During the long conflict that has involved the U'wa indigenous people -with the support of national and international NGOs and social organizations- and Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), there have been constant comings and goings. For almost a decade, the U'wa people have successfully prevented Oxy from exploiting oil -that they consider the Earth's blood- in their traditional territory. But in September 1999 the Environment Ministry, which has always acted in collusion with the company's interests, granted a permit to Oxy that allows it to begin an exploratory drilling just outside the Unified U'wa Reservation, in a site that is within U'wa traditional territories. This arbitrary step was and is still strongly resisted both in Colombia and abroad.

The U'wa authorities have issued the following communique, asking for international solidarity:

"Approximately 200 members of the U'wa indigenous tribe of northeastern Colombia assembled in a permanent settlement on part of our ancestral lands yesterday, November 16. This area is the site where Occidental Petroleum wants to drill the oil well 'Gibralter 1', an action which threatens life and our ancient culture.

With this permanent presence and with the support of the local farmers of Sarare, we are claiming our ancestral and constitutional rights to life and to our traditional territory. We demand that the Colombian government and Oxy leave us in peace and that once and for all they cancel the oil project in this area. We U'wa people are willing to give our lives to defend Mother Earth from this project which will annihilate our culture, destroy nature, and upset the world's equilibrium. Caring for the Earth and the welfare of our children and of future generations is not only the responsibility of the U'wa people but of the entire national and international society.

We ask people around the world who value the Earth and indigenous peoples to speak out against the multinational oil company Oxy through protests, letters and other actions of solidarity."

As part of the campaign to defend the U'wa territorial rights you are asked to send faxes to:

- Albert Gore
Vice President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington DC 20500
Fax: (1) 202 456 7044

Demand him not to accept campaign contributions from oil companies, and ask him why he has invested in Occidental Petroleum shares, which is in complete contradiction with his declared environmentalist viewpoints,

Aditional information (includes sample letter)

- Edward C. Johnson III
Chairman and CEO, Fidelity Investments
82 Devonshire St.
Boston MA 02109
Fax: (1) 617 476 4164

Fidelity Investments controls over 8 percent of the company's total value under the slogan "We help you invest responsibly". Demand them to show that they act according to this slogan by taking actions to convince Occidental to cancel its project on the indigenous traditional lands.

See sample letter

In the last days even graver events happened. On the January 19th, more than 5000 heavily armed soldiers of the Colombian Army entered the U'wa traditional territory, in Cedeno, where the oil drilling well Gibraltar 1 is located. This is an extreme step of the Colombian government to make sure that Oxy's oil exploitation goes ahead. An urgent campaign has been launched to stop the invasion. You are asked to address the following Colombian authorities, expressing your concern and rejection to this new violent action againts the U'wa:

- Juan Mayr, Minister of the Environment; e-mail: Jmayr@minamb.gov.co  ;
fax: (57 1) 336 1166 - 288 6877 - 284 0363

- Andrés Pastrana, President of the Republic of Colombia, e-mail: a.pastrana@presidencia.gov.co

- Gustavo Bell Lemus, Presidential Adviser for Human Rights;
fax: (57 1) 341 8364.

The Papua New Guinea (PNG) Prime Minister Mekere Morauta has announced the intention of the new government to impose a moratorium on new logging, and to review existing logging concessions, many of which are thought to have been improperly granted and implemented. The announcement was well received by environmental NGOs, which consider that it is time to halt any new large-scale logging concessions in the country. The previous government had adopted a policy of granting concessions to foreign companies -especially from Malaysia- and not controlling illegal logging, which had been severely criticised by environmentalists since it was leading to the complete destruction of one of the world's largest remaining closed rainforests, taking into account that PNG contains the largest intact tropical ancient forest in the Asia Pacific region and the third largest in the world.

The PNG Eco-Forestry forum reminded that between 1975 and 1996, PNG lost more than 10% of its forests because of large scale logging. Very little of the profit from the exported logs was retained by the country or the landowners. Not to mention the indigenous peoples -as is the case of the Kosuwa and Kamula natives- whose ancestral lands were invaded by the loggers (see WRM Bulletin 26). The new approach that the government is seemingly up to adopt from now on has to be based on an alternative forest management paradigm, on which PNG civil society has been working over the last decade. Community forest management, indigenous peoples rights and environmental sustainability are at the core of such viewpoint. Regarding the logging industry, the Eco-Forestry forum considers that small-scale saw-milling is the best way to use the country's industrial forest resources in order to conserve the environment and for rural community welfare.

Those interested in expressing their support to this recent step can address PNG Prime Minister, (see sample letter) underscoring the importance that the moratorium is actually implemented, and not undercut with exceptions or weak implementation, as has happened with a previous moratorium in the early 1990s:

Democracy and environmental groups in Thailand and beyond are shocked and outraged at the way Twentieth Century Fox used the force of power and big money to produce the movie 'The Beach', starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

In late 1998, the US company, which belongs to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp empire, bulldozed and reshaped Maya Beach, part of Phi Phi Islands National Park, for just two weeks of filming because its natural scenery was considered not good enough to project Hollywood's ideal of a "tropical paradise". The filmmakers not only committed gross eco-crimes to be prosecuted by law, they also need to be condemned for their contempt of local people who revere Maya as a sacred ground.

To avoid conflicts, the filmmakers could have made 'The Beach' scenes as a  composite of two different sites or used special effects to achieve their  desired vision. But they insisted on going ahead on Phi Phi Leh Island, secure in the knowledge they could count on the support of Thai bureaucrats and politicians who are more preoccupied in using the law to serve their own interests rather than protecting the integrity of the legal system for public good.

The normal fee for filming in a Thai national park is 1,000 baht (about US$26) per day. However, the filmmakers got the green light from the Thai government in return for an extraordinary payment of 4 million baht (US$108,000) - which they termed a "donation" - to the Royal Forestry Department and an additional deposit of 5 million baht (US$135,000).

Not surprisingly, local residents and national civic groups made all-out efforts to protest at the sale of national park law to Hollywood. Sadly, they were not able to stop the environmental destruction on Phi Phi Leh in time. Still, lawsuits were filed in January 1999 against Fox and the government agencies and officials who allowed the filmmakers to ravage a protected area.

Furthermore, it is high time to expose and denounce Hollywood's ludicrous greenwash stunts in relation to the filming. The filmmakers have kept on claiming 'The Beach' was made in an environmentally sound way, and the filming site was not only returned to its "original" state but improved. Even today, producer Andrew MacDonald has the nerve to say, "everything is absolutely tip-top" on Phi Phi Leh (Toronto Sun, 18 Jan. 2000), despite the fact that during the last monsoon season, Maya Beach's sand dunes collapsed completely and were washed into the bay along with Fox's amateurish "restoration", because thanks to the filmmakers' landscape changes the natural barriers to erosion were irreversibly damaged. Not enough, simply defying that Thailand's ecological justice movement has a worldwide reputation of being the most active and vocal  in Southeast Asia, 'The Beach' director Danny Boyle arrogantly stated in recent  interviews that the filmmakers "raised the profile of environmental issues in Thailand", which usually have "a very low priority". Their lies are absolutely appalling and easy to refute. Also consider this oxymoron: They are boasting environmental "good deeds", actually undertaken to hide and do away with their eco-terrorism at Maya Bay!

In this context, the role of their star DiCaprio needs to be highlighted as well: He has sided with Fox's misguided and unlawful activities all along to the point of slandering Thai pro-democracy and environmental activists, while displaying his eagerness to be accepted as an outstanding environmental advocate and to be involved in Earth Day activities. Indeed, the global environmental movements will look dumb if we endorse DiCaprio's assignment as chairman of  Earth Day 2000. He should be urged to immediately resign from this job because he has proven more than enough his ignorance and bias regarding environmental issues in 'The Beach' case.

Finally, international organizations concerned with tourism issues are requested to help raise public awareness about the controversial tourism campaign jointly launched by Fox and the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to promote the controversial film and lure more visitors to Thailand. From the very beginning, the Thai government has defended the filming of 'The Beach' with the argument that it would create new opportunities for tourism, with no concern for the illegalities and environmental damages involved. But citizens have made clear Thailand does not need Hollywood's help to prop up its tourism industry, and much less so as Fox has been trampling on the country's national park law and local people's rights.

Therefore, the Fox/TAT campaign must be denounced as a glaring example for unethical and unsustainable tourism promotion. We also propose to bring this shameful affair to the attention of the United Nations' Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD), which initiated a Tourism Dialogue last year to work towards ethics and sustainability in tourism.

The following contact addresses may be helpful to take action:

- Andrew MacDonald, producer of 'The Beach' and Carol Sewell, Public Relations Vice President of 20th Century Fox (Fox Hollywood office), 10201 W. Pico Blvd., Building 89, Room 224, Los Angeles, CA 90035, USA, Fax: (1-310) 969-1601, E-mail: carolse@fox.com

- Media consultants to Leonardo DiCaprio: Richard S. Ehrlich, E-mail: rituals@hotmail.com  , and Ken Sunshine, E-mail: kensunshine@hotmail.com

- Women's Voices for the Earth that has been coordinating an international boycott campaign against 'The Beach', E-mail: WVE@wildrockies.org , website: www.wildrockies.org/WVE/beach.htm

The army of Colombia with 5000 men at the service of the OXY. On the 19th of January 2000, more than 5000 heavily armed soldiers of the Colombian Army, invaded our traditional territory, exactly in Cedeno, where there is the oil drilling well - Gibraltar 1, of the Occidental, Oxy.

Facing the opposition of the Uwa people, headed by our representative the indigenous leader Roberto Cobaria Berito, the Armed forces stated that "Over and above the indigenous U'was, they had to exploit oil". At the same time Police forces move to the zone with the aim to "protect" the safety of the Occidental engineers.

Since the 15th of November 1999, more than 250 of our community stand in peaceful protest in the area of Cedeno, which is part of our ancestral territory, claiming resistance against oil exploitation by the OXY. Today we are being cordoned off by the Colombian Army and Police, putting at risk our physical integrity.

With this action, the Oxy and the Colombian army insist on ignoring our territorial rights, sacred for thousands of year and as the real owners of the land where the oil exploitation is going to take place. This series of events ignores our constitutional and legal rights, which state that the communal ethnic territories are inalienable, cannot be seized and are imprescriptible, and that they are protected by the title deed of colective territory.

Likewise, the Colombian government, headed by the Minister of Mining and Energy with the complicity of INCORA (National institute for Agrarian Reform), pretend to declare the U'wa territory as an oil reserve, with the false argument that the national oil industry acquires by law a special status of public interest, with the true and only purpose of facilitating and allowing the oil exploitation on behalf of the Multinational Oxy.

We are urgently calling the attention of the national and international community and the NGO support groups to take action, speak up and move against this latest violation against the Uwa people, which is threatening our existence and culture.

WE RATHER PREFER A GENOCIDE SPONSORED BY THE COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT BEFORE

Sample letter (in Spanish)