SINGAPORE - The United Nations Environment Program needs broader powers if it is to take on major environmental issues such as the forest fires in Indonesia, UNEP's managing director said on Thursday.
"I can't really jump the gun because there is a task force that is looking at the reformation of UNEP, but I can say there are a number of governments that do feel, given the gravity of environmental problems, that we do need to have a stronger authority than what UNEP currently has," Jorge Illueca said.
"What many governments are looking at is the evolution of UNEP into a World Environment Organization (WEO)," Illueca told reporters after speaking to the Singapore Environment Council.
Illueca said turning UNEP into a WEO would give it broad powers like its trade counterpart, the World Trade Organization, although that was just one option being considered by a United Nations reform task force.
Other alternatives included creating another special agency, but Illueca favored the WTO model "because it can resolve conflict."
UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer is due to deliver the reform recommendations, which are part of a wider reform of the United Nations promised by Secretary General Kofi Annan on June 15.
In his lecture, Illueca said the situation in Indonesia -- which has seen about 5.5 million hectares (13.75 million acres) of forest destroyed by fire since 1997 -- was desperate.
"It is not merely fire-fighting any more, but a war against the fires that requires war-time mobilization of manpower and resources," he said.
Toepfer has already suggested creating a "Green helmet brigade" that would fight environmental emergencies like the traditional blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeeping troops.
Illueca said such an effort was needed in Indonesia's East Kalimantan province, the seat of devastating fires.
"But when it comes to environmental emergencies and natural disasters, the United Nations is not structured to mobilize resources on a massive scale like it does, for instance, on a peacekeeping mission," he told reporters.
Experts estimate as many as 30,000 fire fighters are needed on the ground to put out some 1,000 fires, or hot spots, in East Kalimantan, Indonesia's part of Borneo island.
The fires have been exacerbated by the El Nino weather pattern that parched the region last year.
The drought made the tropical forests tinder dry, and fires set to clear land for agriculture raged out of control, destroying forest equivalent to the size of Costa Rica and causing a staggering $4.5 billion in damage.
About $10 million in cash and equipment has been pledged by the United States, foreign governments and the World Bank to battle blazes in crisis-hit Indonesia this year.
But Illueca said available funds "were like a drop in the bucket" compared to what was needed.
Even UNEP's funds for pure environmental work are limited to about $55 million a year because of the allocation of resources according to donors' wishes.
"We have 70 trust funds, but only one of them is an environment fund. All the rest are earmarked," Illueca said.
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