General Assembly

General Assembly Resolution #291 “Sustainable Forest Management” (Category: Environmental; Industry Affected: Logging) shall be struck out and rendered null and void.

The World Assembly,

Maintaining its belief in the importance of the forestry and logging industries, and the damage that can be done when these industries are improperly handled, and

Celebrating this Assembly's current attempt at proper regulation through the means of GAR#291, "Sustainable Forest Management", which is well-meaning in its goals and proficient in the explanation of the environmental issues thereof, and

Believing that, despite the target's good intentions, there are several notable issues with the execution of its mission, which include the following:

1. The only binding clause in the resolution is the requirement that nations submit a proposal of any logging operations to the World Assembly Forest Commission (WAFC) for approval, which serves as an inefficient method of regulating the logging industry;

2. Within the mandate requiring that member nation's gain approval of the WAFC prior to commencing logging operations, there are no actual guidelines or requirements for the WAFC to adhere to in the approval of these proposals, allowing the committee to approve them in a potentially incoherent fashion, leaving member nations at the whims of a committee making decisions arbitrarily;

3. While the WAFC does have additional duties to carry out, there is nowhere in the resolution that binds or even urges member-nations to take into consideration the "guidelines for sustainable forest harvesting" or the "standards specific to each nation to limit the impact of forest harvesting processes", among other similar mandates;

4. The WAFC is given inappropriate financial powers over the World Assembly's coffers through the authorization for the WAFC to provide funds towards forest revitalization efforts, a power which should be limited to budgetary entities within the World Assembly, such as the General Accounting Office;

5. By requiring all nations to wait to receive approval from the WAFC before commencing logging operations, the World Assembly requires that member nations place potentially vital economic activities at the whim of a third-party entity responsible for approving all regular commercial logging opportunities in tens of thousands of nations, an approval process which has undoubtedly gotten backed up in the nearly ten years that the resolution has been extant, harming the economic and bureaucratic framework of many member nations;

Resolving to write a replacement resolution which shall not place such discretionary power in the hands of a third-party entity with little oversight or guidelines thereof, and which shall implement proper and effective regulations on the logging industry so as to properly balance economic prosperity with environmental wellbeing, therefore

Repeals GAR#291, "Sustainable Forest Management".