[GA, defeated] - Repeal: Sustainable Forest Management

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Repeal: Sustainable Forest Management
Category: Repeal | GA #291
Proposed by: Bisofeyri World Assembly Mission | Onsite Topic
Replacement: Sustainable Logging Practices >​


The World Assembly,

Maintaining its belief in the importance of the forestry and logging industries, and the damage that can be done when these industries are improperly handled, and

Celebrating this Assembly's current attempt at proper regulation through the means of GAR#291, "Sustainable Forest Management", which is well-meaning in its goals and proficient in the explanation of the environmental issues thereof, and

Believing that, despite the target's good intentions, there are several notable issues with the execution of its mission, which include the following:

The only binding clause in the resolution is the requirement that nations submit a proposal of any logging operations to the World Assembly Forest Commission (WAFC) for approval, which serves as an inefficient method of regulating the logging industry;

Within the mandate requiring that member nation's gain approval of the WAFC prior to commencing logging operations, there are no actual guidelines or requirements for the WAFC to adhere to in the approval of these proposals, allowing the committee to approve them in a potentially incoherent fashion, leaving member nations at the whims of a committee making decisions arbitrarily;

While the WAFC does have additional duties to carry out, there is nowhere in the resolution that binds or even urges member-nations to take into consideration the "guidelines for sustainable forest harvesting" or the "standards specific to each nation to limit the impact of forest harvesting processes", among other similar mandates;

The WAFC is given inappropriate financial powers over the World Assembly's coffers through the authorization for the WAFC to provide funds towards forest revitalization efforts, a power which should be limited to budgetary entities within the World Assembly, such as the General Accounting Office;

By requiring all nations to wait to receive approval from the WAFC before commencing logging operations, the World Assembly requires that member nations place potentially vital economic activities at the whim of a third-party entity responsible for approving all regular commercial logging opportunities in tens of thousands of nations, an approval process which has undoubtedly gotten backed up in the nearly ten years that the resolution has been extant, harming the economic and bureaucratic framework of many member nations;

Resolving to write a replacement resolution which shall not place such discretionary power in the hands of a third-party entity with little oversight or guidelines thereof, and which shall implement proper and effective regulations on the logging industry so as to properly balance economic prosperity with environmental wellbeing, therefore

Repeals GAR#291, "Sustainable Forest Management".
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
0701
 
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Overview
This resolution proposal seeks to repeal “Sustainable Forest Management” (GA291). The main issue the repeal cites with this resolution is that the only binding clause is the requirement for nations to submit logging plans to an World Assembly organ, with the remainder of the resolution largely promotional and encouragement based initiatives.

Recommendation
Our main issue is with the proposed replacement resolution from the same author. Regulating forestry is a fairly tricky issue at the international level, because of vast differences in geology, soil conditions, landscape, crop rotation and other conditions. We simply do not see at this stage a satisfactory replacement as anywhere near ready and would prefer to leave the current one in place.

For the above reasons, the Ministry of World Assembly Affairs recommends a vote Against the at-vote GA resolution, "Repeal: “Sustainable Forest Management”".
 
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Against. I have some pushback on this one. The replacement really hasn't got much feedback. Cretox and I looked at this in some detail and the R&R was quite hard because there's (1) no other major resolution on forestry in the GA (2) it's kind of hard for a replacement to work better than 291. 291 isn't a very strong resolution but the replacement also isn't particularly strong either and doesn't seem to serve the purpose.
 
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Abstain. The criticism of the REQUIRES clause as being the only mandatory provision overlooks that the clause effectively allows the WAFC to mandate appropriate requirements by not approving logging that does not meet such guidelines and standards as it establishes. I don’t agree with the criticism that the resolution doesn’t establish a test for approval, the clause sets out what proposals are to contain and, in the context of the resolution, it is apparent to me those are to be assessed against the guidelines and standards established by the WAFC.

The most convincing point in the resolution, to my mind, is actually that the WAFC should not have to approve every logging operation in the world in advance and that requiring this is unduly restrictive when it is a task that could be done by member states with appropriate regulation. I think I would vote to repeal on that basis if the replacement was strong enough but I am not sure this one is.
 
The WAFC is given inappropriate financial powers over the World Assembly's coffers through the authorization for the WAFC to provide funds towards forest revitalization efforts, a power which should be limited to budgetary entities within the World Assembly, such as the General Accounting Office;
This is an interesting claim; I'm sure that there are other resolutions that authorize non-budgetary offices to divert funds and it would be interesting to see if this notion catches on.

Anyways, for.
 
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This is an interesting claim; I'm sure that there are other resolutions that authorize non-budgetary offices to divert funds and it would be interesting to see if this notion catches on.

Anyways, for.

There's probably about 150 resolutions that use WA General Fund money. The only three that raise money are GA8, 17 and the (repealed) 663.
 
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