LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS

Brasil: So, Mr. Liedeker, is Aracruz controversial?

In 2003, Brazil's Aracruz Cellulose paid Klabin US$610 million to buy its Riocell pulp operations in Rio Grande do Sul. Along with a 400,000 tonnes a year pulp mill and 40,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations came a certificate from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), saying that the plantations were well managed.

This certificate is giving Heiko Liedeker, FSC's Executive Director, a headache. Put simply, the problem is that Aracruz is one of the most controversial pulp companies in the world. The company's plantations in Espírito Santo are on land belonging to the Tupinikim and Guarani Indigenous Peoples. Aracruz is carrying out research into genetically engineered trees. Treatment of workers in Aracruz's plantations is appalling. The plantations have dried up streams and watercourses. And in January 2006, Aracruz was involved in a violent police action to evict people from two villages that the Tupinikim and Guarani had rebuilt on land reclaimed from Aracruz.

In May 2006, Heiko Liedeker met two Brazilians from Espírito Santo at FSC's international secretariat in Bonn. Paulo de Oliveira, a Tupinikim from Caieira Velha village, and Wera Kwaray, a Guarani from Boa Esperança village were in Europe to publicise the impacts of Aracruz on their livelihoods, culture, forests and land. The German NGOs Urgewald and Robin Wood organised and sent representatives to the meeting, Geertje van der Pas from the Brazilian NGO CIMI translated, and I took part in the meeting.

Paulo de Oliveira described how in the 1970s Aracruz cleared the Atlantic forest and then burned it. "The animals disappeared," de Oliveira said. "Before Aracruz came, we could hunt and find food." He explained how FUNAI, the government department for Indigenous issues in Brazil, had produced a series of reports (the most recent published earlier this year) which recognised the Indigenous Peoples' rights to their land in Espírito Santo. He explained how the Tupinikim and Guarani had self-demarcated their land. He described how the police had broken his arm during the eviction in January 2006, and how he had been imprisoned in Aracruz's Guest House. "Why did the police use this guest house when there is a proper police station?" he asked.

"The first question is about Aracruz being certified," Liedeker responded. "Aracruz is not certified. Just one plantation is certified." Aracruz holds a certificate for its operations in Rio Grande Do Sul, he explained, not for its operations in Espírito Santo.

Wera Kwaray pointed out that two months ago about 2,000 women from Via Campesina had occupied an Aracruz tree nursery in Rio Grande do Sul. The demonstration was to "denounce the social and environmental impact of the growing green desert created by eucalyptus monocultures", according to Via Campesina. "If Aracruz hasn't done anything wrong in the south, why did this happen?" Kwaray asked. "It is a sign that something is wrong."

Hubert de Bonafos, FSC's Accreditation Officer, explained that in December 2004, FSC had carried out its annual audit of SmartWood by looking at the certification at Riocell. "As a result", he said, "FSC identified some shortcomings in a report to SmartWood." FSC gave SmartWood a year to sort out the problems. Even when SmartWood failed to meet this generous deadline, FSC did not take any public action.

Liedeker promised that FSC's report about Aracruz and SmartWood would be "made public very soon". Based on this report, Liedeker will decide whether to recommend that the FSC Board takes any action, such as withdrawing the Aracruz certificate or penalising SmartWood.

According to FSC's rules, in order to be eligible for an FSC certificate, companies have to "demonstrate a long-term commitment to adhere to the FSC Principles and Criteria." That includes recognising and respecting the "legal and customary rights of indigenous peoples to own, use and manage their lands, territories, and resources." Since it started operations in Espírito Santo in the late 1960s Aracruz has been in breach of this principle. According to FSC's own rules, therefore, the Aracruz certificate should be withdrawn.

In February 2006, I wrote to Liedeker to ask him some questions about Aracruz's FSC certificate. Among my questions was whether FSC considered Aracruz to be controversial. Liedeker evaded the question, by explaining that FSC does not declare companies either controversial or non-controversial. His reply included the following extraordinary statement: "FSC reserves all rights to this document. This document or any part thereof may only be reproduced together with the original questions and only with written permission of FSC."

During the meeting in Bonn, Peter Gerhardt of Robin Wood and Lydia Bartz of Urgewald asked Liedeker several times whether Aracruz was controversial. Again, Liedeker evaded the questions. Clearly, Liedeker could not tell Paulo de Oliveira and Wera Kwaray that Aracruz is not controversial. But if he acknowledged that Aracruz is controversial he would also have to admit that he should have long ago insisted that the certificate be withdrawn.

By partially certifying Aracruz, FSC is encouraging more sales of Aracruz products. "The more you buy products from Aracruz, the bigger this company will become," an inhabitant of Espírito Santo says in a video clip on Robin Wood's website. "The more products that are bought, the more we must suffer." By not withdrawing Aracruz's certificate, FSC is making things worse for local people.

"I promise that we are taking this very seriously. We are already on the road," Liedeker told us. But three years have passed since Aracruz bought its FSC certificate. FSC must withdraw the certificate immediately.

By Chris Lang, e-mail: http://chrislang.org , www.chrislang.blogspot.com

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Chile: The Mapuche peoples' resistance to the plantation invasion

The commune of Lumaco, with its 11.405 inhabitants, is located in the Ninth Region of Chile. From the standpoint of the ancient Mapuche territoriality and the present Mapuche claim to territorial identities in this Region, Lumaco corresponds to the political centre of the Mapuche-Nalche (also known as “nagche” and “nag-che”) territory.

In spite of the fact that the commune presently has very reduced areas of native forest (14,982 hectares representing 13.4% of the area) in a distressing state of conservation and very fragmented, the Lumaco forest is part of one of the planet's last and most extensive Humid Forests in the Cold Temperate Region. Regarding human food resources, although a smaller number of food plant species is to be found than in rainforests, there are many plants that can be used as food (fruit, stems, tubers, fleshy roots and seeds) and a considerable variety and quantity of mushrooms.

During the military dictatorship large scale monoculture tree plantations were violently introduced into this region, imposed from an institutional framework that is still in place. Its main instrument is Decree Law 701, which displaced agriculture and livestock systems and native forests. Ecological fragility and the scant agricultural suitability of this land served to qualify tree plantations as the only feasible activity to fight and curb erosion. However, these considerations did not take into account the existence of alternative forms and techniques for agricultural production suited to these conditions or the development of alternative production to industrial tree plantations, such as some fruit species (cherries, blueberries, olives) among other alternatives.

In a territory where over 70 per cent of the population is Mapuche, only 15 per cent of the 111,900 hectares of the commune's area are occupied by Mapuche communities. For this majority of the population, forestry activities have been nefarious. In the first place they contributed to a sharp reduction in the rural population, breaking up their economic systems and subsistence strategies. Secondly, in spite of the promises of economic welfare advertised by the promoters of this forestry model, the inhabitants of the areas where it is developed do not have access to these so-called benefits. According to a survey carried out in the year 2000, Lumaco has a high poverty index: 60 per cent of the population live under the poverty line and 33 per cent of them live in extreme poverty. Other associated indexes are: 23.7 per cent illiteracy, a 26.3 per cent school drop-out rate and the infant mortality rate is 17.05 per cent. According to UNDP (2000), the Human Development Index for the community of Lumaco stands at 31.9 per cent. This value is considered to be very low and this indicator places Lumaco among the worst rated communes in Chile.

The explosive expansion of areas under pine and eucalyptus plantation in Lumaco is also associated with the commune's process of serious environmental degradation: destruction of the native forest, loss of biodiversity, reduction and contamination of ground and surface sources of water, erosion processes and other soil degradation processes such as soil compaction. Health problems have also been recorded in the communities surrounding the plantations.

While a small group of medium and large timber producers (who mainly reside in the urban zones of Lumaco and neighbouring communes) and pulp-mill industrialists (national and transnational groups) are the beneficiaries, the local rural population receives the negative impacts of the model on their economic, productive, environmental, health (physical and mental) and cultural systems, which as a whole imply severe prejudice to their quality of life.

From the cultural standpoint, the expansion of monoculture tree plantations has led to an impoverishment of Mapuche culture at the level of knowledge and has prevented reproduction of their own way of life. An example of this situation are the socio-cultural impacts of the loss of the native forest: changes in their food patterns, the progressive abandoning of traditional medicine, the collapse of beliefs and relations established with the spiritual world, among others.

Mapuche organizations have launched a struggle against this noxious process, based on ethnic and political arguments in defence of their cultural heritage, thus showing that cultural safeguarding can become an important strategy to face the forestry model.

In December 1997, Mapuche community members from Lumaco occupied the land planted with trees and subsequently burnt two trucks that were taking timber out of the Pidenco Fundo in the commune of Lumaco. This incident marked the beginning of a direct dialogue between industrialists and the State, which took on a defensive and offensive role, invoking the State Internal Security Law. At the same time the complaints of the Mapuche population entered a new stage. Members and leaders of Mapuche organizations have kept up sharp criticism of the presence of plantation companies in the area. This criticism is the only organized manifestation against the presence of these companies in the commune. It is organized around various poles which from the Mapuche cultural perspective are recognized to be inter-related. Among such poles is the relationship between what is environmental and what is cultural, while the loss of resources also implies the loss of knowledge and with it, pauperization of their living conditions. Through their proposals, the Mapuche have sought to find a solution to the problems of loss of land, water shortage and the drop in agricultural production. They identify the plantation companies as being directly responsible and the State as abetting them.

In this way the Mapuche have faced numerous court cases, imprisonment and persecution, raids and permanent surveillance of the communities; beatings, shootings, kidnappings and death-threats by the police, investigators and non-identified civilians and even the murder of three young Mapuche that has remained totally unpunished. Special laws, created during the Military Regime to repress opposition to the dictatorship have also been applied, such as the Antiterrorist Law (law 18,314) in addition to the State Interior Security Law.

Presently there are over 200 Mapuche community members being held for trial and 11 Mapuche political prisoners are being held in the prisons of Concepcion, Angol, Traiguen and Lebu. Among these are Lonkos (a traditional authority), Werken (Lonko assistant) and community leaders in addition to others who are in hiding or who are subject to precautionary measures. There are accusations against them based on witnesses who have no face and false testimonials. The Minister of the Interior of the Bachelet Government even recognized that there have been contradictory sentences and the President's political party has acknowledged that during the Lagos Government there was disproportionate and unjust use of antiterrorist legislation that allows for abhorrent trials, denounced by the United Nations Rapporteur for Indigenous Rights.

It is in this context that Patricia Troncoso, Juan Huenulao, Jaime Marileo and Juan Marileo, Mapuche political prisoners held in Angol prison, accused and sentenced in the criminal case of Terrorist Arson to ten years and a day of imprisonment, in addition to the payment of $ 424.964,798 in compensation to the MININCO forestry company, launched a hunger strike on 13 March for an indefinite time in order to demand liberation of all the Mapuche political prisoners, non-use of the antiterrorist law and revision of the criminal case for which they have been unjustly condemned.

The hunger strike gave rise to numerous mobilizations in Chile and protests accompanying President Michelle Bachelet's European tour. In Madrid on 10 May she was summonsed by the Nobel prize-winner, José Saramago to “look at the Mapuche.”

While repression and arrests continued in the Mapuche communities, tense negotiations were taking place in the midst of which the strikers suspended their hunger strike on 14 May 2006 in view of the commitment by members of parliament of the official party that they would adopt a Bill allowing for a regime of probation. However, this project did not have the political backing of the Government coalition. The president of the main Government party, Senator Soledad Alvear (DC) declared that the project would be unconstitutional as it would violate “equality before the law.” At the same time, immediately after the strike was suspended, the Government declared on 16 May through the Minister Paulina Veloso that it was not endorsing the Bill. On 23 May, President Michelle Bachelet declared that these were “delinquents that had been sentenced” and that she could not intervene in court decisions.

Faced by this lack of fulfilment of the agreements by the Chilean political sector, the four Mapuche prisoners have felt themselves to have been cheated and consider themselves victims of a political operation, taking up their hunger strike once again. The situation of the Mapuche strikers is very delicate and they have been hospitalized. For its part, the Chilean political sector has closed its ranks, alleging that the Mapuche are responsible for breaking-off the agreement and of wrecking a legal solution that in fact had no political support.

In Chile the crisis of confidence between indigenous peoples and the State has seriously deepened and only international mediation can resolve it and take it along the path of peace and primacy of Human Rights.

The life of four Mapuche people in prison is in danger. At this time, their hunger strike personifies the resistance of the Mapuche people to a genocidal legislation, made to measure for the large plantation companies. The World Rainforest Movement makes an appeal for you to join their demand to “close the case of the unjust suit known as the ‘Poluko Pidenko Terrorist Arson' and the immediate liberation of the Mapuche Political Prisoners” sending your support to: http://www.nodo50.org/varios/mapuches/index.php#4

Article based on excerpts from the research paper “ The economic and social context of monoculture tree plantations in Chile: the case of the commune of Lumaco, Araucania region ”, August 2005, by René Montalba Navarro, Noelia Carrasco Henríquez and José Araya Cornejo (the full document can be accessed at http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Chile/BookLumaco.html); communiqués by the Agrupación De Familiares Y Amigos De Los Presos Políticos Mapuche, (Group of Family Members and Friends of the Mapuche Political Prisoners) http://www.presospoliticosmapuche.org/index_archivos/Noticias.htm ; inputs by Víctor Toledo Llancaqueo, Centro de Politicas Publicas, e-mail: centro@politicaspublicas.cl , http://www.politicaspublicas.cl

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Colombia: The Motilon Bari Indigenous Peoples rise up for their rights against oil interests

The Motilon Bari Indigenous Peoples have been settled for thousands of years in the basin of the Catatumbo River, in the Department of Northern Santander (Colombia). It is a forest zone, covering an area of approximately 126,600 ha and shares its frontier with Venezuela. Its humid forests, that act as a natural filter for Lake Maracaibo (Venezuela), have considerable potential regarding biodiversity, wood and minerals, hydrocarbons and water resources.

This potential and particularly the presence of oil is the reason why the Motilon Bari are exposed to continuous incursions by transnational corporations, especially in the Municipalities of Tibu and Tarra. As early as 1904, oil companies such as COLPET (the Colombia Petroleum Company) and SAGO (South American Gulf Oil Company) entered the region and now ECOPETROL has installed itself.

All the companies have followed an extractive pattern, ruthlessly exploiting non-renewable resources, depredating the zone's natural resources and impairing biodiversity. Damage to the environment has been irreparable and has affected the vegetation, the fauna and aquifers, generating or exacerbating erosion processes and contaminating water and soil, just to mention a few of the impacts. On some occasions extractive activities have also implied the displacement and eviction of the Motilon Bari communities from their territories.

The reduction of the territory ancestrally occupied by these indigenous peoples, with the constant ignoring and violation of their rights has also involved a loss of natural and cultural values placing at risk the survival of the Indigenous communities.

Protected by Environmental License 0624 of 16 May 2005, an attempt is being made to impose a project for oil prospecting and exploitation under the name of ALAMO I in their territories. The process has various irregularities, among them disregard for the indigenous peoples' rights consecrated in international and national conventions, absence of prior consultation by the ECOPETROL extractive company and the presence of the Colombian National Army in the project's area of influence with the aim of “safeguarding” the well, but which implies the prevention of free movement of the Bari people and of carrying out their productive, social and cultural activities.

The Bari People have reacted by launching a process to defend their territories. One of the measures is a legal action known in the national laws as “Action of Guardianship” seeking to protect the Bari Peoples' human rights. This legal action was rejected by the courts at the first and second instance. At this time, the findings of the second instance have been submitted to the Constitutional Court for examination and probable revision.

In this court action, the Motilon Bari Community Association of Colombia requests the Colombian Constitutional Court “to revise the above-mentioned guardianship which seeks to protect the basic rights that are presently being violated with the execution of the Alamo I prospecting and exploitation project in our ancestral and sacred territory and the arbitrary action of the National Army that is located in the zone with the mission of safeguarding the project.”

As they denounce in their petition, the Army has invaded their hunting and fishing grounds and the places where they celebrate their cultural rituals and ceremonies –such as the marathons (a cultural and sacred activity in which they carry out an exercise of recognition and contact with their territory)– attacking the free movement of the Bari in their own territory and preventing them from having access to their sacred places. This situation has led to arbitrary arrests, ill-treatment and even attacks against the Bari's personal integrity and their lives.

The Motilon Bari say that “Now our grandparents do not know what to make of this situation. Mother Earth is crying, our culture, our cosmovision and our ethnic group are again in danger. Irremediable prejudice is being caused because the damage done so far and that can be done in the future to our sacred way of life cannot be repaired with money or any other goods.”

In the document “Oil exploitation in Catatumbo - Colombia; the Genocide of the Bari People,” its author Ashcayra Arabadora Acrora, Delegate of the Autonomous Council of Bari Chiefs, Motilon Bari Community Association of Colombia states that “Mother Earth is a living being, we cannot understand this type of activity and we oppose it, many animals in our region have disappeared, life is the Earth, she maintains life, life is water and sun, for us oil is a problem. It brings us much violence. Together with the oil companies come armed groups”.

We exhort you to send your support to the Autonomous Council of Bari Chiefs – ASOCBARI, e-mail: puebloindigenabari@yahoo.es , subscribing the claim presented to the Colombian Constitutional Court, at http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Colombia/Bari.pdf

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Ecuador: Action and proposals against monoculture tree plantations

On 13 May, over 400 young people of both sexes participated in an action against the plantations of the Japanese EUCAPACIFIC Company in the area of Tortuga, located in the Muisne Canton, province of Esmeraldas (see power point presentation of the action at http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Ecuador/Muisne_sin_eucaliptos.pps)

This action – publicly announced the previous day in Muisne – is framed in the increasing opposition to the company's large-scale monoculture eucalyptus plantations that have deeply affected the region, depleting the water, flora and fauna that had previously been plentiful and used by the local population and evicting the inhabitants from the area.

Among the numerous testimonials gathered in a research work recently concluded and published by the WRM (Granda, Patricia – Monocultivos de árboles en Ecuador – Monoculture tree plantations in Ecuador) the following one summarises the situation, stating:

“The people feel affected… the rivers are drying up, nature is being depleted, animals are fleeing, with what they are planting they destroy everything. Species that were to be found previously are no longer here… People used to go hunting agoutis, rabbits, all that, but now they can't go because there are no forests left to go hunting. All that is nature is fleeing, the animals at least used to have trees where they could live and build their homes, now there is none of this because they have cut it down. Now there is nothing but eucalyptus.”

In the case of the Tortuga, the river that used to run through the village is now just a trickle of stagnant water and people have been obliged to dig a well in the river bed itself to supply themselves with water. This situation is a direct consequence of the plantation of wide stretches of eucalyptus in the area. In this respect, a local inhabitant states:

“This is the Tortuga River, and look at it, it is dry. How long ago did the winter end? Almost no time ago and look at it. Later on there will be no water left. I did not know but now we do know. If from the start we had known that this would cause us damage they would not have planted, we would have stopped them…”

The company has been accused of breaking the law by felling areas of tropical forest to replace them with eucalyptus plantations. An inhabitant of Tortuga tells us how “they cut everything down and only planted that plant [the eucalyptus]. The company felled primary forest and I know because in there, in my land, there was a forest that had been preserved.”

EUCAPACIFIC also violated legal regulations by planting at less than 30 metres from the Tortuga River. The action carried out by the young people consisted in felling – with machetes, axes and chainsaws – some 2000 trees along the strip planted illegally by the company close to the water course. Each time a tree was felled the young people's applause and slogans accompanied it.

José Bautista, an inhabitant of the area said that felling the trees was the last option left open to them to make the timber company take the issue of the environment seriously. In this respect he told us “We talked to the Minister of the Environment, she came here and said they were going to suspend the permits to plant trees. Then they called us to a meeting with Eucapacific and they said that such plantations did not exist and the Minister believed them.”

That is to say, that the action cannot even be considered as illegal because –according to the company– those trees “did not exist.” In spite of this, the machetes and chainsaws effectively showed that they did exist and that, if justice were to be applied, EUCAPAFIC would have to pay, not only the corresponding fines, but also the work of the young people who eliminated the trees that the company itself should have cut down. However the company has already threatened to launch legal action against the individuals and organizations involved.

In this climate of growing opposition to the plantations, on 17 May the Ecuadorian NGO Acción Ecológica made public its “proposal on tree plantations,” which states the following:

“Acción Ecológica has just published the results of research in which the serious social and environmental impacts caused by monoculture pine and eucalyptus plantations are documented, both in the Andean zone and in Esmeraldas. We consider that the findings of this research show the inadvisability of promoting pine and eucalyptus, because:

1- They displace peasant populations

2- They take vital resources away from local populations

3- They occupy food-producing land

4- They increase poverty in the areas where they are installed

5- They generate fewer jobs than those they displace

6- They destroy local economies

7- They deplete the area's water resources

8- They seriously affect flora and fauna biodiversity

9- They degrade forest and Paramo ecosystems

10- They contaminate sources of water with chemicals and pesticides.

The National Government is presently discussing a forestry strategy. On the basis of what has been set out above, we want to make pubic our proposal regarding tree plantations, consisting of the following:

1.- We demand the State to take all the necessary measures to stop the expansion of monoculture tree plantations

2.- The State must not grant direct or indirect incentives to promote plantations nor should it hand over land in concession for this purpose

3.- All future plantations must be submitted to prior environmental impact assessment and to other mechanisms for environmental management (audits), and should comply with all the environmental standards in force. Prior informed consultation with the communities, including the right to say “NO” should be respected.

4.- The State must force plantation companies to remove the trees from all those planted areas that are affecting Natural Resources and the economies of local populations and to provide environmental and social reparations to the affected populations.

5.- The State must oblige the companies to remove all the trees planted illegally, such as those planted at less than 30 metres from water courses.”

In short, what Acción Ecológica is asking is acknowledgement of the fact that these monoculture tree plantations have a serious impact on people and on the environment and that therefore the State has the obligation to control existing plantations and prevent their continued expansion.

Article based on information from: Ricardo Carrere's report on his trip to Ecuador, May 2006; Granda, Patricia.- Monocultivos de árboles en Ecuador (shortly also available in English) (http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Ecuador/Libro2.html); Acción Ecológica: “Nuestra propuesta sobre plantaciones forestales”; El Comercio newspaper, “Una protesta contra la siembra de eucaliptos, 17/5/06 (http://www.elcomercio.com/noticia.asp?id=42461&seccion=8)

 

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Ecuador: The Huaorani people of Yasuni Park are attacked by timber and oil groups

To the south of the Yasuni National Park (see WRM Bulletin No. 96), an unequal battle is being fought. Spears against shotguns.

The Yasuni National Park covers an area of 982,000 hectares. It is located in Huaorani territory and is part of the Intangible Zone where peoples of the Tagaeri and Taromenane ethnic groups live in voluntary isolation.

Although extractive activities such as oil exploitation and logging are prohibited in the Intangible Zone, in fact an intensive and violent forestry exploitation has been taking place in full view and with the complicity of the police, environmental officers and the military. Trucks loaded with timber travel across river-ways and overland with impunity and even cross the military camp.

Five oil blocks have been imposed on Huaorani territory and the Petrobras Company has received a license for forestry exploitation. Oil activities require routes of access whereby logging companies enter the territories of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation. The prolonged pressure they are undergoing as a result of logging, oil and tourism, have caused genocide and the disappearance of several of these groups in repeatedly violent episodes such as the murder in May 2003 of some 20 women and children of the Tagaeri people in Tigüino. Those responsible for these murders were never identified.

The logging companies organized in the Association of Timber Industrialists (Asociación de Industriales de la Madera - AIMA), Corporation of Sustainable Forestry Management (Corporación de Manejo Forestal Sustentable - COMAFORS) and the Corporation of Forestry and Logging Development (Corporación de Desarrollo Forestal y Maderero - CORMADERA) gave out a public communiqué at the beginning of this month whereby they attempted to delimit the connection between logging exploitation and violation of the human rights of the Tagaeri and Taromenane groups. At the same time they demand greater sinecures for their activities from the State, such as two million hectares for plantations, economic resources and foreign debt swapping for their forestry exploitation activities and monoculture tree plantations, deregulation of their activities and unlinking from the Ministry of the Environment control, the handing over of forestry monitoring to private bodies related with their interests and the promotion of systems of anticipated sale of timber – all this supposedly related with “sustainable forest development.”

For their part, the Huaorani have decided to take over control of their ancestral territory. In an assembly held in the Nemopari community at the end of last year, they resolved to prevent exploitation of natural resources. The Huaorani conclave was held in the presence of 60 wise elders. According to Vicente Enomenga, president of the Huaorani organization, they recommended to the Government Council, the Organization of Huaorani Nationality of the Ecuadorian Amazon (Onhae), that it should take care of their environment and their life.

The Huaorani defined that entry of foreigners to their territory is forbidden, including loggers from Ecuador and Colombia. The Vice-President of the Government Council warned that the indigenous inhabitants were not responsible for foreigners' security.

It is in this context that on 12 April, two loggers from the Cononaco sector in the Province of Orellana were speared and on 27 April, to the south of this Province, on the border with Pastaza, sources of the Vicariate of Orellana and a Huaorani leader reported the murder of various members of the Taromenane community – denouncing a figure of 30 victims.

However now, according to complaints by the Ecuadorian organization Acción Ecológica, a complicit silence has taken over the intangible zone. The spears that were found reveal that something very serious happened although an attempt is being made to ignore the presence of armed people in the area. Those who sounded the alarm and those who have information are gagged by fear. No one dares to speak against the logging companies: their violence and the economic power they wield seem stronger than justice and rights.

Acción Ecológica is demanding that a serious and impartial investigation be made of the facts and that protective measures are taken. Such measures must start by establishing a clear policy of respect for protected areas and the indigenous peoples that inhabit them and the halting of any type of large scale extractive activities in these locations.

The indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation in the Amazon basin represent true cultural treasures, showing their will to maintain their ethnic identity and protecting –through their culture- wide regions of tropical rainforest. To respect them also implies the protection of forests.

Article based on information from: “ Ecuador: Denuncian genocidio de indígenas Taromenane, en aislamiento, por madereros ”, 12 May 2006, Ivonne Ramos, Acción Ecológica , cbosques@accionecologica.org, foresta@accionecologica.org ; “Conflicto en selva deja dos muertos de los Taromenane”, El Universo, and “ La violencia crece en el Yasuní” El Comercio , both news articles dated 29 April 2006, at http://www.llacta.org/notic/2006/not0429a.htm ; “ Los sabios huao, a favor de la selva”, El Comercio, 1/11/2006, http://www.saveamericasforests.org/Yasuni/News/Articles/2006/1-11-06%20El%20Comercio%20The%20Wise%20Huaorani,%20In%20Favor%20Of%20The%20Forest.htm