Subject: World Rainforest Movement, Bulletin 33
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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.
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04/29/00
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY
Below you will find World Rainforest Movement's excellent monthly
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g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: WRM Bulletin 33
Source: WORLD RAINFOREST MOVEMENT
MOVIMIENTO MUNDIAL POR LOS BOSQUES
International Secretariat
Maldonado 1858, CP 11200
Montevideo
Uruguay
Ph +598 2 403 2989Uruguay
Fax +598 2 408 0762
EMail: wrm@chasque.apc.org
Web page: http://www.wrm.org.uy
Oxford Office
1c Fosseway Business Centre
Stratford Road
Moreton-in-Marsh
GL56 9NQ United Kingdom
Ph. +44.1608.652.893
Fax +44.1608.652.878
EMail: wrm@gn.apc.org
Status: Copyright 2000, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: April 27, 2000
=================================
W R M B U L L E T I N 33
APRIL 2000
=================================
In this issue:
OUR VIEWPOINT
- Local peoples: a ray of hope in the forest
LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS
AFRICA
- Gabon: logging companies' promised "development"
- Kenya: the future of the Ogiek and their forests
- Liberia: civil war and transnational profit making
- Nigeria: Shell sets forests on fire
ASIA
- Cambodia: too late and too little to protect mangroves
- Malaysia: the end of the GTZ-funded 'FOMISS' project in Sarawak
- Myanmar: a dam megaproject for the benefit of the people?
- Thailand: free the Moon River!
CENTRAL AMERICA
- Honduras: action to protect mangrove forests and wetlands against
shrimp farming
SOUTH AMERICA
- Brazil: the same as 500 years ago?
- Chile: forest management by indigenous communities
- Colombia: International Mission and good news about the U'wa
- Ecuador: heart of palm cultivation results in deforestation
- Venezuela: increasing difficulties for Smurfit
OCEANIA
- Innovative plantation initiative in Aotearoa-New Zealand
PLANTATIONS CAMPAIGN
- Campaign against genetically engineered trees
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* OUR VIEWPOINT
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- Local peoples: a ray of hope in the forest
Three main actors dominate the world forest scenario: local peoples,
governments and transnational corporations (TNCs). While the former
are trying to protect the forest that provides to their livelihood and
cultural survival, they are being forced to confront -in an unequal
struggle- the combined forces of TNCs and governments, whose
"development" plans inevitably result in forest destruction.
The present bulletin contains -as most of the previous 32 issues-
examples of the above: industrial logging, oil exploitation, mining,
dams, plantations, shrimp farming, the arms trade and other
investments which result in making the wealthy more wealthy and the
poor poorer, destroying, in the process, the forest which lies in its
way and the people who inhabit it.
At present, most tropical country governments seem to see their role
as that of merely competing with other Southern governments in
offering the best conditions for TNC investment, including subsidies
ranging from tax breaks to repression of opposition in order to ensure
the necessary profitability of foreign investments.
On their part, TNCs obviously feel unaccountable to anyone except -and
only to a certain extent- to their shareholders. They impose their
will, not only over apparently weak Southern governments, but also on
Northern governments and multilateral institutions. No-one ever
elected them to govern anything, but they are in fact increasingly
governing the whole world.
Within such scenario, local peoples struggling to protect their
forests constitute a ray of hope for the future. They are not only the
main on-the-ground opposition to forest destruction, but they also
form the basis for the establishment of worldwide alliances of people
willing to protect forests and forest peoples, which would be
meaningless without their struggles.
Additionally, local peoples are working out and implementing
alternatives for truly sustainable livelihoods, away from the official
and already meaningless "sustainable development" discourse which
governments and TNCs have emptied of the meaning it initially carried.
The ray of hope represented by those peoples is, however, still not
strong enough and needs support from all organizations working for the
respect for human rights and environmental conservation. Such support
should not be seen, however, as "us" assisting "them", but as a
collaborative effort to ensure present and future livelihoods for all
people on Earth.
The Ogoni and Ogiek in Africa, the Pataxo and Mapuche in Latin
America, the Karen and Dayak in Asia, together with countless other
indigenous, traditional and peasant communities throughout the world
are showing the way. Their struggles are ours and the more support
they get, the more they shall open up avenues for humanity's future.
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* LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS
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AFRICA
- Gabon: logging companies' promised "development"
Gabon's primary rainforests are disappearing at a high speed. Logging
of precious tropical wood is practised as a depredatory activity,
where transnational logging companies, that hold huge concessions,
make big money, while local communities have to bear the costs (see
WRM Bulletin 28).
Logging in the Mingouli region, near Libreville, is an example of the
above. At the community of Ovan, people are concerned by destructive
logging activities that are devastating the region, carried out within
a framework of negligence by the authorities of the Waters and
Forests Administration, and the lack of interests by politicians.
Under the pretext that local people are not able to "develop", logging
companies are depriving them of their forests, paying scarce sums of
money for coveted tropical wood -as okoume and other species- and
causing negative effects on people's livelihoods and their
environment. A scarcity of wildlife -used by local communities- due to
increasing deforestation has been denounced. Additionally, the
promised "development" has never come true. Logging companies do not
invest in the villages, and the promised new schools and
infrastructure have not arrived to benefit their inhabitants. Once
they enter the area, they take as much precious wood as possible and
forget about their promises. The main companies responsible for these
damages are: Rougier-Ocean, SHM, FOX, BSG, Selectionna, Leroy, and
Lutexo which have logged or are presently logging in the region. Even
if local dwellers feel cheated and disillusioned by the companies'
false promises, and feel abandoned by those who have the obligation to
defend the country's resources, they are now organizing themselves to
resist further destruction and to save the country's rainforests.
Article based on information from: Ipassa Mingouli Group, 11/2/2000.
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- Kenya: the future of the Ogiek and their forests
The Ogiek people of Kenya -a minority forest-dwelling community
currently composed of some 20,000 people- who have lived from time
immemorial in the highland Tinet forest area of Molo in Nakuru
District, have been defending their rights for decades against the
arbitrariness of both colonial and post-colonial governments, which
progressively pushed them to marginal areas. Only in 1991 their
territorial rights were partially recognized and a portion of Tinet
forest was granted to them.
Nevertheless, since powerful interests wishing to occupy their lands
for logging continue to threaten them, they went to court to avoid
imminent eviction (see WRM Bulletin 24).
Last April 7 their appeal was determined as not urgent by the court.
Therefore they are now exposed to the government's decision of
evicting them. Their effort to hold on to the disappearing forest is
being challenged by the state, which has allocated big parcels of
former forest lands to the ruling elites, in addition to licensing
logging in the Ogiek's forests.
If Kenya really wants to conserve these valuable forests and to act
according to the international agreements for the protection of
indigenous peoples it has signed, the government has to respect,
protect and fulfill the rights of the Ogiek to their settlement as a
forest dwelling community. Instead of forcing the Ogiek to live as
marginalized people, suffering from insecurity in their own lands,
programmes should be implemented for the resettlement of the Ogiek in
their traditional territories. This would ensure a better future for
the Ogiek and for their forests.
Article based on information from: wildnet@ecoterra.net, 7/4/2000 and
13/4/2000
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- Liberia: civil war and transnational profit making
During the first years of the 1990s Liberia was the scenario of a
civil war which left 150,000 fatal victims and one million people
displaced or leaving the country as refugees. From January to November
1996 the war was triggered again until finally presidential elections
took place in 1997.
Governments of neighbouring countries, as well as European governments
and companies -particularly Belgian and French- were involved in the
delivery of weapons to the different groups engaged in the conflict,
in exchange for gold, diamonds and roundwood.
France provided the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) with
guns and received precious tropical roundwood in exchange. The
government of Ivory Coast also helped the NPFL, and obtained the
benefit of mining and forest concessions. The total value of illegal
wood exports from the areas controlled by the different armed groups
in conflict reached U$S 53 million a year. During the Liberian civil
war period, the import of tropical roundwood from Liberia in Spain
increased considerably, and since 1997 the flux has restarted.
Greenpeace-Spain has recently denounced that the country's consumption
of Liberian tropical roundwood is promoting social and environmental
destruction in that country.
War is now apparently over, but the usual vultures are ready to
continue profiting in its aftermath. Transnational logging companies -
such as LAMCO (USA-Sweden), Bridgestone (Japan), and Oriental Timber
Company (Malaysia)- are targeting Liberia, where 35% of the
rainforests still remain untouched (see WRM Bulletin 30). In spite of
the government's declared intention of "minimizing forest destruction
and promoting sustainable forest management", the economic and
political power of foreign governments and companies, coupled with a
national economy in shambles as a result of civil war, pose an
important threat to their survival. And what needs to be stressed is
that those same powerful governments, which appear as committed
promoters of tropical forest conservation in international fora, are
the ones which are most eager to profit from the destruction of
Liberia's forests.
Article based on information from: Miguel A.Soto, Greenpeace Spain,
April 2000; Liberian Forestry Development Authority, Annual Report
1999; The World Guide 1997/98.
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- Nigeria: Shell sets forests on fire
In October 1999 the Nigerian Minister of the Environment himself
blamed multinational oil companies for the situation reigning in the
Niger Delta, and gave them a six-week ultimatum to clean up the
communities' environment affected by several oil spills (see WRM
Bulletin 28). However, nothing much seems to have changed.
For six months -from 10 June 1998 to December 1998- a pipeline
belonging to Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited (SPDC) in
Kolo Creek, at Num River watershed, burst and discharged crude oil
into the Oyara mangrove forests, endangering Otuegwe 1, a small rural
community with predominantly indigenous population devoted to farming
and fishing. Due to heavy rains that occurred during this period, the
oil spill dispersed into surrounding water streams, farms and sacred
sites of the Otuegwe. To face the accusations that blamed the company,
Shell opted to blame the victims, and attributed the spill to an act
of sabotage. Thus it declined to assume the responsibility of
repairing the leaking pipeline.
Local communities of farmers and fisherfolk, which had to suffer not
only from health hazards but also from the impacts of the spill on
their natural resources, started a campaign with the help of the Niger
Delta Human and Environmental Rescue Organisation (ND-HERO). At last
Shell had to respond to such pressure and hired Willbros Nigerian Ltd
to repair the leakage. The company also chose an "environmentally
responsible" way of eliminating the remaining residue of the oil
spill: it set fire to vast extents of forest! This strategy of forest
burning seems to be the official policy of Shell as a means of
"cleaning" crude oil spills in the Niger Delta. Other communities of
the Niger Delta, as Obelele and Igebiri, have witnessed this same
Shell policy, and already 3,500 km2 have been destroyed by the effect
of the drastic method of provoking intentional fires.
As a result of the negative impacts of this activity, people of the
Niger Delta do not want the oil companies in general -and Shell in
particular- any longer in their territories. However, oil
transnationals and the Federal Government continue to ignore the
communities' claims, who have to pay the high cost of cheap oil. "We
promise to listen", says Shell in its web page. But in the Niger
Delta, the company seems to have become almost completely deaf.
Article based on information from: Late Friday News, 59th edition,
31/3/2000; e-mail: mangroveap@olympus.net; Shell's web page:
http://www.shell.com/royal-en/
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ASIA
- Cambodia: too late and too little to protect mangroves
During the decade of the 1990s the Cambodian government, supported by
the World Bank, tried to promote large-scale industrial shrimp farming
in the coastline of the country. In 1993, the Mangrove Action Project
(MAP) helped to avoid that the Thai agri-business giant Charoen
Pokphand opens up Cambodia's mangrove coasts to a black tiger prawn
culture project.
Nevertheless, the idea was not abandoned, and new investors from
Thailand subsequently financed intensive black tiger shrimp
aquaculture operations in Cambodia, importing equipment, expertise and
even feed to that purpose.
Koh Kong province, which shares an extensive border with Thailand, was
invaded by shrimp farming ponds and the industry promised a future of
prosperity for the region.
But in 1994, shrimp fever had reached Cambodia. Once again, like in
Thailand and Taiwan before, this disease became the biggest enemy of
the intensive shrimp aquaculture industry. It was expected that
further developments -which would mean further mangrove destruction-
would be stopped. The government itself admitted that the mangrove
area in Cambodia had decreased from more than 63,000 hectares in 1992
to less than 16,000 in 1995, and the Ministry of the Environment
blamed industrial shrimp farming for its depredatory activities,
placing a temporary ban on new licenses. However, shrimp farming
licences were still being given by the Fisheries Department after
1995, and only recently, as the situation was getting worse, new
permits were prohibited.
Nowadays industrial shrimp ponds -that were supposed to bring
prosperity to Koh Kong province- have been abandoned where mangroves
once flourished.
Thai capitals have also left the country . . . probably to establish
their industry somewhere else, where mangroves are still standing.
Fifty per cent of mangrove areas worldwide have already disappeared
and shrimp farming is one of the main causes for this environmental
disaster.
How long do we have to wait until further developments of this
industry are halted for good?
Article based on information from: Late Friday News, 59th edition,
31/3/2000; e-mail: mangroveap@olympus.net
************************************************************
- Malaysia: The end of the GTZ-funded 'FOMISS' project in Sarawak
Runaway logging in the Malaysian state of Sarawak has been a major
concern for environmentalists since the mid-1980s. The issue gained
international prominence in 1987, when indigenous Dayaks, their
patience exhausted after decades fruitlessly demanding recognition of
their land rights, erected barricades across logging company roads to
halt the destruction of their forests. When the government reacted
with mass arrests and the detention of activists without charge or
trial using colonial security laws, international campaigns in
solidarity with the Dayaks were launched world-wide making the forest
destruction in Borneo second only to the Amazon in terms of public
profile. Technical evaluations by the International Tropical Timber
Organization (ITTO) and the World Bank confirmed the unsustainable
rates of harvesting of tropical timbers in the State and while the
ITTO recommended a substantially reduced level of extraction and the
freeze of logging in disputed areas, the World Bank recommended
measures to recognise indigenous land rights. Due to massive
corruption, however, these recommendations were almost wholly ignored
by the Sarawak and Malaysian governments.
Nevertheless, building on the ITTO's recommendations, the German
Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ) developed a technical assistance
project with one of the largest timber companies in the State to carry
out an experimental, low impact logging operation. The project has run
into a barrage of criticism from both local and European NGOs
concerned about its likely impact on the indigenous Penan, Kenyah and
Kelabit peoples who inhabit the project area. They have criticised the
project, in its original conception, as a technical logging operation
which will seriously impact primary tropical forests and which fails
to give priority to the needs and rights of indigenous peoples. Their
main concerns are:
- No measures were contemplated to recognise the land rights of the
Indigenous Peoples, even though indigenous communities are currently
pursuing court proceedings to gain recognition of their rights to the
area.
- Whereas almost the whole of the project area overlaps the
communities' farming, hunting and gathering territories, GTZ staff
dismissed the Dayaks' land claims as "excessive" and "unrealisable"
before even investigating how the communities actually use the area.
- Indigenous participation in project planning and implementation has
come very late. This means the communities either have to fit into a
pre-conceived plan or reject the project. Many have rejected the
project as a result.
- Instead of building on existing indigenous land use and knowledge in
order to develop a forest management programme that is socially and
environmentally friendly, the project will subject the area to logging
while encouraging the indigenous peoples to settle down to intensive
agriculture on the fringes of their territories. Neither practice is
likely to be sustainable.
- By denying indigenous land rights, failing to consult effectively
with the affected communities and logging primary forests the project
violates the German Ministry of Development Assistance's guidelines on
forest-dwelling peoples and tropical forests.
- Although the aim of the project is to develop a model logging
project that can be "certified", it violates Principles 2&3 of the
Forest Stewardship Council, which require recognition of both legal
and customary rights of indigenous peoples and for them to be legally
established.
After a heated correspondence, during which GTZ at first tried to deny
these problems, GTZ entered into a more constructive dialogue with
NGOs and in late 1999 sent an independent consultant to the area to
review the socio-economic component. The consultant's report
substantially endorsed the NGO position and recommended measures to
address the main concerns they had raised. The Sarawak government and
the company, Samling Timbers proved reluctant to accept the revised
project and in early 2000, GTZ decided to withdraw from the FOMISS
project after their Malaysian counterparts refused to modify the
project to address Dayak concerns.
By: Marcus Colchester, Forest Peoples Programme/WRM Northern Office;
e-mail: info@fppwrm.gn.apc.org
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- Myanmar: a dam megaproject for the benefit of the people?
Massive protests against dam megaprojects have taken place in Thailand
due to their negative social and environmental impacts. The cases of
Pak Mun Dam (see WRM Bulletin 22 and new article in this issue) and
Rasi Salai Dam (see WRM Bulletin 27) are perhaps the most notorious
even if not the only ones. Now Thailand is trying to export this
destructive model to neighbouring Myanmar (formerly Burma).
In fact a Thai dam-building company -GMS Power- is proposing the
construction of a big hydroelectric dam on the Salween River in
northeastern Myanmar. At the same time, the Thai government has made a
commitment in the sense that the Electricity Generating Authority of
Thailand (EGAT) or other national agencies will buy up part of the
electricity generated from projects in Myanmar by the year 2010.
With a proposed dam height of 188 metres, Ta Sarng would be the
highest dam in mainland Southeast Asia, and the first dam to be built
on the 2,400 kilometre-long mainstream of the Salween River. This is
the only remaining free-flowing major river in the region. The 320,000
km2 Salween River Basin is also the least dammed of the region's major
river basins. Menace is pending on this river since the beginnings of
the 70s, since Australian and Japanese consulting companies, together
with Myanmar's and Thai state agencies, have produced seven major
studies examining the possibility of constructing large dams there.
GMS Power is a subsidiary of Thailand's MDX Group of companies.
Through GMS, MDX is involved in dam projects in Cambodia, Laos and
China. Lahmeyer International, a German consulting firm, coordinated
the pre-feasibility study for the Ta Sarng project, and the Electric
Power Corporation of Japan was contracted to oversee the project's
feasibility study. According to it, the project's reservoir would
flood an area of at least 640 square kilometres.
The Thai-Myanmar Memorandum of Understanding signed in 1997 tries to
justify the construction of large hydroelectric dams and other large-
scale projects for electricity generation "for the mutual benefits of
the peoples of the Kingdom of Thailand and the Union of Myanmar".
Nothing could be more far away from reality. Large-scale energy
sector-related infrastructure in both countries -for example the
polemic Yadana gas pipeline project (see WRM Bulletin 22)- imply
forest destruction, corruption, forced labour, and other violations to
environmental and human rights. The vast majority of the population is
never reached by the supposed benefits such megaprojects generate. In
this specific case, a vast area of forests and fertile lands along the
Salween River and in the tributary valleys would be permanently
submerged by the reservoir. Many of these areas are used for seasonal
cultivation of crops which serve the needs of local communities.
Additionally, the reservoir will destroy the aquatic and terrestrial
animal habitat of the river and its valley, and radically alter
habitats downstream of the dam. Additionally, as usually happens in
these cases, thousands of local people have already been forcibly
relocated from the site of the proposed dam and its reservoir, by
order of Myanmar's military dictatorship.
"I can't express what I feel. It would be worse than the death of my
mother and father" answered a villager who was asked about his opinion
on the flooding of his village due to the dam works. Is this the kind
of "mutual benefits of the peoples" that the governments of Thailand
and Myanmar are providing?
Article based on information from: Watershed, Vol. 5 No. 2 November
1999 - February 2000, published by TERRA, sent by: owner-irn-
mekong@netvista.net 24/3/2000
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- Thailand: free the Moon River!
Pak Moon dam in the Ubon Ratchathani Province of North-East Thailand
has been strongly resisted by local villagers, who are suffering its
negative effects of drinking water shortage, reduction in the number
of available fish, health hazards, flooding of their lands and
compulsory relocation (see WRM Bulletin 22).
In spite of the powerful adversaries they have to face, and that
already ten years have passed since the year when the dam was set up,
their struggle continues. Now the Pak Moon dam villagers are employing
local traditions and customs to make their voices heard.
At the beginning of April, more than 3,000 people gathered in their
boats at the Pak Moon dam to perform the Sueb Chata Maenam, and to
lobby authorities to let the Moon River run free again. Sueb Chata
Maenam means "extending a river's life", and it is a modern adaptation
of an old ceremony which pays homage to rivers, which are considered
the life blood of Thai traditional society. Banners were unfurled
reading "We Want to Return Freedom to our River," and "Rivers are
life, not death". During the gathering, environmentalists and
academics expressed their solidarity to the displaced people and
pointed out the adverse effects of the so called development projects
on local populations in Thailand. A petition will be submitted to the
Electricity Generating Authority next month to halt operations and
open the gates to let the river run free. Villagers expect that once
the obstruction to fish migration is eliminated fish would return to
the Moon River.
Globalization advances as a powerful driving force eroding biological
and cultural diversity worldwide. Dam megaprojects are but one token
of this voracious development. Every expression of cultural resistance
-as this one by the Moon river's villagers- constitute a step towards
an alternative, more humane and sustainable world.
Article based on information from: "Rituals and rivers. Protest:
Activists float together calling for their river to be set free during
a traditional ceremony" by Prasittiporn Kan-Onsri, Bangkok Post, April
4 2000, sent by: Aviva Imhof, International Rivers Network, e-mail:
aviva@irn.org and "Open the gates and the fish will return" by
Sanitsuda Ekachai, Bangkok Post, April 21 2000, sent by Southeast Asia
Rivers Network (SEARIN), e-mail: searin@chmai.loxinfo.co.th
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CENTRAL AMERICA
- Honduras: Action to protect mangrove forests and wetlands against
shrimp farming
Honduras has the obligation both under international and national law
to protect 75,000 hectares of wetlands in the Gulf of Fonseca. On May
1999, The Honduran Government, through the Natural Resources and
Environment Secretariat (SERNA), during the RAMSAR Convention on
Wetlands, obtained the designation of the Coastal Wetlands of the Gulf
of Fonseca as "RAMSAR Site 1000".
Despite this, Honduras is not fulfilling its obligation to protect the
"RAMSAR 1000 Site". Thus, CODDEFFAGOLF (a grassroots organization in
Honduras) and the Industrial Shrimp Action Network (ISA Net) are
strongly urging the Honduran government to fulfill its obligations
both under international and national laws. Exact hectares of the
damage is difficult to calculate because the areas are guarded by
goons with AK47.
Thus far, shrimp farming projects and the cutting of mangroves have
been allowed inside the Ramsar Convention protected areas. This has
resulted in the drying up of some of these otherwise protected
wetlands of the Gulf of Fonseca. In "La Aguadera", Punta Raton, where
the project "Habitat and Species Management Area in San Lorenzo" is
located, a shrimp farming project was completed occupying several
hectares of beautiful mangroves.
Trees have been felled in "El Gorrion" (The Sparrow), the location for
the project "Las Iguanas y Punta de Condega Habitat and Species
Management Area". In the "La Berberia Habitat and Species Management
Area", several mangrove areas and swamps like "Los Comejenes" have
been destroyed to construct shrimp ponds. The constant use of the
highway along the lagoon of La Berberia along the Nicaraguan border
has greatly damaged the coastal ecosystem.
Late last March, men felling trees using tractors in the zone of "El
Carey" threatened a CODDEFFAGOLF member and expelled two government
officials from the Environment Attorney's Office who tried to stop
them.
The government officials returned five days later with a group of
policemen, found men operating four tractors, succeeded in stopping
them momentarily, but later found them again felling trees and now
using six tractors. The loggers boasted that nobody could stop them
because they were "well protected".
In view of such situation, CODDEFFAGOLF and ISA Net are urging all
those interested in the conservation of these wetlands to participate
in a letter-writing campaign. Please write to:
Excellency Mr. President of Honduras Carlos Roberto Flores Fax: (504)
235-6949
Cc: Professor Rafael Pineda Ponce, President of Sovereign National
Congress of Honduras
Fax. (504) 238-6048
Cc: Dr. Delmar Blasco, Ramsar Convention Bureau, Gland, Switzerland
Fax: 41 22 999 0169
A model letter can be found in our web page at the following address:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/english/tropical_forests/letters/Honduras2604.ht
ml
Article based on information from: CODDEFFAGOLF, e-mail:
cgolf@sdnhon.org.hn and ISA Net,
e-mail: maufar@fppwrm.gn.apc.org
************************************************************
SOUTH AMERICA
- Brazil: the same as 500 years ago?
Five hundred years ago, Portuguese conquistadores in shining armour
used their modern weapons against indigenous peoples armed with bows
and arrows. Now, police in shining riot gear used their modern weapons
against unarmed civilians including indigenous, black and white people
protesting against the official celebration of the arrival of the
Portuguese in 1500.
The photographs are self explanatory (see photos at
http://www.wrm.org.uy/english/tropical_forests/photospataxo2.html ).
The reason? Again the "indians".
Towards the end of March this year, indigenous peoples throughout the
country left their villages and began to travel in the direction of
Porto Seguro, the place where Brazil was allegedly "discovered", thus
going in the opposite direction of the one taken in 1500 by the
European colonizers. Within an atmosphere of expectation, on April 15
most of them gathered together at Monte Pascoal, the National Park re-
taken last year by the Pataxo, which then became a strong symbol of
the struggle of all the indigenous peoples of the country, where still
more than half of their lands have not yet been demarcated. More than
1500 indigenous people joined the 22 Pataxo families and celebrated
the meeting with rituals, songs and speeches, giving their total
support to the struggle of the Pataxo.
On April 7th, they all headed for the village of Coroa Vermelha, in
Pataxo territory, distant some 200 kilometres from Monte Pascoal and
near the site of the "discovery": Porto Seguro. More than 30 buses
which were carrying them were stopped by the first of many police
blockades set up by the government to assure "public security",
involving more than 5000 military police. The buses were only allowed
to continue as a result of the direct intervention of the country's
General Attorney. Having finally arrived at Coroa Vermelha, on the
following day they opened the Indigenous Conference 2000, counting
with the presence of 2500 representatives from 186 different
indigenous peoples from all over the country, thus being the largest
indigenous meeting held in the whole history of Brazil.
During the 4-day Conference, the indigenous peoples managed to be at
the forefront of the news coverage on the 500 years, showing their
strength and indignation regarding the official celebrations. While
the government was preparing and organizing very expensive and
excluding celebrations, ignoring the real history of the country, the
indigenous peoples managed -with minimal resources- to make public
their history, their cultural wealth, their wisdom and their proposals
for the next 500 years, involving respect for their rights, mainly the
demarcation of their lands, as well as health and education adapted to
their reality. They showed great strength and true unity, while the
government was trying to show a false unity of all the Brazilian
people and a strength based on the presence of thousands of military
police.
Then April 22 came, the day of the "discovery" by Pedro Alvares Cabral
in 1500. It was meant to be a great day for the President of Brazil,
together with his Portuguese colleague, showing the world that Brazil
is a great nation with a happy people: a day of victory! But it was a
day of defeat, a day reflecting the way in which the Brazilian
government treats its people, particularly the original inhabitants:
the indigenous peoples. It first tried to convince the 2500 indigenous
representatives of not holding their protest on the 22nd, but to
choose 20 of them to hand a document to the President. Their response
was that they wished to speak with him, but at a different moment,
because the 22nd was not a day to have a photograph taken with the
President, but a day of remembrance of the genocide of more than 5
million indigenous people during the 500 years of the history of
Brazil!
The response generated great tension. The government opted for
wholescale repression. It prevented the entrance to Porto Seguro of
people from all over the country, it prevented several movements
getting together and prevented any type of protest. The police
attacked a demonstration of more than 2000 indigenous people with tear
gas and rubber bullets. In this way, April 22nd became a day of total
defeat for the government. The image of an indigenous person -Gildo
Terena- asking the riot police to stop their violence went around the
world, terrifying a government always very concerned about the image
of Brazil abroad.
The indigenous people, sad and outraged, but proud about their
resistance and unity, realize that they are now begining a new stage
in their struggle and that nothing much seems to have changed in these
500 years.
The government gave them the same treatment as the one given by the
colonizers in 1500, when one of the major genocides in history began.
They will need all their strength and unity to enter this new phase of
Brazilian history. And it is from Monte Pascoal, the place where
colonization began and was re-taken by the Pataxo, that the indigenous
peoples promise to "re-take" Brazil and to contribute, with full
respect to their rights, to the construction of a country without
exclusion, truly pluri-ethnical and multi-cultural.
By: Conselho Indigenista Missionario-ES, e-mail: cimies@aranet.com.br
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- Chile: forest management by indigenous communities
In Southern Chile, near Osorno, lies the Huitrapulli estate -a 20,000
hectare forest, inhabited since time immemorial by Mapuche-Huilliche
indigenous peoples. The area is part of the extensive forests of
Valdivia, which constitute one of the world's last non-fragmented
reserves of temperate rainforests. The area is characterized by its
biological diversity and by high levels of endemism.
Local communities have always profited from the use of forest and
coastal seaside resources, having developed a gathering economy, which
by definition requires large extensions of territory. The area's
relative isolation and the limited agricultural value of the land
determined that it was spared of the European and Chilean colonization
processes suffered by other Mapuche communities during the 19th
Century.
However, the expansion of forestry activities in Chile -particularly
monoculture tree plantations- during the last decades resulted in a
new interest in those lands. The situation reached a critical level
when the owner of a neighbouring estate began to occupy lands within
the Huitrapulli estate, displacing the Huilliche communities. Such
situation resulted in a number of conflicts which lead to the
intervention of the police and the judiciary, where the communities
and their professional advisors were taken to court accused of land
seizure.
In an unprecedented action, the Supreme Court of Justice ruled in
favour of the communities and their advisors, pointing out that the
lands belonged to the State, while at the same time recognizing the
ancestral occupation of the territory by the Huilliche. Subsequently,
the ownership of the land was transfered from the Ministry of National
Assets to the National Corporation of Indigenous Development (CONADI),
as a first step in the land regularization process.
At the beginning of this year, CONADI hired a group of consultants
with the task of elaborating a proposal for the regularization of land
titling, tied to an associated development proposal. The study,
currently under implementation, is being carried out with the active
participation of the involved families and will put forward
suggestions regarding the boundaries between the communities at the
interior of the estate, as well as on the type of land tenure
(individual, communal, or mixed). The development plan will include an
evaluation of existing resources and a number of projects aimed at the
equitable and sustainable sharing of benefits from those resources.
The case of these Huilliche communities is very important, because it
constitutes an exception within the context of the traditional
relationship between the Chilean State and the Mapuche people, which
has included numerous conflicts regarding indigenous peoples'
territorial rights. The success of this experience will be crucial for
its replication in Chile and eventually in other countries of the
region facing similar problems.
This case is also very important to highlight the role that indigenous
communities play in forest conservation. The Huilliche have for
centuries used this forest sustainably, while most of Southern Chile's
forests were being destroyed by "development". The legal recognition
of land ownership constitutes a necessary step to ensure the future
conservation of this unique forest by those who are most interested in
its conservation: the Mapuche-Huilliche people themselves.
By Rodrigo Catalan, CET (Centro de Educacion y Teconologia), e-mail:
catalanr@ctcinternet.cl
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- Colombia: International Mission and good news about the U'wa
>From March 15-21, 2000, an International Mission, summoned by the
major authorities of the Embera-Katio and U'wa indigenous peoples,
visited Colombia to observe in the field their situation concerning
the long conflict in which they are involved to defend their
territorial and cultural rights. The mission was conformed by
representatives of indigenous peoples of Ecuador and Panama, the World
Rainforest Movement, Oilwatch, Friends of the Earth, International
Rivers Network, Rios Vivos, and other human rights and environmental
organizations.
The members of the mission that visited the U'wa Territory at Arauca
Department, in East Colombia, could see with their own eyes how the
U'wa were organized in a camp of more than 2,500 people at Gibraltar,
counting with the support of peasants' and workers' organizations.
Peace and solidarity reigned in the camp, in spite of provocations by
army personnel that were installed nearby. The adverse effects on the
forest, soil, water and people of the works that Oxy's concessionaires
were undertaking to open the oil well Gibraltar 1 were also observed.
Additionally, the mission met Colombian authorities, ONIC (National
Peoples Organization of Colombia), and affected people at the site,
and reviewed all of the relevant documents related to the case. The
mission was unable to interview staff from Occidental due to their
unwillingness to do so.
As a preliminary result of its work the mission emphasized that the
present situation is critical from an environmental and social point
of view due to works in course, that there are contradictions between
what has been declared by the authorities and what was observed at the
site, and that there exists a tendency to resolve the conflicts with
military involvement disregarding the social and environmental aspects
which originate them.
Among other steps, it was recommended that the environmental license
for Oxy issued on September 21st 1999 by the Ministry of the
Environment be revoked; that guarantees are given and the integrity of
the ancestral territory of the U'wa village is respected; that an
investigation on the violent evictions against the U'wa that occurred
last January and February is immediately undertaken; and that the
civil authorities guarantee the legal right of peaceful protests by
the affected people.
On March 31st a Colombian court ordered Oxy to halt all construction
work on the Gibraltar 1 well site on sacred ancestral land of the U'wa
people.
The judge ruled that the drilling on the site would violate
"fundamental rights" of the U'wa people, including their right to
life. Nevertheless, the last word has not been yet said. Even if the
court's decision is an important step, the injunction speaks of the
suspension of the project and not of its cancellation. Additionally,
Oxy is a powerful actor and the Colombian government itself -in spite
of nice words regarding cultural diversity and even indigenous rights
established in the Constitution- seems to be more interested in
promoting oil exploitation than in respecting the rights of the U'wa.
But the U'wa count on national and international solidarity and
especially on their own strength to defend their rights.
Article based on information from: Alvaro Gonzalez, WRM International
Secretariat, Member of the International Mission; Oilwatch
International Secretariat, 3/4/2000, e-mail: oilwatchuio.satnet.net
Global Response, 4/4/2000, e-mail: globresponse@igc.org
************************************************************
- Ecuador: Heart of palm cultivation results in deforestation
The comercial cultivation of "palmito" palms (from which heart of palm
is extracted) began in Ecuador in 1987 and since then its expansion
has been constant, having become a new export crop. The heart of palm
is obtained from the interior of the trunk of several species of palm
trees. The "chontaduro" (Bactris gasipaes), a palm native to Ecuador,
is the most cultivated in the country to this aim.
Palmito cultivation is generating deforestation in extensive areas of
tropical forest in several Amazonian provinces (Napo, Sucumbios,
Morona Santiago, Pastaza), as well as resulting in the disappearance
of a number of forest remnants of the country's Western region. This
crop has found in Ecuador's tropical and sub-tropical regions the
perfect agro-environmental conditions for its development: stable
light, humidity and temperature, regular rainfall throughout the year
and excellent irrigation and soil conditions.
However, the impacts of palmito production increase as the area under
cultivation is expanded. Among such impacts, the more important are
the substitution of the original vegetation (particularly primary and
secondary forests), loss of biodiversity and soil erosion. Many
palmito growers have not even respected the vegetation protecting the
water courses and have extended their plantations to the river
borders, resulting in the falling of solid materials to the water and
thus causing problems to downstream water users. They have not even
thought about the need to conserve vegetation corridors to allow a
minimum passage for local biodiversity.
Even though palmito plantations have not yet reached the dimensions of
oil palm monocultures in the country, it is already possible to
perceive changes in the landscape and the disappearance of a large
part of the forest remnants, particularly in the western foothills of
the Andes.
Cultivation of this palm is in constant expansion due to the increase
in the global demand for Ecuadorian heart of palm and it is thus very
possible that they might expand further, resulting in the
disappearance of the last remnants of biodiversity in Ecuador's
Western region.
In many spheres, the myth that monocultures of native species are "not
as bad" as plantations of exotics such as oil palm, pine or eucalyptus
still prevails. However, it is time to recognize that the prevailing
production models -particularly large scale export-oriented
monocultures- are environmentally unsustainable and that they don't
aim at providing for basic human needs, such as food security. On the
contrary, this model is generating impacts such as the loss of genetic
biodiversity and thus reducing the future possibilities of survival of
humanity. It is time to demand governments to take on their
responsibilities regarding the local and global environment. It is
time to understand that diversity has more advantages and value than
large scale monocultures -be them of native or exotic species- which
are and will always be socially and environmentally unsustainable.
By: Lorena Gamboa, Fundacion Rainforest Rescue, e-mail:
mlgambo@uio.satnet.net
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- Venezuela: increasing difficulties for Smurfit
Smurfit Carton, subsidiary of Jefferson Smurfit, owns 34,000 hectares
of monocultures of gmelina, eucalyptus and pine in the Venezuelan
states of Portuguesa, Lara and Cojedes. 27,000 hectares are located in
Portuguesa, where the company confronted the local communities of
Morador and Tierra Buena, which resisted the invasion of tree
plantations in their agricultural lands (see WRM Bulletins 18, 20, 22
and 23).
According to recent information, Smurfit is facing severe sanitary
problems in its plantations in Portuguesa. The uniformity of
monoculture tree plantations makes them very vulnerable to the attack
of insects and pests. The initial advantage of the plantation of an
exotic tree -the absence of its local predators- becomes a catastrophe
when either a local species adapts to feed on those trees or when its
natural predator eventually arrives from its original ecosystem.
Whichever the case, the fact is that many trees are now dying in these
plantations.
At the same time, during the dry season fires have affected
plantations in Portuguesa and Cojedes. Company's spokepersons have
accused local peasants of sabotage actions against plantations. Fires
are also very easy to burst with dry conditions and in a uniform
environment as that of tree plantations, especially in the case of
eucalyptus and pines. At present local villagers and environmentalists
fear that Smurfit will try to compensate the loss of planted wood by
cutting down nearby forests, as it did before the successful protests
of 1999.
>From a political point of view things do not seem to go well for
Smurfit either. The new Venezuelan constitution, approved by a
referendum in December 1999, includes explicitly environmental rights,
indigenous peoples rights, and condemns land tenure concentration.
According to principles of social justice in the countryside and
sustainable land planning, commercial plantations are not allowed on
soils apt for agriculture, since this would mean a competition with
food production.
Smurfit's future in Venezuela now seems to be -to say the least-
problematic.
Article based on information from: Alfredo Torres, 18/4/2000; Prensa
Regional del Estado Portuguesa. Grupos Ecologicos de Ospino,
18/4/2000.
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OCEANIA
- Innovative plantation initiative in Aotearoa-New Zealand
The new Government of Aotearoa -a coalition supported by the Greens-
has banned the cutting of indigenous beech trees (and soon probably
Rimu and other species), because of the enormous pressure on the
country's remaining areas of natural forest, which include temperate
rainforest and temperate dryforest.
As a result, the downstream beneficiaries of forestry (the mills and
processors) took the Government to Court over the breach of existing
contracts which if honoured would have seriously endangered the
sustainability of beech forests. Luckily they lost in Court, but the
action set off a huge national fight over the future of the forestry
industry, which is one of New Zealand's largest employers and most
powerful industries.
Local Indigenous Peoples Organizations and NGOs' response to the
pressure was to point out that the country still has one of the
largest radiate pine plantation areas and industries in the world, but
that other countries are climbing on the pine bandwagon, and that
within 30 or 40 years the value of pine as a timber species is going
to drop dramatically as competition lowers prices. IPOs and NGOs are
currently proposing that every time an area of pine is cut, a
percentage of it be replanted with indigenous species, in order to
gradually build up an equivalent of a biological corridor.
They are also proposing that the "charismatic barrier" of these areas
at the least include some non timber, but nectar and berry producing
species, because there are more endangered native bird species in
Aotearoa than in any other country. The charismatic barrier is the
roadside part of plantations which are rarely cut so that the public
is not visually confronted with the reality of large deforested areas.
Because it manages to leave an illusion that cutting is not occuring
it is called the charismatic barrier.
This planting of indigenous species in plantations replacing pine
and/or in areas of non productive farmland means that the country
would be building up stock of indigenous tree species, so that in
fifty or sixty years, when the pressure is really on to harvest
indigenous species -as pine has become very cheap- the country would
have plantations of indigenous trees that could be cut instead of
endangering natural forests.
The above scheme appears to be viable and beneficial because:
- It would have fairly strong Chiefs' support, because indigenous
trees are seen as Taonga (treasures) by the Maori elders
- It foresees pressures on forests before they arise and provides
alternatives for employment
- The planting program itself is labour intensive and as such would be
supported by Government in areas of high unemployment
- Using the charismatic barrier as an area to include berry producing
and nectar trees (indigenous) would provide an area for native birds
that is currently non existant in most of the country
- Most of all, it relieves pressure for the cutting of forests as an
employment source
- It is economically feasible
The above ideas are currently being strongly promoted by a large part
of the IPO/NGO community, with the aim of simultaneously promoting
forest conservation and employment generation in a country where many
try -in their own interest- to picture conservation and jobs as being
antagonistic to each other. Thus -contrary to what industry always
tries to prove- IPOs and NGOs are proving to be the truly reasonable
and responsible actors, trying to make environmental conservation and
quality of life compatible.
By: Sandy Gauntlett, e-mail: sandygauntlett@hotmail.com
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PLANTATIONS CAMPAIGN
************************************************************
- Campaign against genetically engineered trees
Genetically engineered trees are a new threat pending on native
forests and other ecosystems worldwide. The development of
"Frankentrees" is being promoted by joint-ventures formed by
biotechnology, chemical and paper giants, together with some of the
world's largest landowners. Monsanto -which has a long dark history in
the field of genetically engineered food- ForBio, International Paper,
Fletcher Challenge Forests, GenFor, Canada Interlink, Silvagen, the
Chilean Development Agency, Shell and Toyota are some of the firms
involved in the development of this technology. The increase in the
consumption of paper at the international level, as well as the
initiative of considering tree plantations as carbon sinks -allegedly
to mitigate the greenhouse effect- are the excuses for the promotion
of genetic engineering in the forestry sector (see WRM Bulletin 27).
In reality Frankentrees constitute a further step forward within the
large scale tree monoculture model, which is already generating
extensive negative social and environmental impacts throughout the
world. GE trees will substantially increase those negative effects:
trees will grow faster, thus intensifying the depletion of water
resources and soil nutrients and in the seek for profit more and more
fertile land will be occupied by tree monocultures, depriving people
of their land and livelihoods. The future looks threatening, since
many answers regarding security, biodiversity conservation and
technology control remain unanswered.
On March 27th the World Rainforest Movement, together with Native
Forest Network, ACERCA (Action for Community and Ecology in the
Regions of Central America), and RAN (Rainforest Action Network)
launched an international campaign to face the development of
genetically manipulated trees. The announcement was made in the
framework of Biodevastation 2000, a grassroot gathering that took
place in Boston, USA, from 24 to 26 March, under the motto "Resistance
and Solutions to the Corporate Monopoly on Power, Food and Life".
Several topics related to biotechnology were addressed during the
event, and GE trees was one of the highlights of discussions. Those
interested in receiving more information about this initiative, please
contact the International Secretariat of the WRM or any of the above
mentioned organizations.
###RELAYED TEXT ENDS###
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