Grassroots foundation support for forest conservation and sustainable forest management.

The Grassroots forest program is focused on support to groups in Eastern Europe and Russia, and provides funds in three issue areas: Indigenous peoples  support, Forest Conservation and Forestry Certification. The forests program also supports groups worldwide struggling to protect forests from expansion of the pulp and paper industry.

The forests of Eastern Europe and Russia are vast and provide habitats to many species of plants and animals that are extinct or threatened in Western Europe. The demand for cheap paper and timber in Western Europe is helping to drive the expansion of industrial forestry in Eastern Europe and European Russia, where environmental laws are often poorly enforced, and non government groups concerned with forest management have very few funding sources.

Grassroots has supported indigenous peoples in Russia to re-assert control over their traditional lands and stop destructive developments. The new forest law in Russia removes many of the hard won rights of indigenous peoples to control their territories, and Grassroots is assisting the indigenous peoples support group, LIENIP, to challenge the new law as unconstitutional.

Forest certification is a valuable tool to promote good forest management, and Grassroots has assisted groups throughout Eastern Europe to develop and harmonize national standards of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and to further their local applications.

Grassroots has supported forest conservation efforts by local groups in Russia and Slovakia, including conservation of watershed forests, and challenging large-scale clearcutting operations.

In 2006 and 2007, Grassroots funded local groups working to protect forests and local cultures from the expansion of the pulp and paper industry. These efforts have been in cooperation with Grassroots funding on finance and banks. Grants have been provided to groups in Uruguay, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia, and to groups in Europe to challenge the finance for these pulp mills. In Indonesia, groups have been able to stop plans for World Bank funding for the construction of a billion dollar pulp mill in South Kalimantan. Over the last year, with Grassroots support, WALHI, one of the main groups involved in challenging the proposed mill has led efforts to warn other potential investors of the dangers of the project, and has documented the negative social and environmental impacts of existing pulp wood plantations. Grassroots supported Urgewald to prepare a report on the environmental and social impacts of the pulp and paper industry, which was presented to a forum of German private banks in mid 2007.

The results of Grassroots funding in the forest sector show again how small grants to effective local groups, made available in a timely manner with minimal bureaucracy, can greatly assist civil society efforts to promote environmental sustainability and social justice.