countries have been discussing international forest policy issues within

the United Nations system since the end of World War 11. 1 82 The FAO
Conference, which first met in 1945, was the principal global forum for
the discussion of international forestry issues from the mid-1940s until
1971, when the FAO established the Committee on Forestry (COFO). Since
its first session in 1972, COFO has met regularly at two-year intervals to
review forestry problems of "an international character." 183 Forest
industries and the restoration of timber supplies were prominent topics of
early conferences, and they, together with logging and the marketing and
utilization of forest products, have remained on COFO's agenda.
Other milestones in the global forest policy dialogue include the adoption
of the International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) in 1983 and the
establishment of the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) in
1986 to promote international trade in tropical timber, the sustainable
management of tropical forests, and the development of forest industries.
The ITTO's membership represents 90 percent of world trade in tropical
timber and 80 percent of the world's tropical forests. Regional initiatives to
protect forests and promote their sustainable management have also been
developed, including the 1978 Amazon Cooperation Treaty and the 1990
Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe.
The 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development marked a
turning point in the international forest policy dialogue and started a new
process of issue definition when forests were examined within the context
of sustainable development. Negotiations on forests during the UNCED
Preparatory Committee quickly became polarized. Three competing public
claims to the world's forests were made during the negotiations. The
developed countries, which had called for a forest convention in 1990 in
the European Parliament and at the G-7 Houston summit, ventured that
forests could be seen as a global common because all humanity has a stake
in forest conservation. On the other side, the Group of 77, led by Malaysia
and India, claimed that forests are a sovereign national resource to be used
in line with national development objectives. NGOs and indigenous
peoples' groups made a third claim that contested the negotiations: Forests
should be seen as local commons, and the best chance for a forest
conservation was for secure land tenure rights to be granted to local
communities the livelihoods of which depend directly on the conservation
of forest resources. 184 With the rejection of a treaty by the Group of 77,
delegates instead negotiated two non-legally binding agreements on
forests: the "Forest Principles "185 and Chapter 11 of Agenda 21 on
Combating Deforestation. 186