Background
There has never been a time in history than now, when our planet is threatened by the combined forces of deforestation, environmental pollution and the growing human population that need to be fed, clothed and sheltered. For years, man, in quest for survival and riches has released billions of pollutants into the atmosphere, accelerating global surface warming and dramatic climate changes.
The IPCC report of 2001 says "global surface temperature have increased between 0.4°C and 0.8°C since the late 19th century" and many experts believe this increase could have been responsible for the dramatic weather events and climate changes world-wide. Meanwhile, we in Africa are particularly vulnerable to the effect of climate change, because many of our people living in the rural communities depend largely on their natural environment for food, water, shelter, and medicine. Therefore, we must be critical about the programme of adaptation to climate change.
Truly, since the United Nations Conference on Human Environment in 1972, world leaders have made commendable efforts to curb environmental problems, but virtually every major indicator today shows that environmental woes are worse than those of 36 years ago. We in CECD believe it will require more than frameworks and capacity building on the part of our leaders to stem down environmental pollution, forest degradation and biodiversity loss. It will require building the political will to adopt the frameworks and raising awareness at state, local government and community level. These types of changes also require working with community leaders, farmers, politicians, judges, and executives to understand the interrelated nature of environment, economic and health systems.
Corporate Environmental Responsibility
The world is today facing unique and daunting environmental challenges. These include climate change; an emerging global crisis in water availability and water pollution; record loss of biodiversity and long-term damage to ecosystems; pollution of the atmosphere; waste production and disposal; and deforestation and land degradation.
In recent years, increasing numbers of companies have adopted broad-based strategies and policies to manage the widening array of risks, and in some cases opportunities, presented by these environmental challenges. Companies that pursue such sustainable approaches can generate benefits from: cost savings through improved efficiencies; enhanced revenue from related products, services, and technologies; building corporate and brand reputation; improving employee and community health; and helping to create sustainable societies and markets.
UN Global Compact – Environment
The UN Global Compact's environment principles are derived from the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. The three principles are:
- Business should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges.
- Undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility.
- Encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.
Community Forest Enterprises
For most people living in rural areas of the Niger Delta, especially the poor, forests and trees are the sources of food, fuel, fodder, medicines, and building materials as well as cash income. We need to assist the people in developing income-generating tree and forest product enterprises while also having greater incentive to sustainably manage and protect those resources.
Community-based tree and forest product enterprises are to be designed with the help of community participatory methodologies, such as Market Analysis and Development, and operate within the framework of participatory forestry mechanisms that enable those people who have a direct stake in forest resources to be part of decision-making in all aspects of forest management.
Objectives & Strategies
Objectives of community forest enterprises are to ensure increased revenue for local producers/groups based on key non-wood forest products (NWFP) production and commercialization; improve entrepreneurial and marketing skills; ensure sustainable resource production and harvesting techniques; improve processing for local value addition; improve access to market information and credit; and provide an enabling policy and institutional environment.
Strategies include: facilitating training of trainers for enhancing small forest enterprises based on Market Analysis and Demand processes; stimulating and facilitating the set up of forest markets at the community and state level; supporting the establishment or reinforcement of Forest Producer Associations for Small and Medium Forest Enterprises (SMFEs); contributing to better functioning business development and financial services for SMFEs; and assisting in shaping an enabling policy environment.