Number: 1986-07
WHEREAS, over 50 Third World nations owe debts of unprecedented size to banks, governments and private parties in industrialized countries; and
WHEREAS, the size of external debt of seven of these countries is such that failure or refusal to pay interest due could threaten stability of the international financial system; and
WHEREAS, some developing countries are accelerating the destruction of valuable tropical forests, and encouraging expansion of unhealthy cash crop monocultures, in order to sell their produce to generate short-term earnings to pay debt interest; and
WHEREAS, these policies are undermining the potential for renewable resource management and thus also sustainable economic development; and
WHEREAS, conservation expenditures such as soil, water, fisheries and forest management, natural area designation, endangered species protection, water and air cleanup, often must be postponed because the first priority for funds is to service the foreign debt; and
WHEREAS, it is likely that many countries might implement programs for natural resource conservation if, through a system of conservation credits or otherwise, their external debt could be reduced or stretched out in return; and
WHEREAS, such programs could prove crucial to the conservation of endangered species habitat, including large expanses of tropical forests, and the biological diversity harbored therein; and
WHEREAS, those efforts would be in the best interests of the industrializing and industrialized nations, including the U.S.; and
WHEREAS, the current debt crisis is undermining all other efforts by conservationists to assist natural resource agencies in developing countries;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation in annual meeting assembled March 20-23, 1986, in Seattle, Washington, hereby urges national conservation groups, the Administration and Members of Congress to integrate conservation programs into all strategies for addressing the Third World debt crisis by adopting such concepts as conditional lending to foster resource conservation, conservation credits, and a conservation bank; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation calls upon the Treasury Department and the United States Executive Director of the World Bank to address these issues as part of the agenda of the next annual meeting of the World Bank to be held in Washington, D.C. in September 1986.