under fire for questionable management practices and lack of

transparency. At COP-6, the general discontent over the budget, elections

of officers and financing the participation of only NGOs known to be
supportive of the secretariat came to the fore. These concerns, strongly
articulated by Canada during the closing session, provided food for
thought for the secretariat. In her statement, the Canadian delegate
expressed regret that the budget negotiations put accountability,
transparency, and effectiveness into doubt. She warned that her country
would not hesitate to redirect its funds into processes that combat
desertification more efficiently if these three principles remain neglected
at COP-7.178 Unless the secretariat can effectively address these issues
and the UNCCD can refocus itself on implementation, within the context
of reduced financial contributions and wavering political commitment
from some donor parties, the future of the first "sustainable
development" convention may be bleak indeed.

FORESTS
The issue of forests is unique among these case studies in that it continues to
defy the creation of a comprehensive regime because of its complexity and
the successful efforts of a veto coalition. As demonstrated in several other
cases, the make-up of a veto coalition can change over time, but none of
the other cases illustrates just how much a veto coalition can change in
membership and rationale, yet still block the negotiation of a treaty.
Forests cover 3.8 million hectares, or about 30 percent of the total land
area of the world (not including Greenland and Antarctica). However, only
about 40 percent of the earth's forests are in relatively undisturbed tracts
("frontier forests") that are large enough to provide habitats for large
species of mammals. Half of those undisturbed forest tracts are boreal
forests (slowgrowing forests lying between arctic tundra to the north and
warmer temperate forests to the south) in Canada, Russia, and Alaska.
Forty-four percent of the remaining frontier forests are tropical forests,
those located in warm regions within 30 degrees of the equator, whereas
only about 3 percent of the remaining "frontier forests" are temperate
forests, which extend through Europe, the United States, parts of Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and Argentina. 179
Even as public awareness of the impact of global deforestation has increased
o
ver the last twenty-five years, and actual forested land has increased in some