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Malaysia has threatened to boycott the Earth Summit, scheduled to be
held in Rio de Janeiro next June, in protest against the ‘assault’ on the
country’s timber trade by the world’s environmentalists.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed told reporters in Malaysia that if
environmentalists planned to use the summit to criticise Malaysia, ‘there’s
no longer a need for us to attend’.

‘If this is their intention, it is therefore not a conference to seek
a solution to environmental problems. We all know that our environment is
polluted by the industrialised nations, not by Malaysia, but they insist
on this for political mileage,’ he said.

The Earth Summit, or the UN Confer ence on Environment and Development
(UNCED), is a mammoth series of negotiations between UN member states on
issues of sustainable development (see ‘Strong words to save the planet’,
New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ, 10 August). Two major treaties, one on climate change and
another on biodiversity, are expected to be signed by more than 100 world
leaders in Rio. The US is pressing for a third agreement on forestry.

Developing countries are worried that this accord will demand that they
protect their forests to provide a sink for greenhouse gases coming mostly
from industrialised nations. They argue that the major issue is whether
the industrialised countries are willing to reduce their production of these
gases.

UNCED officials deplored Malaysia’s threat to withdraw from the summit
and asked the country’s leaders to continue their ‘positive and constructive
role’ at the negotiations. Malaysia’s logging policy has been the subject
of many protests by local indigenous peoples, including one at the pre-summit
negotiations, now taking place in Geneva. Mutang Urud, from Sarawak in Malaysia,
played a recording of the sounds of a gibbon to the delegates, and said:
‘We have lived in the forests of the world, sustainably, since time immemorial.
Under our management these forests have remained intact, providing not only
their inhabitants but the wider world with their benefits.’

At the Geneva conference, Malaysia proposed that the cost of managing
timber sustainably should be reflected in the price of wood exports. They
also said that under-utilised species should be promoted so that other kinds
of trees are not overexploited.