The Global Forest Convention will not only result in strained North-South relations but will also lead to disastrous forest management, if the past experience of bureaucratising forest operations is any indication. It is vital to ask the question whether it is possible to set universal rules for sustainable forest management, when experience, especially in Africa and India in the 1980s, has shown that participation and control of the local community is the only guarantee for sustainable use of forests.

Even if the urgent need for forest protection is accepted, centralised bureaucracies will only bring in technocratic rules for sustainable logging. India is a fine example of how little