Subject: Outrage Growing over Chilean Forest Mega-Project *********************************************** Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises http://forests.org/web/x.aspes/1999/06/062199/amazon_3870.asp -- Forest Conservation Archives http://forests.org/web/x.aspes/1999/06/062199/amazon_3870.asp -- Discuss Forest Conservation 6/26/99 OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE Following are two updates relating to the rising outrage in regard to plans by Boise Cascade to make wood chip from Chilean native forests. g.b. ******************************* RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE: ITEM #1 Title: ENVIRONMENT-CHILE: Forest Mega-Project Sows Discord Source: InterPress Service, via econet ips.english conference Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint Date: June 10, 1999 Byline: Natalia Pinilla PUERTO MONTT, Chile, Jun 10 (IPS) - A chipboard factory that would process around one million cubic metres of wood annually from native forests, to be built in Ilque - 20 kms south of this southern Chilean city - has environmentalists up in arms, both at home and abroad. Residents of the small town of Ilque, population 700, as well as the city of Puerto Montt - located 1,044 kms south of Santiago - are divided over the Cascada Chile factory, to be built by a local subsidiary of the U.S. Boise Cascade Corporation. The conflict over the projected factory has had repercussions both within and outside Chile, mobilising environmentalists to speak out in defence of forests of native species of trees jeopardised by the activities of large logging companies. In the U.S. city of Chicago, Illinois, second-grade teacher Maria Gilfillan was accused by Boise Cascade of teaching her students ''bad things'' when she encouraged them to write to the company to protest its plans in Chile. But ''it's not enough to teach about the importance of rainforests,'' responded Gilfillan. ''We have to do something to help protect them. The letters were very polite. The children expressed their concern about the forest and asked Boise Cascade to find a way to make their chipboard without destroying Chile's forests.'' Plans for the project began in May 1997 when the Chilean company Maderas Condor and Boise Cascade set up an association to create the Puerto Montt Industrial Company. But a series of lawsuits has brought the project to a standstill. Cascada Chile's detractors - including environmental and civil society groups, small business owners, and parliamentarians - charge that influence-peddling ensured approval of the project by the Environmental Commission (COREMA). The Puerto Montt Industrial Company is being sued for 800,000 US dollars by the State Defence Council for the destruction of Conchales de Ilque, an archaeological monument, caused by the company's heavy machinery during road construction. The initiative has the backing, however, of local and regional authorities, business groups and residents of Ilque and Puerto Montt, who see the project as a source of jobs and progress for one of Chile's poorest areas. The Puerto Montt Industrial Company says the project - in which some 180 million dollars are to be invested - will directly create 200 jobs, plus another 1,500 indirectly, not to mention the 700 workers needed to build the factory, which according to company representatives will operate ''using clean technology, without harmful environmental effects.'' According to the original project, the factory was to be completely supplied by wood acquired from third parties. But in February, Italo Zunino, one of the owners of Maderas Condor, indicated that 50 percent of the supply would come from native forests owned by the company. Ilque is a town of traditional fisherfolk, small-scale farmers and salmon fishery and shellfish farm workers. Cascada Chile ''is a terribly harmful project that calls for the construction of a port on one of Puerto Montt's cleanest bays,'' high school teacher Carmen Cortes, owner of the local shellfish farm and president of the Ilque Defence Committee, told IPS. Nor is the company offering any guarantees for the recovery of native forests, she argued. ''I don't think farmers are going to re-plant their land with native forest so their grandchildren can turn around and sell it. They'll undoubtedly re-plant with exotic (faster-growing) species such as pine and eucalyptus.'' Hans Kossman, executive of the Patagonia Salmon Farming Company in Ilque, maintained that the logging project was incompatible with salmon farming, ''a business that is already employing 140 people from this town.'' Cascada Chile will be the ''largest factory of its type in the region, and will absorb a quantity of trees equivalent to the total now being processed by all similar companies from Puerto Montt to Valdivia (200 kms to the north),'' warned Ricardo Caceres, a lawyer. But Rene Barriga, president of the Cascada Chile Project Coastal Support Committee, which claims 530 members, told IPS that construction of the plant would provide Ilque with telephones, jobs and better roads. And Alejandro Larenas, co-ordinator of the Cascada Chile project, asserted that ''this is an historic opportunity to really educate the public and to do something that benefits small-scale forest owners.'' Larenas dismissed the idea of developing tourism in the native forests, as proposed by Caceres and Horts George, president of the Ottwei-Chile Foundation, on the argument that ''the country can't afford to have a forest and not touch it in order to just look at it.'' Rabindranath Quinteros, governor of the region and president of COREMA, stated that he was in favour of the project because it would create new sources of employment and add value to native forests, and gave his assurances that ''an investment project that damages the environment would never be allowed.'' But representatives of the international environmental watchdog Greenpeace warn that Cascada Chile ''represents a serious risk to the native forest and its biodiversity,'' and that the project's approval revealed ''a legal vacuum for the assessment of projects that utilise native forests.'' (END/IPS/tra-so/np/ag/ld/sw/99) Origin: Montevideo/ENVIRONMENT-CHILE/ ---- [c] 1999, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS) All rights reserved ITEM #2 Title: BC's Chile Project Faces New Obstacles Environmental Agency Puts Restrictions on Cascada Chile Source: BOISE WEEKLY Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint Date: June 17, 1999 Byline: Jimmie Langman The obstacles in the path of the Boise Cascade Company's Cascada Chile project are increasing, even as Chileans opposed to the project are banding together with U.S. environmental groups and bringing their message to this country (see "Boise Cascade's Big Plans for Chile," BW Mar. 11-17). On Wednesday, June 9, Mauricio Fierro, a tourism consultant from Puerto Montt, Chile, near the site of the huge project, kicked off a month-long U.S. tour with a talk at Boise State University entitled "Boise Cascade: Get Out of Chile's Rainforests." Meanwhile, Chile's environmental agency, the Chilean National Environmental Commission (CONAMA), has imposed new restrictions on the proposed $180 million wood-chip and oriented-strand-board export project planned for the tiny southern Chile bayside community of Ilque. CONAMA has issued three main directives; although they do not stop the project, they may slow down and change the company's plans. Foremost, CONAMA has ruled that Cascada Chile, a joint endeavor of Boise Cascade (60 percent) and the Chilean firm Maderas Condor (40 percent), must finance a detailed study by an independent auditor showing how the project will guarantee that all the wood it uses will come out of sustainably managed forests. CONAMA also said that the study, to be completed within one year, must take into account all ecosystem functions of the forests, such as biodiversity protection, water resources protection and soil quality. The results of this study must be incorporated into any future forest management plans of the Cascada Chile suppliers in order for them to be approved by Chile's forest service (CONAF). Second, CONAMA ruled that Cascada Chile must construct a barrier to prevent hydrocarbon contamination of the adjacent salmon farm in the Ilque bay owned by the Patagonia Salmon Farming Company. Cascada Chile plans call for construction of a deep-water port adjacent to the fishing company's salmon farm. Third, CONAMA rejected a Cascada Chile request to increase the amount of wood chips it may process each year at the plant. The company had requested an increase from 925,000 cubic meters of wood annually 1.23 million cubic meters. For its part, Cascada Chile is putting a happy face on the CONAMA rulings. "The decision of CONAMA is good news," said Fernando Encinar of the Burston-Marstellar public relations agency, the spokeperson for the Cascada Chile project in Chile. "We need to study the decisions some more, but we think it upholds the January decision by the regional environmental commission approving the project." The opponents of Cascada Chile, which include workers, environmental groups and the nation's tourism and salmon industries, believe however that the new CONAMA restrictions at minimum validate their long-stated concerns. They also see the decision as the beginning of the end of Cascada Chile. "This is a step forward for our efforts to halt this terrible, disastrous project," said Adriana Hoffmann, national coordinator of the environmental group Defenders of the Chilean Forests. Her agency is part of an international coalition of environmental groups, including Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network, the Native Forest Network, American Lands and the Public Information Network, opposed to Cascada Chile. Hoffmann said that Cascada Chile's request to increase its annual consumption of wood clearly revealed to CONAMA the company's irresponsible attitude toward the fate of Chile's forests. "The sustainability of this project is already questionable due to its giant size and they request an increase in their consumption of our forests. This company [Cascada Chile] has no respect or concern for our nation's cultural or natural patrimony." Hoffmann says that environmental groups will continue to try to halt the project in Chile's courts. Salmon farmers are not happy with the decision, however. "Even though CONAMA is asking to install some type of barrier against pollution from the port to the farms, there hasn't been any discussion if such barriers really work," insisted Hans Kossman, owner of Patagonia Salmon Farming SA, a major employer in Ilque. "I don't think they are suited for permanent protection. This is a very technical question, and we will have to see what type of barrier is going to be proposed by Cascada." Salmon fishing is a huge industry in the region. Investments total about $1 billion, and salmon fishing and processing employ some 20,000 people. However, there are no laws protecting salmon habitat. Supporters of Cascada Chile argue that it will create many much-needed jobs in the region and boost the local economy. In Boise, however, Fierro charged that "This project only benefits Boise Cascade and their Chilean partner Maderas Condor but costs all Chileans, destroying thousands of current and future jobs [in salmon fishing and tourism] for a few jobs in their plant." The latest environmnetal requirements for Cascada Chile come on the heels of an announcement by Chile's State Defense Council, the equivalent of the U.S. Attorney General's Office, that it is suing the company for approximately $823,000 as compensation for damaging a culturally significant archaeological site at Ilque bay. Last year, the company allegedly bulldozed a strip of land 10 feet deep and 360 feet long by five feet wide that was filled with human artifacts at least 6,000 years old. Angel Cabeza, executive secretary of Chile's National Monuments Council, reports that this archaeological site could contain artifacts even older than 6,000 years. "We don't know yet, as an excavation still has not been done," he said. Many archaeologists also say that the Ilque site may be related to the very significant archaeological site found at Monte Verde, located just a few miles away. The ancient human artifacts discovered at Monte Verde are confirmed by the world's scientific community as being 12,500 years old, the oldest in the entire Western hemisphere. Jimmy Langman is a free-lance writer based in Santiago, Chile. Additional reporting for this story was provided by BW intern Jesselin Anthony. ###RELAYED TEXT ENDS### This document is a PHOTOCOPY for educational, personal and non- commercial use only. Recipients should seek permission from the source for reprinting. All efforts are made to provide accurate, timely pieces; though ultimate responsibility for verifying all information rests with the reader. Check out our Gaia Forest Conservation Archives at URL= http://forests.org/web/x.aspes/1999/06/062199/amazon_3870.asp Networked by Ecological Enterprises, grbarry@students.wisc.edu