(IPS) feature

Despite strong measures to stall deforestation in Asia, trees in the region's forests continue to be felled at an alarming rate, says a new report.

Long-term forest management systems, including setting-aside reservations of natural forests for conservation, and government-enforced logging bans have not ended the steady pace of logging, it says.

The report titled ''Forests out of Bounds: Impact and effectiveness of logging bans in natural forests in Asia-Pacific'' was released by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

According to the report, deforestation and degradation have continued at an alarming rate. And as a consequence of trade liberalisation and globalisation, illegal logging and trade appear to be growing.

Between 1990 and 1995, for instance, there Asia-Pacific region lost almost 16.3 million hectares of its natural forests. This amounts to about 3.3 million hectares annually, the report reveals.

The largest loss reported was in Indonesia, where 5.4 million hectares have been lost, followed by Malaysia 2.0 million hectares, Burma 1.9 million hectares, and Thailand 1.6 million hectares.

South-east Asian countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have helped the region earn the tag of being the place on earth with the highest rate of deforestation, declares the FAO report.

Along with Burma, these countries have each lost more than 100,000 hectares of forest annually between 1990 and 2000.

Illegal logging

''The region is losing forests five times faster than the global net annual forest loss of 0.2 percent experienced between 1990 and 2000,'' said RB Singh, the Asia-Pacific regional representative of the United Nations food agency, during the report's release last Tuesday.

Currently, the world's forest cover is estimated at 3.90 billion hectares, of which the Asia-Pacific region contributes 699 million hectares, including South-east Asia's forest cover of 212 million hectares.

The failure to effectively stop illegal logging stems from ineffective government policy over the last 10 years, says Patrick Durst, a co-author of the report. ''Most logging bans were introduced as forest conservation and often in reaction to natural disasters, like floods.''

''Such knee-jerk reactions to implement logging bans ignore assessing which bans work,'' said Durst, ''there are conditions necessary for logging bans to succeed.''

Thailand's policy reveals the shortcomings Durst alludes to. In Jan 1989, the Thai government imposed a logging ban, after the devastation caused by heavy rains that lashed southern and eastern Thailand in Nov 1988.

Deforestation was blamed for the havoc caused by the rains, which lasted six days. Floods and landslides inundated villages, resulting in more than 300 deaths, injuries, and thousands rendered homeless.

However, 12 years after the ban, ''illegal logging and upland encroachment remain barriers to forest conservation,'' says Sureeratna Lakanavichian, a policy analyst at Chiang Mai University.

''Many measures to restrict utilisation of the upland forests and to control shifting cultivation have been ineffective due mainly to increasing population pressures.''

''The ban on commercial logging has not prevented further deterioration of the natural forests,'' she adds. ''Northern Thailand has the highest proportion of forest area in the country, and also the highest rate of illegal logging.''

According to the report, logging bans imposed in the Asia-Pacific region in response to emergencies and crises such as natural disasters, seldom included strategies that would bring the the desired environmental and protection goals.

Sucessful efforts

Not all countries, however, have followed this route. The report in fact highlights the achievements of some of the region's successful efforts in forest conservation. ''Countries such as Vietnam, China, India and New Zealand (have) increased their forest areas,'' it notes.

In New Zealand, for example, plantations have been steadily replacing natural forests as the principal source of the wood processing industry since the 1950s. ''The industry has emphasised the utilisation of increasing volumes of relatively fast-growing radiata pine.''

Likewise, plantation forests have emerged at the ''heart of wood supply planning in Vietnam and China,'' it adds. ''Vietnam is at an early stage of further restricting timber harvests in the natural forests. Success of this effort will be largely determined by the implementation of the country's five million hectare reforestation programme.''

The Chinese are expanding their timber plantations to meet prevailing demand. ''China presently has about 34 million hectares of plantations, including 'timber plantations of almost 12 million hectares,'' states the report.

These efforts have earned the Asia-Pacific region praise for being a ''leader in the designation of legally protected areas, having classified some 89.5 million hectares, effectively removing these natural forests from harvesting,'' it adds.