[GA—UP NEXT] Sustainable Timber Standards

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Sustainable Timber Standards
Category: Environmental | Area of Effect: Logging
Proposed by: Bisofeyr | Onsite Topic​
The World Assembly,

Continuing its efforts to create long-term sustainability programs within the World Assembly's forests, and understanding contentions to protect small businesses and farmers, therefore enacts as follows:

  1. Every member must establish or otherwise maintain an agency responsible for ensuring any source of timber or timber products produced or sold in that member is sustainably-sourced. In the event of a multinational entity that accomplishes this goal exists, a member may defer or collaborate with that entity as opposed to creating their own agency (including, say, a comparable agency from another member). Each agency may determine specifics of what constitutes something being "sustainably sourced", but shall include at minimum the following:
    • Any logging operation did not cause habitat fragmentation, insofar as it introduces or exacerbates discontinuities in the natural habitat of any flora or fauna.
    • Timber sourced near water have appropriate measures taken to minimize soil erosion, protect water quality, and not disturb water-based ecosystems.
    • All areas where timber is sourced from must be subject to post-logging site rehabilitation, which may include activities such as soil restoration, removing any logging residue, and restoring (to the best of the nation's ability) the area to its previous ecological significance, and any other activities deemed necessary.
    • Reforestation has occurred at an equal or greater rate than the number of trees deforested to source the timber.
  2. No agency, as established in clause one of this resolution, shall approve any timber or timber product for sale which is not sourced sustainably, or in which they cannot track with confidence if it was sourced sustainably. Agencies may create temporary exceptions to this clause for the sale of timber or timber products, if the timber is domestically sourced from land clearing for essential infrastructural or agricultural purposes, provided that clearing such land could not be reasonably avoided and new trees have been afforested at an equal or greater rate than the number of trees deforested.

  3. No member, or entity therein, shall allow the sale of any timber or timber products within its borders which is not ensured for sale pursuant to clause one of this resolution by a relevant certification agency. Additionally, no member, or entity therein, shall allow the export or import of any timber or timber products from its borders of any timber which is not approved for sale pursuant to clause one of this resolution by a relevant certification agency.

  4. Agencies, as established in clause one of this resolution, must submit annual reports to the World Assembly Forest Commission (WAFC), detailing all timber approved and denied, in order to track general trends surrounding the timber and lumber industries, as well as track rates of deforestation and the impacts thereof. The WAFC may request additional information about the approval processes from agencies carrying out the provisions of this resolution and, if those approval processes constitute something which does not effectively and in good-faith ensure sustainability from timber and timber-based products, mandate that the agency change its criteria to increase efficacy.

  5. Timber or timber products produced before the passage of this resolution by the World Assembly, or prior to a member's initial entry into the World Assembly, shall not be subject to the provisions of this resolution.
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Note: Only votes from TNP WA nations, NPA personnel, and those on NPA deployments will be counted. If you do not meet these requirements, please add (non-WA) or something of that effect to your vote. If you are on an NPA deployment without being formally registered as an NPA member, name your deployed nation in your vote.
Voting Instructions:
  • Vote For if you want the Delegate to vote For the resolution.
  • Vote Against if you want the Delegate to vote Against the resolution.
  • Vote Abstain if you want the Delegate to abstain from voting on this resolution.
  • Vote Present if you are personally abstaining from this vote.
Detailed opinions with your vote are appreciated and encouraged!
ForAgainstAbstainPresent
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@Imperium Anglorum gave a very long explanation on the issues with this resolution gameside. (I think combined with my arguments against this resolution, the counter-arguments ran longer than the actual resolution). I think close to none of the comments on the resolution were adopted by the author and the entire comment thread were filled with Against comments.

Against as well.


Copied below: (note the word "and" is bold as per the original, emphasis his)

Opposed.

There are two issues. The first is essentially that raised by Simone, which is that it entrenches historical inequities which permanently make some nations just have less farmland than other nations. If Biso wants to defend on the basis that they can chop them down... they just can't sell the timber for anything... then the forests are valued as literally zero and it's especially pointless. It just makes "it difficult for member nations to pay for the equipment and start-up costs associated with setting up those farms (that again are needed so to have land on which to grow food to feed people)". GA 749 Repeal "Timber Production and Sale Oversight". There is simply no reason to believe that "however much forest you have now" is the optimal amount of forest.

The second is that the proposal here creates an exception for "essential infrastructural or agricultural purposes" purposes, which is better than the last version even though there is no definition for "essential", but requires "that clearing such land could not be reasonably avoided and new trees have been afforested at an equal or greater rate than the number of trees deforested". This doesn't let member nations remove any forests for farmland or shelter purposes. It lets them move them around (or less charitably, destroy old growth forests and replace them with shittier new growth ones). In 8000 BC the European continent was essentially all forest; there's simply nowhere to put any of the things that people need – especially in terms of infrastructure and – in you cannot remove at least some of them.

The approach I would have gone with is that we set up an evaluation of a grid area of forest for sustainability of the biodiversity that lives there. Areas of forest can then be assessed on their value for sustaining that biodiversity and assigned a cost. As the amount of forest decreases, the marginal cost to the environment rises with spatial variation taken into account. Proceeds from the scheme can also be at the same time used to reforest lands with minimal non-forest value. An equilibrium should arise, which I'm not going to bother to solve analytically.
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