Tropical Forestry Action Plan

Tropical Forestry Action Plan
Name	Tropical Forestry Action Plan
Formation	1985
Founder	Food and Agriculture Organization
Purpose	Tropical forestry
Region served	tropics
Parent organization	United Nations

Tropical Forestry Action Plan (TFAP) was an international initiative launched in 1985 to address deforestation and forest degradation in tropical regions through coordinated action among multilateral institutions, donor states, and recipient countries. The initiative sought to align technical assistance from the Food and Agriculture Organization, financial resources from the World Bank, policy guidance from the United Nations Environment Programme, and programmatic input from regional bodies such as the Organisation of African Unity and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to halt conversion of tropical forests and promote sustainable utilisation.

Background and Objectives

TFAP emerged amid rising concern following high-profile events and publications including the Brundtland Report, the World Conservation Strategy, and the UN Conference on Environment and Development planning that highlighted links between tropical deforestation, biodiversity loss in the Amazon Rainforest, Congo Basin, and Borneo, and the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples associated with the International Labour Organization conventions. Objectives emphasised reversing trends identified by studies from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the International Tropical Timber Organization, and research centres such as the Center for International Forestry Research by promoting afforestation projects in regions like Madagascar, agroforestry schemes in Brazil, community forestry in Nepal, and reforestation in the Philippines.

Development and International Involvement

The plan was drafted through consultations involving the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, donor governments including United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, and recipient countries across Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Technical contributions came from institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and universities like Yale University and University of Oxford while implementation frameworks referenced norms from the Convention on Biological Diversity negotiation process and directives from the International Monetary Fund on structural adjustment policies. Non-governmental organisations including World Wide Fund for Nature, Conservation International, Friends of the Earth, and local civil society groups in Indonesia and Kenya participated in national TFAP committees.

Key Components and Strategies

TFAP combined policy reform, capacity building, and on-the-ground interventions: national forest inventory programs modelled on methodologies from the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Union of Forest Research Organizations; extension services inspired by International Fund for Agricultural Development projects and agroforestry systems promoted by the University of the Philippines Los Baños; protected-area establishment drawing on precedents from Yellowstone National Park and management plans like those used in Costa Rica; and tenure reforms influenced by precedents in Bolivia and Nepal. Strategies included promoting fuelwood alternatives seen in projects supported by the United Nations Development Programme, sustainable timber harvesting techniques advocated by the International Tropical Timber Organization, and integrated watershed management concepts linked to initiatives in the Mekong River Commission and the Ganges River Basin.

Implementation and Funding

Implementation relied on country-driven plans submitted to coordinating agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization and financed through a mix of bilateral aid from donors like France, Norway, and Canada; multilateral lending from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank; and contributions from philanthropic actors such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Execution involved national ministries (e.g., ministries in Brazil, Zaire/Democratic Republic of the Congo, India) working with technical partners including the Overseas Development Institute, consultancies in Geneva and Washington, D.C., and field NGOs like The Nature Conservancy to implement planting, capacity development, and market-based incentives drawing on models from Costa Rica’s payment for ecosystem services pilots.

Criticisms and Controversies

TFAP faced critiques from scholars and activists associated with Greenpeace, academics at Harvard University and University of California, Berkeley, and Indigenous organisations in Amazonas and Papua New Guinea for overlooking tenure security evidenced in case studies from Mato Grosso and Kalimantan, for promoting top-down interventions resembling conditionalities linked to the International Monetary Fund and structural adjustment programs, and for relying on logging concession models critiqued by investigative reports in The Guardian and The New York Times. Environmental economists linked to World Resources Institute and policy analysts from Oxfam highlighted weaknesses in monitoring and evaluation compared with standards later codified in the Convention on Biological Diversity. Allegations arose about perverse incentives and displacement of peasant communities documented in investigative work by Amnesty International and regional research centres.

Outcomes and Legacy

Although TFAP did not fully halt tropical deforestation, it catalysed capacity building in national forest services, influenced subsequent initiatives such as the Forest Principles outcomes at the Earth Summit, informed the design of payment for ecosystem services programs in Costa Rica and REDD+ frameworks under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and left a mixed legacy studied by institutions including the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group and the Food and Agriculture Organization. Its approaches informed later collaborations among Conservation International, United Nations Environment Programme, and donor coalitions, and contributed to the emergence of new policy tools addressing biodiversity in the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization and community forestry models in Nepal and Mexico.

Category:Forestry