrontier area.

DEFINITIONS:

CURRENT FOREST COVER: estimatedclosed forest cover within the last10 years or so (this date varies bycountry). Only closed moist forestis depicted for tropical Africa andAsia. Woodlands and shrublandsare not included in this category.ORIGINAL FOREST COVER: is the esti-mated extent of closed forestabout 8,000 years ago, assumingcurrent climatic conditions.FRONTIER FORESTS: are defined asbeing primarily forested; of suffi-cient size to support viable popu-lations of the full range of indige-nous species associated with thatparticular forest ecosystem givenperiodic natural disturbanceepisodes (fire, hurricanes, pests &disease, etc.), (note that thisimplies that frontier forests pro-vide habitat for these species, notthat they actually contain thesespecies); and exhibiting a struc-ture and composition shapedlargely by natural events, as wellas by limited human disturbancefrom traditional activities (such asshifting cultivation). De facto theyare relatively unmanaged (naturaldisturbance regimes such as fireare permitted to occur), are hometo most if not all of the speciesassociated with that ecosystemtype, are dominated by indige-nous tree species associated withthat ecosystem type, and arecharacterized by mosaics of forestpatches representing a range ofserai stages, in areas where suchlandscape heterogeneity would beexpected to occur under naturalconditions.

Forested areas must meet allof the following 7 criteria to qualifyas frontiers. They must:

1. Be of sufficient size to supportecologically viable populations ofthe largest carnivores and herbi-vores associated with that partic-ular forest ecosystem, althoughthey may not actually containthese species.

(Rationale-, range require-ments of umbrella species arebelieved to be large enough toprovide for habitat requirementsof most other species within agiven ecosystem).

2. Be of sufficient size to supportecologically viable populations ofthese species in the face of amajor natural disturbance episodesuch as one would predict tooccur once in a century, withinthe ecosystem in question (fire,hurricanes, pests & disease, etc.).

(Rationale: If frontiers aresupposed to serve as forest refugiaduring the next extinction crises,they must be large enough tomaintain their resident species inthe face of periodic natural distur-bance. The "once in a century"cutoff, although arbitrary, is ayardstick used by engineers andothers in designing bridges, build-ings, dams etc. that can weathercatastrophic natural events.)

3. Exhibit a structure and compo-sition shaped largely by naturalevents, as well as by limitedhuman disturbance from tradi-tional activities (such as shiftingcultivation).

4. Be relatively unmanaged (nat-ural disturbance regimes such asfire are permitted to occur acrossmost of the area in question).

W O R L D R E S O U R C E S I N S T I T U T E 3 9 FOREST FRONTIERS IN IT IAT IVE

5. Be characterized by mosaics offorest patches representing arange of serai stages, in areaswhere such landscape hetero-geneity would be expected tooccur under natural conditions.

6. Be home to most if not all ofthe species associated with thatecosystem type.

7. Be dominated by indigenoustree species associated with thatecosystem type.

Many temperate frontierforests do not strictly qualifyaccording to all seven criteria,primarily due to size constraintsand to fire suppression and othermanagement. For example,Clayquot Sound in BritishColumbia may be too small toqualify as a frontier forest, and allsites in Scandinavia may be toodisturbed to meet WRI criteria.After consultation with temperateexperts we decided to includethose temperate areas:( i). thatare large enough to maintainecologically viable populations ofindigenous species when thesurrounding non-frontier forestmatrix is

considered; and: (ii.) where firesare generally allowed to burnacross at least half of the frontiersite (although fire suppressionmay have been practiced in thepast). Most temperate sites inNorth America and Europe consistof a mix of old growth and sec-ondary forest. Frontier sites thatwould not otherwise qualify usinga strict interpretation of the WRIcriteria are automatically listed asthreatened due to lack of bufferingcapacity and disturbance ofsurrounding forest.

THREATENED FRONTIER FORESTS: are

areas assessed by experts as under"medium" or "high" threat, whereongoing or planned human activ-ities will likely result in the eventualviolation of one of the sevenfrontier forest criteria listed above(e.g. cause declines in or localextinctions of plants and animalsor large-scale changes in theforest's age and structure). In

some cases, sites listed as threat-ened are currently undisturbed butare slated for logging or otherdevelopment activity, likely toaffect the ecosystem integrity ofthe forest. Note that manythreatened frontier forests includelarge areas of protected forest.While the core areas of these sitesmay be undisturbed, these fron-tiers are considered threatenedbecause human activity insurrounding forest is likely to

impact the integrity of theecosystem as a whole.

DATA CAVEATS ANDLIMITATIONS

This assessment represents arough, first-cut attempt to esti-mate the status of global frontierareas, and should be viewed as awork in progress. The maps anddata contained within this reportare not intended to be used todefine conservation or investmentpriorities, or to otherwise provideinput into regional or nationalplanning and assessment activities.WRI will work with data partnersover coming years to improve onthe base maps and the accuracyof these results. Readers shouldnote that:

• Data availability and qualityvaries between regions. Forexample, frontier forest is likelyunderestimated in Central Zaireand possibly portions of Brazil,due to the fact that few scientistshave explored that region (andtherefore that the status of theseforests is relatively unknown).

• Naturally-fragmented forestecosystems, such as areas ofmontane forest cover found inportions of East Africa, do notregister as frontier forest in thisstudy due to their small size.However, in some cases theseareas may fully qualify as intact,relatively undisturbed naturalforests.

• Comparability of results hasbeen effected by expert bias. Mapreviewers varied in how strictly orloosely they have applied ourcriteria in defining sites and howthey assessed the magnitude ofany given threat. As noted above,WRI attempted to minimize thisbias by seeking input from at least10-15 experts for any one part ofthe world (to cross-check on andharmonize results), and by seek-ing extensive outside review of thedraft maps to insure that data arerelatively comparable betweenregions.

WRI would welcome anycomments on the accuracy ofthese results and suggestions onhow we might improve on thebase maps during the next phaseof this research project.

W O R L D R E S O U R C E S I N S T I T U T E 40 F O R E S T F R O N T I E R S I N I T I A T I V E

NOTES

1 Food and Agriculture Organization ofthe United Nations (FAO), Forest ResourcesAssessment 1990: Global Synthesis, FAOForestry Paper 124 (FAO, Rome, 1995),Annex 1, p. 21.

2 The FAO estimate applies to annualloss of natural forest cover between 1980and 1990 for developing countries only. Itdoes not include large areas of forest loggedover and left to regenerate. No data areavailable for developed countries of theworld.

3 J.M. Thiollay, "Area Requirements forthe Conservation of Rain Forest Raptors andGame Birds in French Guiana." Conserva-tion Biology, 1989, Vol. 3(2): 128-37.

4 William Newmark, "A Land-bridgeIsland Perspective on MammalianExtinctions in Western North AmericanParks." Nature, 1987, Vol 229:430-32.

5 Christine Schonewald-Cox,"Conclusions: Guidelines to Management:A Beginning Attempt," in Genetics andConservation: a Reference forManaging Wild Animal and PlantPopulations, edited by ChristineSchonewald-Cox, Steven Chamber, BruceMacBryde and Larry Thomas, (London:The Benjamin/Cummings PublishingCompany, Inc., 1983), pp. 415-16,443-44.

6 Larry Harris, The FragmentedForest: Island Biogeography Theory andthe Preservation ofBiotic Diversity,(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,1984), pp. 72-84.

7 Scott Robinson, Frank Thompson,Therese Donovan, Donald Whitehead andJohn Faaborg, "Regional ForestFragmentation and the Nesting Success ofMigratory Birds." Science, 1995 Vol. 267(526): 1,987.

8 Elliot Norse, Ancient Forests of thePacific Northwest, (Washington D. C.:Island Press, 1990), pp. 73,84.

9 Walter V. Reid and Kenton Miller,Keeping Options Alive: The ScientificBasis for Conserving Biodiversity,(Washington, D.C.: World ResourcesInstitute, 1989), p. 15.

10 Calculated by multiplying regionalfrontier forest area by per hectare carbonestimates for forest areas, presented in R.K.Dixon, S. Brown, R.A. Houghton, A.M.Solomon, M.C. Trexler and J. Wisniewski,"Carbon Pools and Flux of Global ForestEcosystems." Science, Vol. 263:185-90.Dixon et al's estimates are for closed andopen forests for both soil and above-groundvegetation. For this reason, and becausethese averages include degraded forest(which contains less carbon than intactforest) the figure presented in the text ontotal carbon stored in frontier forest is likelyan underestimate. Soil carbon figuresinclude peat. We used averaged per hectarecarbon figures in estimating carbon storedin frontier forests that contain more thanone dominant forest type (e.g. temperateand boreal forest).

11 John Perlin, A Forest Journey: TheRole of Wood in the Development ofCivilization, (New York: W.W. Nortonand Company, 1989), pp. 18-19,42-43.

12 World Resources Institute, WorldResources 1992-93, (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1992), p. 290.

13 George Ledec and Robert Goodland,Wildlands: Their Protection andManagement in EconomicDevelopment, (Washington, D.C.: TheWorld Bank, 1988), pp. 26-7.

14 Nels Johnson and Bruce Cabarle,Surviving the Cut: Natural ForestManagement in the Humid Tropics,(Washington, D.C.: World ResourcesInstitute, 1993) p. 7.

15 Commission on Development andEnvironment for Amazonia, AmazoniaWithout Myths, Amazon CooperationTreaty, 1992. p. xiv.

16 Food and Agriculture Organization ofthe United Nations (FAO), Forest ResourcesAssessment 1990: Global Synthesis, FAOForestry Paper 124, (Rome: FAO, 1995), p. 43.

17 K.D. Singh, personal communication,January 1997; Washington Post,January 1,1997.

18 United States Department ofCommerce, Statistical Abstract of theUnited States 1996, (Washington: UnitedStates Department of Commerce, 1996),pp. 8,562.

19 This study was limited to mappingfrontier forests within closed forest ecosys-tems. WRI was unable to map large nat-ural tracts of woodland area (more openforest, generally located in drier regions ofthe world, between closed forest andsavannah), because no global map existsdepicting wooded areas of the world.

20 Geographic Information Systems areused to store, analyze and display spatially-referenced (map) data.

21 United Nations EnvironmentProgramme (UNEP), Global BiodiversityAssessment, (Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press, 1995), p. 345.

22 Alexander Mather, Global ForestResources, (Portland: Timber Press, 1990),p. 32.

23 Jack Westoby, Introduction to WorldForestry, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd.,1989), p. 50.

24 Jack Westoby, Introduction to WorldForestry (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd.,1989), pp. 54- 5.

25 Owen Lynch and Kirk Talbott,Balancing Acts: Community-BasedForest Management and National Lawin Asia and the Pacific, (Washington,D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1995), p. 21.

26 Commission on Development andEnvironment for Amazonia, AmazoniaWithout Myths, Amazon CooperationTreaty, 1992, p. xii.

27 R. B. Ugerton, Sick Societies:Challenging the Myth of PrimitiveHarmony, (New York: Free Press, 1992).

28 United Nations EnvironmentProgramme (UNEP), Global BiodiversityAssessment, (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1995), p. 765.

29 Duncan Poore, Peter Burgess, JohnPalmer, Simon Rietburgen and TimothySynnott, No Timber Without Trees: Sus-tainability in the Tropical Forest, (London:Earthscan Publications, 1989), p. 18.

30 Consultative Group on InternationalAgricultural Research (CGIAR), PoorFarmers Could Destroy Half ofRemaining Tropical Forest, media back-grounder to press release, (Washington,D.C.: CGIAR; August 4,1996), p. 3-

31 Raymond Rowe, Narendra Sharmaand John Browder, "Deforestation: Problems,Causes and Concerns," in Managing theWorld's Forests, Narendra Sharma, ed.,(Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt PublishingCompany, 1992), p. 34.

32 International Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC), IPCC Working Group IISecond Assessment Report, (IPCC, 1995).

33 World Resources Institute, WorldResources 1996-97, (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1996), p. 190.

34 Global Witness, Corruption, Warand Forest Policy: The UnsustainableExploitation of Cambodia's Forests,(London: Global Witness Ltd., February1996) p. 3.

35 Kirk Talbott and Chantal Elkin,Logging Burma's Forests: Resources forthe Regime, (Washington, D.C.: WorldResources Institute, forthcoming).

36 Environmental Investigation Agency(EIA), Corporate Power, Corruption andthe Destruction of the World's Forests:The Case for a New Global ForestAgreement, (Washington, D.C.: EIA, 1995),pp. 6-7.

37 Nigel Sizer and Richard Rice, Backsto the Wall in Suriname: Forest Policyin a Country in Crisis, (Washington,D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1995),p. 11.

38 World Press Review, "Colombia'sVanishing Forests," World Press Review,Vol. 40, No. 6,Junel993,p. 34.

39 Nigel Smith, Paulo Alvim, EmanuelSerrao, and Italo Falesi, "Amazonia," inRegions at Risk: Comparisons ofThreatened Environments, JeanneKasperson, Roger Kasperson and B. L.Turner II, eds., (Tokyo: United NationsUniversity Press, 1995), pp. 58-9.


40 Ecotrust and ConservationInternational (CI), Coastal TemperateRain Forests: Ecological Characteristics,Status and Distribution Worldwide,Occasional Paper Series No. 1, (Portland:Ecotrust, 1992), p. 33-

41 Jonathan Friedland and RaphaelPura, "Log Heaven: Trouble at Home,Asian Timber Firms Set Sights on theAmazon," The Wall Street Journal,November 11,1996.

42 World Wildlife Fund, The OfficialWorld Wildlife Fund Guide toEndangered Species of North America,(Washington: Beacham Publishing Inc.,1990), pp. 446,534,549.

43 Development and degradation of sur-rounding non-protected forest area threat-ens the ecological integrity of these sites,which barely qualified as frontier forestunder the WRI criteria. Refer to TechnicalAnnex for details.

44 Chuck Carr, personal communication,1996.

45 Robin Hanbury-Tension, "A BridgeToo Far?," Geographical Magazine, Vol.68, No. l,Januaryl996,p. 35.

46 Food and Agriculture Organization ofthe United Nations (FAO), ForestResources Assessment 1990: GlobalSynthesis, FAO Forestry Paper 124, (Rome:FAO, 1995), Annex 1, p. 21.

47 The Guyana Shield includes part orall of Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana,Suriname, and Venezuela.

48 Peter Raven, personal communication,December 1996.

49 Nigel Smith, Paulo Alvim, EmanuelSerrao, and Italo Falesi, "Amazonia," inRegions at Risk: Comparisons ofThreatened Environments, JeanneKasperson, Roger Kasperson and B. L.Turner II, eds., (Tokyo: United NationsUniversity Press, 1995), p. 41.

50 Caroline Harcourt and Jeffrey Sayer,eds, The Conservation Atlas of TropicalForests: the Americas, (New York: Simonand Schuster, 1996), pp. 230, 238.

51 M. Patricia Marchak, Logging theGlobe, (London: McGill-Queen's UniversityPress, 1995), p. 321.

52 Steve Gilroy, "Disturbing the Ancients,"in Buzzworm: The EnvironmentalJournal, Vol. IX, No. 1, January/February1992, p. 41.

53 Nigel Dudley, Forests in Trouble: AReview of the Status of Temperate ForestsWorldwide, (Gland, Switzerland: WorldWildlife Fund, 1992), p. 121.

54 Steve Gilroy, "Disturbing the Ancients,"in Buzzworm: The EnvironmentalJournal, Vol. IX, No. 1, January/February1992, p. 38.

55 Estimate of the proportion of theCongo Basin's forest cover located in Zaireis based on figures in: Food and AgricultureOrganization of the United Nations (FAO),Forest Resources Assessment 1990:Global Synthesis, FAO Forestry Paper 124(Rome: FAO, 1995), Annex 1, p. 28.

56 Food and Agriculture Organization ofthe United Nations (FAO), ForestResources Assessment 1990: TropicalCountries, FAO Forestry Paper 112, (Rome:FAO, 1993), Annex 1, Table 5a.

57 World Resources Institute, WorldResources 1996-97, (NewYork: OxfordUniversity Press, 1996), p. 210.

58 World Resources Institute, WorldResources 1996-97, (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1996), pp. 206, 218.

59 Josh Newell and Emma Wilson, TheRussian Far East: Forests, BiodiversityHotspots and Industrial Developments,(Tokyo: Friends of the Earth-Japan, 1996),pp. 0,46.

60 World Resources Institute, WorldResources 199697, (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1996), pp. 206-7.

61 Josh Newell and Emma Wilson, TheRussian Far East: Forests, BiodiversityHotspots and Industrial Developments,(Tokyo: Friends of the Earth-Japan, 1996),pp. 46,53.

62 K.D. Singh and Antonio Marzoli,"Deforestation Trends in the Tropics: ATime Series Analysis," paper presented atthe World Wildlife Fund Conference onPotential Impact of Climate Change onTropical Forests, San Juan, Puerto Rico,April 1995, pp. 8-9.

63 National Development PlanningAgency, Government of Indonesia, SixthFive-Year Development Plan 1994/5-1998/9, Vol. Ill, (Jakarta: NationalPlanning Agency, 1994), pp. 421-22.

64 World Resources Institute, WorldResources 199697, (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1996), pp. 191, 217.

65 World Resources Institute,Bangladesh: Environment and NaturalResource Assessment, (Washington, D.C.:World Resources Institute, 1990), p. 27.

66 World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)and the World Conservation Union (IUCN),Centres of Plant Diversity: A Guide andStrategy for their Conservation, Vol. II,(Cambridge: WWF, 1995), p. 449.

67 New Zealand Ministry for theEnvironment, New Zealand's NationalReport to the United Nations Conferenceon Environment and Development,(Wellington: Ministry for the Environment,199D, pp. 47-8.

68 World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)and the World Conservation Union (IUCN),Centres of PlantDiversity: A Guide andStrategy for their Conservation, Vol. II,(Cambridge: WWF, 1995), p. 439-

69 Frontier forests in Northern Australiacontain a mix of forest and woodland,including small patches of rainforest.

70 Mark Clayton, "Chipping Away atAustralia's Old-Growth Forests," TheChristian Science Monitor, April 24,1996.

71 Nigel Dudley, Forests in Trouble: AReview of the Status of Temperate ForestsWorldwide, (Gland, Switzerland: WorldWildlife Fund, 1992), pp. 93-5.

72 Department of Environment andConservation, Conservation ResourceCentre, and the Africa Centre for Resourcesand Environment, Papua New GuineaCountry Study on Biological Diversity,(Waigani: DepartmentorEnvironmentandConservation, 1995), p. 6.

73 Such as certification efforts approvedby the Forest Stewardship Council, (eg.Smartwood), which ensure that harvest-ing is environmentally responsible, social-ly beneficial (particularly to local commu-nities), and financially viable.

74 David Tenenbaum, "The GuanacasteIdea," American Forests, Vol. 100, Nos.11-12, November-December 1994, p. 28.

75 David Tenenbaum, "The GuanacasteIdea," American Forests, Vol. 100, Nos.11-12, November-December 1994, p. 28.

76 Matthew Perl, Michael Kiernan,Dennis McCaffrey, Robert Buschbacher,and Garo Batmanian, Views From theForest: Natural Forest ManagementInitiatives in Latin America,(Washington, D.C.: World Wildlife Fund,199D, P-5.

77 Nels Johnson and Bruce Cabarle,Surviving the Cut: Natural ForestManagement in the Humid Tropics,(Washington D.C.: World ResourcesInstitute, 1993) p. 28.

78 Matthew Perl, Michael Kiernan,Dennis McCaffrey, Robert Buschbacher,and Garo Batmanian, Views From theForest: Natural Forest ManagementInitiatives in Latin America,(Washington, D.C.: World Wildlife Fund,199D, pp. 5,8.

79 Michael McCloskey and HeatherSpalding, "A Reconnaissance-levelInventory of the Amount of WildernessRemaining in the World," Ambio, Vol. 18,No. 4,1989, pp. 221-27.


T H E W O R L D R E S O U R C E S I N S T I T U T EF O R E S T F R O N T I E R S I N I T I A T I V E

T he Forest Frontiers Initiative (FFI) is a five year, multi-disciplinaryeffort to promote stewardship in and around the world's lastmajor frontier forests by influencing investment, policy, and public

opinion. The FFI team is working with governments, citizens' groups, andthe private sector in Amazonia, Central Africa, Indonesia, North America,and Russia. We also take part in pressing international discussions onforest policy.

We are motivated by the belief that there is a responsible way touse forests. We also see growing interest in finding alternatives to forestdestruction that take advantage of the full economic potential of forests,not just immediate revenue from logging and clearing.

Business has a leading role to play. We are developing case studieswith innovative firms to demonstrate to others the business impacts andopportunities that sustainability presents. We are also working tostrengthen the Forest Stewardship Council, which promotes consumerawareness about products from well-managed forests by certifying woodproducts from them.

For each frontier forest region, FFI builds a network of policy-makers,activists, investors, and researchers to promote policy reform. Efforts tominimize the negative impacts of road-building and forest-clearing foragriculture, and to stop illegal logging, are part of this work.

To spark policy change and stimulate stewardship more generally,we will collect and disseminate more information as it becomes available.We are also working to build the capacity of local non-governmentalgroups to do the same.

To get access to information about FFI findings and activitiesand to find out how to participate, visit our website at"http://www.wri.org/wri/ffi/" or write to:

Forest Frontiers InitiativeWorld Resources Institute

1709 New York Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20006, U.S.A.

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THE LAST FRONTIER FORESTS - World Resources Institute · the last frontier forests: ecosystems & economies on th edge e what is the status of the world's remaining large, natural