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helping farmers to use organic nutrients more efficiently. Hence governments must encourage the use of more organic plant nutrients to complement chemicals. Pest control must also be based increasingly on the use of natural methods. (See Box 5–2.) These strategies require changes in Public policies, which now encourage the increased use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. The legislative, policy, and research capacity for advancing non-chemical and less-chemical strategies must be established and sustained.
67. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are heavily subsidized in many countries. These subsidies promote chemical use precisely in the more commercially oriented agricultural areas where their environmental damage may already outweigh any increases in productivity they bring. Hence different regions will require different policies to regulate and promote chemical use.
68. Legislative and institutional frameworks for controlling agrochemicals must be greatly strengthened everywhere. Industrialized countries must tighten controls on pesticide exports. (See Chapter 8.) Developing countries must possess the basic legislative and institutional instruments to manage the use of agricultural chemicals within their countries. And they will need technical and financial assistance to do so.
3.4 Forestry and Agriculture
69. Undisturbed forests protect watersheds, reduce erosion, offer habitats for wild species, and play key roles in climatic systems. They are also an economic resource providing timber, fuelwood, and other products. The crucial task is to balance the need to exploit forests against the need to preserve them.
70. Sound forest policies can be based only on an analysis of the capacity of the forests and the land under them to perform various functions. Such an analysis might lead to some forests being cleared for intensive cultivation, others for livestock: some forestland might be managed for increased timber production or agroforestry use and some left intact for watershed protection, recreation, or species conservation. The extension of agriculture into forest areas must be based on scientific classification of land capacities.
71. Programmes to preserve forest resources must start with the local people who are both victims and agents of destruction, and who. will bear the burden of any new management scheme.[1] They should be at the centre of integrated forest management, which is the basis of Sustainable agriculture.
72. Such an approach would entail changes in the way governments set development priorities, as well as the evolution of greater responsibility to local governments and communities. Contracts covering forest use will have to be negotiated, or renegotiated, to ensure sustainability of forest exploitation and overall environmental and ecosystem conservation. Prices for
- ↑ INDERENA, Caquan-Caqueta Report (Bogota, Colombia: 1985).
