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Published in Winter 2000-2001
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Public forum sheds light on environmental effects of trade
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At the heart of CEC’s mandate are explorations at the trade and environment frontier. Its recent symposium sheds new light on the subject. As Greg Block reports, the event’s success was due largely to the active participation of the public.
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By Greg Block
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Since the negotiations for NAFTA began in 1992, the North American community has asked: What are the environmental impacts of free trade? How do trade rules affect environmental regulations? And what is the role of the public in examining environment and trade issues? As a result of the first North American Symposium on Understanding the Linkages between Trade and Environment, we now have some answers.
The process is key
The symposium invited the active and informed participation of more elements of civil society than have traditionally been involved, or included, in such discussions. CEC embarked upon a process integrating ethical, social justice and environmental concerns with traditional ‘bottom-line’ or mainstream issues of trade and economics. As symposium chair Pierre-Marc Johnson observed, CEC’s experience may be a valuable lesson for international organizations seeking to broaden their interaction with the public on such important issues (see Building policy integration in the post Seattle context in the fall edition of Trio).
The environmental impacts
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Photo: IISD
Grace Chomo and Michael Ferrantino (US International Trade Commission) looked at the impacts of NAFTA on North America's fisheries.
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Through the important process of public participation, the symposium gave the opportunity for people representing different sectors of society to express a broad array of viewpoints about the trade-environment relationship. It is not surprising that our most immediate concern is the effect NAFTA may have on human health and wellbeing and our local environment. This question was addressed in papers that looked at the effects trade and economic policies have on specific North American communities, resources or industrial sectors. Grace Chomo and Michael Ferrantino (US International Trade Commission) looked at NAFTA Environmental Impacts on North American Fisheries. They observed that NAFTA-related changes in trade policies are unlikely to have significantly influenced the sustainability of North American fisheries, but suggested that trade patterns with Asia could well be a factor in the future. Members of two nongovernmental research organizations along the US–Mexican border jointly assessed the environmental, economic and social effects of NAFTA on the forestry industry in the state of Chihuahua. In their study (Assessing the Environmental Effects of NAFTA on the Forestry Sector in Mexico),
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Photo: IISD
Mary Kelly (left) of the Texas Center for Policy Studies and María Teresa Guerrero of the Comisión de Solidaridad y Defensa a los Derechos Humanos present the results of their study of effects of NAFTA on the forestry industry in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico
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Mary Kelly, Cyrus Reed, and Brandon Vegter of the Texas Center for Policy Studies and María Teresa Guerrero and Francisco de Villa of the Comisión de Solidaridad y Defensa de los Derechos Humanos noted that trade data show that exports of pulp and paper products from the United States to Mexico increased sharply since NAFTA. One of the effects of this change is that Chihuahua producers may feel the pressure to keep product prices low to maintain their share of the Mexican market.
Other papers also suggested strong links between NAFTA and environmental impacts, although their conclusions do not imply that NAFTA’s effects on the environment are necessarily negative. While it is sometimes difficult to sort out trade implications from other economic variables, these papers reveal that it is possible to isolate and evaluate the trade component of environment-economy relationships.
The issue of governance
A number of papers looked at the question of governance and recommended policy measures to address these and other areas that need attention. Howard Mann (International and Environmental Law and Policy, and Associate, International Institute for Sustainable Development) delivered the paper Assessing the Impact of NAFTA on Environmental Law and Management Processes. The paper focused on the impact of trade and investment disciplines on the ability of a country to set and defend environmental standards and laws. Mann underscored the need for heightened sensitivity of trade negotiators to the environmental dimensions of trade and investment provisions.
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Photo: IISD
David Schorr, Director, Sustainable Commerce Program, World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US) chaired Session One: Trade Liberalization and Natural Resources.
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A key lesson regarding policy impacts was summed up by World Wildlife Fund's David Schorr, who commented that the symposium "moved the trade-environment debate out of the ‘identification of issues’ stage into a new phase requiring the formulation of specific policy responses to mitigate the negative environmental effects of such policies, to maximize their positive effects and to create a robost context for sustainable international commerce."
While the symposium covered a great deal of terrain and spawned a mixture of judgements from the panels, a few important conclusions can be drawn:
- Though useful and necessary, the macro-scale tools for environmental assessments of trade agreements and of trade flows are alone insufficient to evaluate positive and negative impacts of trade and economic policy. Instead, aggregate-level work is enriched and informed by issue, sector or community-specific studies.
- Many researchers noted that while we are awash in trade data, reliable and comparable environmental data is much harder to come by. A much more intensive environmental monitoring and assessment effort will be needed to "evaluate and, if necessary, treat the patient." Emerging technologies such as remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications, which can help map environmental information, provide promising cost-effective means of addressing some of this need.
- While attempting to isolate the ‘NAFTA effect’ is still useful, CEC should remain focused on all of the root causes of environmental change.
What's next?
Following the symposium, CEC Council representatives met to discuss how to build on the outcomes of the event. In particular, they asked how CEC could continue to stimulate academics, environmental organizations, business and others to conduct independent research on these issues. CEC emerged from these discussions with a reinvigorated mandate to examine policy options to better coordinate trade and environment policies; to continue analytical work with interested experts and the public on trade, economy and environment relationships; and to seek public input.
The environment, economy and trade dialogue is moving beyond the stage of debating the existence of linkages. It is encouraging the application of assessment tools and helping in the design of environmental and trade measures to maximize positive effects and mitigate or avoid negative ones. CEC will remain on the leading edge of this dynamic issue and continue to provide a forum for the public to have an active voice in shaping the direction of our trade and environment policies.
As Joint Public Advisory Committee Chair Regina Barba declared in her closing remarks, the meeting signaled that the growing discussion over the relationship between environment, economy and trade must be a public one.
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Greg Block