OUR VIEWPOINT
-
The World Cup of Football and the World
Cup of Life
Much
of the world’s population –especially males– will spend the coming
weeks glued to the TV as the FIFA World Cup unfolds. While many
are fully aware that this is no longer a mere sporting event,
but rather a massive globalized business in which the players
are little more than disposable gladiators at the service of big
corporations, they are still drawn to keep watching, celebrating
the victories and suffering the defeats as if they were their
own.
Perhaps
this is because football is one of the very few domains in the
world today that appears to offer equal opportunities to all,
where 11 men from one country are pitted against 11 men from another,
and the economic, political or military power of their respective
nations off the field have no bearing. In a world dominated
by the powerful –in the South as well
as in the North– this sense of equality that characterizes football
is almost unique, and perhaps what is most compelling about this
international championship. After all, this is a contest in which
the countries of the so-called Third World have emerged triumphant
more often than the countries of the industrialized North: Brazil
has won an unprecedented 5 World Cups, Argentina 2, Uruguay 2,
Germany 3, Italy 3, England 1 and France 1. Final score: South
9 – North 8.
But
while the fictional world of the World Cup moves forward, awakening
hopes, joys and heartaches, the real world continues to develop
on a playing field that is overwhelmingly uneven, where economic,
political and military power prevail and “fair play” is notoriously
absent.
Take
the case of Ecuador, one of the teams that sparked rising expectations
after its first two games in Germany. In real life, Ecuador the
country has been taking a thrashing for years. Of course, the
referee – in this case, the government – has usually only red
carded the representatives of the people, while national and international
corporations are shown a yellow card at the very most. It has
punished the people for non-existent fouls and offsides, but turned
a blind eye to blatant penalty fouls by the business sector. The
equivalent of FIFA in this case –the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund– have permanently sanctioned Indigenous, Afroecuadorian
and poor players, while obliging successive referees to impose
rules that favour the business team. The results can be illustrated
in scores like the following:
Oil
companies 10 – Indigenous peoples of the Amazon 5
Forestry
companies 8 – Forest peoples 3
Shrimp
farming companies 5 – Afroecuadorians in mangrove regions 2
Oil
palm companies 6 – Indigenous and Afroecuadorians 1
Tree
planting companies 5 – Indigenous and Afroecuadorians 3
In
every area, the Ecuadorian people are losing. Nevertheless, it
should be kept in mind that the goals scored by the people – including
a few stunning goals – have been relatively recent. In the meantime,
the business sector has scored very few goals in recent years,
and has been forced onto the defensive. The referee has even occasionally
begun to hand out penalties to business players (as in the recent
case of the Oxy oil company, whose contract in Ecuador was cancelled)
or to overlook fouls committed by the people (like another recent
case where local communities cut down eucalyptus trees on a plantation
owned by the Japanese consortium Eucapacific). Even “FIFA” itself
appears to be looking the other way.
It is also worth
noting that the Ecuadorian team’s fans slogan is “Yes we can!”,
and that the chant shouted by its fans is “Let’s go Ecuadorians,
tonight we have to win!” Interestingly enough, the same slogans
and chants were used in the demonstrations to overthrow the president.
On the final night of the demonstrations, protestors took to the
streets shouting “Let’s go Ecuadorians, tonight he has to fall!”
And the president fell. Gooooaaaaal!
Ecuador
has now been eliminated from the World Cup by England, but in
the match for life, the people are moving in an increasingly organized
formation towards their opponents’ side of the field and scoring
some remarkable goals. Playing from behind, the Ecuadorian people
are gradually narrowing the score. A team of indigenous, mixed-race
and Afroecuadorians, men and women, elders and children. Playing
the game by their own rules. And most importantly of all, fuelled
by their hopes in the possibility of victory. As they say: Yes
we can!
index
COMMUNITIES AND FORESTS
-
Cambodia: World Bank Inspection Panel findings
Slam Bank Forestry Project
A
leaked World Bank Inspection Panel [1] report heavily criticises
the Bank’s own forest management project in Cambodia for breaking
internal safeguards, ignoring local communities and failing to
reduce poverty, says Global Witness, a
non-partisan international non-governmental
organisation --co-nominated for the
2003 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in uncovering how diamonds
have funded civil wars across Africa-- focused on the links between
the exploitation of natural resources and the funding of conflict
and corruption.
Cambodia’s
forests covered 73 % of the country in 1971, but were decimated
in the wake of the civil war by illegal and unsustainable logging.
In the early 1990s the Cambodian government secretly awarded 32
logging concessions areas to private companies, many of them foreign-owned.
Most of these firms went on to engage in illegal and unsustainable
logging in pursuit of short-term profits. The rationale for the
concession system was a steady source of revenue that could be
used for Cambodia’s development; yet between 1994
and 2000 the government collected only $92 million in timber royalties.
Over the same period companies, politicians and the military made
enormous profits through illegal logging.
An
Asian Development Bank review in 2000 described this concession
regime as ‘a total system failure’. That same year however
the World Bank launched a $5 million Forest Concession Management
and Control Pilot Project (FCMCPP) aimed at demonstrating that
the concession system could work. The project focused on helping
the concessionaires meet government requirements for new sustainable
forest management plans (SFMPs) and environmental and social impact
assessments (ESIAs) as a prerequisite for further logging. For
the project to realise its objectives, the Bank needed the concession
system and at least some of the companies to remain in place.
It was in this context that the FCMCPP recommended the Cambodian
government accept the SFMPs and ESIAs of six concessionaires in
2004. All six firms had broken
the law or the terms of their contracts. Some were a front for
the interests of relatives of senior officials.
Local
communities lodged a complaint with the Bank’s Inspection Panel
in 2005, after it became clear the Bank’s project was exacerbating,
not improving the situation. These communities saw the
project as promoting the interests of companies that had already
damaged their livelihoods. In the event, the Panel’s findings
do not condemn the focus on the concession system per se, but
do conclude that the project “did not seem to take on the
key objective of using the potential of forests to reduce poverty”.
The
complaint to the Panel also claimed the project had several other
serious flaws in its planning and implementation. According to
Simon Taylor, Global Witness Director: “The findings of the Inspection
Panel reveal the extent to which the Bank was prepared to break
its own regulations in pursuit of project success.’’
In
a damning report, the Panel finds the Bank overrode several of
its own safeguard policies in several areas – its comments are
quoted below.
- Consultation
in development of management plans. The project
allowed concession companies to take charge of consultations
with communities over the future of forest use. “The idea that
the concession holders would manage community consultations
or resource assessments is a very serious flaw, especially given
that the forest concessions were exploiting a resource which
rural poor people…relied upon for an important part of their
livelihoods.”
- Environmental
Assessments. The Bank misclassified areas of forest –
allowing areas of high ecological value to be used for commercial
logging. “There is no doubt that the Prey Long forest merits
consideration as a forest of high ecological value, and this
should have been obvious to Bank Staff during both the design
and implementation stages of the Project.”
- Indigenous People.
Cambodia’s indigenous people mainly live in the North and Northeastern
parts of the country – the same areas which constitute the heart
of Cambodia’s logging concession system. Bank guidelines state
for an investment project affecting Indigenous People, Indigenous
Peoples Development Plans should be prepared to ensure they
benefit from development investment. This never happened. “Had
they been developed, many of the problems that have afflicted
the Project would have been recognised and might have been corrected.”
- Cultural
and Spiritual Property. Bank guidelines clearly seek
to conserve, not eliminate areas of cultural importance. Yet
the project left the dubious concession companies to identify
areas of cultural and spiritual importance within their cutting
areas. In Cambodia, these included Spirit Forests and areas
of archaeological importance. The Panel found this was “not
consistent” with Bank safeguards.
- Social Impacts.
The Panel found that the lack of social assessment specific
to this project seriously denigrated the ability of the bank
to comply with its own operational policies. For example, there
was no acknowledgement from the Bank that resin tree harvesting
by concession companies severely harmed the livelihoods of local
populations. Resin tapped from various
species of dipterocarp tree is an economically valuable
commodity both within Cambodia and abroad. Recent studies estimate
that at least 100,000 rural Cambodians derive part of their
income from resin-tapping.
The Panel noted Bank Management were frequently
made aware of the issue from many sources, concluding: “it is
amply clear not only that the Bank should have been aware of
the importance of resin tapping to forest dependent communities,
and the harm that illegal cutting of resins was doing to those
communities, but also that the Bank was aware of these issues.”
- Endorsement
of sub-standard management plans for six concession companies.
“The Panel considers that SFMPs and ESIAs were deficient
in almost all regards from process to content.”
While
Global Witness welcomes Panel findings showing the deeply flawed
nature of the project, the question they are now asking is what
is the Bank going to do about it?
Paul
Wolfowitz has stated how important the Panel is for monitoring
Bank performance and this latest report could be seen as a test-case.
According to Director Simon Taylor: ‘If the Bank is serious it
needs to ensure that those responsible for this debacle are held
accountable and that other forestry projects in countries such
as Democratic Republic of Congo are not recycling the same flawed
approach. More broadly the Bank has to rethink the way it operates
in highly corrupt environments such as Cambodia so that its efforts
benefit the poor rather than local elites and dubious private
companies.’
Since
the launch of the Inspection Panel investigation the Bank has
withdrawn its support of the logging concession system and its
operators, advocating a range of alternative approaches to forest
management with greater emphasis on the role of local communities.
“This
belated u-turn on forest sector policy in Cambodia deserves to
be welcomed, but we have yet to see these words turned into reality
on the ground. We now need to see the Bank to put its political
influence and in-house capacity behind a concerted drive to make
sure that this more appropriate package of measures is fully implemented’’,
said Taylor.
The
request for inspection of the FCMCPP was sent to the Inspection
Panel in February 2005 by NGO Forum on Cambodia, whom the plaintiffs
have nominated as their representative. This request document
can be downloaded from the Inspection Panel’s website, along with
the World Bank management’s response and the Inspection Panel’s
assessment of the request and its recommendations:
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTIN
SPECTIONPANEL/0,,contentMDK:20387088~
pagePK:64129751~piPK:64128378~theSitePK:380794,00.html. The
briefing document by Global Witness which sets out in detail the
case for investigating the FCMCPP was submitted to the Inspection
Panel in February 2005 as part of the request for inspection.
This document can be downloaded at
http://www.globalwitness.org/campaigns/forests/cambodia/briefing.php.
[1]
The World Bank’s Inspection Panel was
created in 1993 to increase the accountability of World Bank lending
and to provide local people with a forum of last resort to enforce
their rights under Bank policies and loan conditions.
By
Eleanor Nichol, Global Witness, e-mail:
index
- Central African forestry administrations:
are they at the service of the peoples involved?
Since
1990, a lot of noise has been made about the forests of the Congo
Basin, both good and bad. Now a new environmental wave is descending
on the Democratic Republic of Congo, of a scope very similar to
that of the “Zaire boom” in the seventies. However, the question
is: are the Central African forestry administrations -generally
subject to insidious sociological factors- aligned with the aspirations
and needs regarding welfare of the region’s inhabitants?
First
of all, for an African it is an act of bravery to restore to African
people the visibility of their forestry administrations and this
for various reasons. Of these, the first two are that “those who
objectify reality are not much appreciated” and that “foreign
experts are still those who determine priority fields of intervention
in forest ecosystems.” Africans need to define for themselves
the forestry administrations for their people, but this has not
yet happened.
Two functions of
forestry administrations in Central Africa
We
are considering two of the main functions of forestry administrations
in Central Africa: the production of timber and the conservation
of biological diversity. In spite of the diversity of forms
under which they are presented, these functions are not fulfilled
in a satisfactory way. For instance all (or nearly all)
the cities mainly consume waste from sawmills; many cities lack
timber even though the countries export it; the construction of
subregional or regional markets for legal forestry products is
taking for ever, while protection of the European market is being
strengthened.
For
its part, biological diversity conservation sets problems, even
when it stems from noble ambitions and even though experiments
are being done in this field. Over a decade has gone by since
the launching of the first participatory management programmes
for protected areas executed under the auspices of international
organizations for the conservation of nature. However most of
them do not seem to contribute to the preservation of biological
diversity or to improve the living conditions of the peoples directly
involved. This is demonstrated in a recent analysis of the various
projects for the management of protected areas in Central Africa
(Ndinga, 2005). Not only do the neighbouring inhabitants of these
areas continue to have food, health and educational problems,
but they are also subject to restrictions that upset their interior
vision of harmony between the elements and their surroundings
without their participation in the protection of natural resources
materializing, despite the loud announcements made by international
organizations.
All
this invites us to reflect. Historically it is a recognized fact
that, to find answers to the problems of the forestry sector,
we must resort to people who are capable of benefiting from what
the various sciences have to offer, (law, political, economic,
social, historical and geographical sciences, as well as natural
science regarding the environment and in particular, forests).
We consider that this is the point where forestry could favour
the creation of conditions providing an opportunity for the adjustment
of Central African forestry administrations to the needs and aspirations
of the peoples directly involved. Only the capacity of the African
people to reflect for themselves on the diversity of aspects involved
in their forests will make it possible, in the first place to
contribute to get forestry administrations to adjust to these
needs and, secondly to end the dissemination of foreign ideas,
traditions and approaches on biological diversity in their countries.
Models of decision-making
processes in the forestry administrations of Central Africa
Another
major problem that should be addressed jointly is the rationalization
of decision-making processes in the forestry administrations of
Central Africa.
On
one side are the forestry administrations operating on the basis
of a sort of “rationalized neo-patrimonialism.” These resemble
a set of more or less rival tribal and/or political entities and
individuals, considered as so many other subsystems and structures
surrounding the Head of State. Their main type of action consists
in updating routines (traditional forestry operations), redistributing
positions and forestry resources and seeking some kind of credibility
in the eyes of capitalist partners and international NGOs. In
this case, the central proposal for the decision to be taken is
the result of presidential intervention.
At
the other extreme are the forestry administrations that resort
to extortion and violent and direct depredation of forestry resources.
This refers to the cases of the most extreme and bloody political
systems and to the “war lords.” The forestry administration is
then a set of tribal, military and/or political entities structured
around the war lords; the main actions are then manifestations
of violent impulses, updating of routines, extortion and direct
depredation of forestry resources and the orchestration of fund
providers and international NGOs. The decision is a result
of war lord intervention.
Between
these two extremes lies rational forestry administration. Even
though the Head of State continues to be the main actor, forestry
administration is structured around State institutions, the regulations
governing them and the nation’s values: the dominant type of action
is a search for a response to social demand for forestry products
and environmental services. The decision is a calculated solution
to a strategic national problem.
It
should be remembered that these are only models. Evidently the
universe of forestry administrations in Central Africa is heterogeneous.
Very often it is a mixture of “rationalized neo-patrimonialists,”
“war lords” and rational actors and all have a dominating role
to a greater or lesser degree. However, models enable us
to better understand the sociology of forestry administrations
in Central Africa and their internal decision processes.
This basis enables us to reflect on the rationalization of such
processes.
Internal factors
influencing decisions
From
this standpoint, it becomes evident that the significant factors
influencing the decisions of Central African forestry administrations
need to be visualized. “Neo-patrimonialism” privileges deviations
from standards and conformism; this has been so abundantly demonstrated
that it is possible to affirm for example that John Maynard Keynes
would never have made himself a career in such administrations.
On the other hand, the history and identity of Central African
people, although notable in many aspects, were open for a long
time to networks of more or less confessable activities. It is
for this reason that many Central African people, whether or not
they be men/women of State, allude to their will to put themselves
at the service of their country but, in fact, continue to legitimise
deviations, offering scant resistance and developing strategies
to atomize forestry institutions and competing among themselves
to obtain the rank of interlocutors with foreign experts, international
organizations, or capitalist organizations.
Thus,
contrary to what some may think, the significant internal factors
to improve decision-making in the forestry administrations of
Central Africa are not only quantitative (the amount of personnel
and the importance of financial means) but also qualitative, referring
to the quality of the people and the institutional context. For
example the forestry administration in the Congolese Republic,
which in 1960 did not include any professional foresters, now
has over 200; its budget, insignificant in 1960 is to-day various
millions of CFA francs. Nearly all the Central African countries
have evolved similarly. However, forest management in these countries
is presently much worse than in 1960 if one considers the generalization
of corruption, forest degradation, the decrease in wildlife or
violence within forestry administrations.
External factors
affecting decision-making
In
addition to the above-mentioned factors, globalization and the
insertion of Central African countries in increasingly dense networks
of international, friendly or shared interest links have positive
but also coercive effects that weaken their commitment with the
forest ecosystem cause. This is due to western hegemony and to
the culture of international relations sociology in the western
countries and to the African people’s scant feelings of nationalism.
To
this is added the fact that diplomacy has considerable influence
on decision-making processes in Central African forestry administrations.
Official western diplomacy, in spite of appearing to be of a “generous
nature,” has another aspect that should be made known, particularly
in the field of forestry competitiveness. In fact, this diplomacy
is usually at the service of the forces which, in the past, caused
the weakening of the structures and impoverishment of the region;
forces whose primary concern is personal interest but that orchestrate
the power of their own State and international conventions; forces
that, in the field of forest conservation develop transversal
strategies in a struggle against other powers. So far Central
African diplomacy has been absolutely disorderly and impotent
and has left forest ecosystems (almost) entirely open to actors
that influence the decisions of African forestry administrations
towards bowing to their interests.
As
a complement to official diplomacy we find “non-governmental diplomacies.”
These do not limit themselves to activities carried out through
organizations of the same name. They have existed for centuries,
have multiple dimensions and directions and have numerous and
diverse actors. It should be noted that here “fluency of
speech” and rhetoric contribute to achieve their objectives. Seduced
by their nobility and the generous inspiration which they make
a show of, Central African countries overlook the distortions
they induce in forestry administration decisions. In fact there
are many good souls who claim to be defending the forests of the
Congo Basin, but at the end of the day, what they are doing, in
erudite language, is to orchestrate African people, promote corruption
and cronyism or support dishonest politicians. For example
an African official in an international NGO who fabricated a false
mission report was “catapulted” to the post of auditor of this
organization. Another African, this time a competent one, found
that if he wanted to obtain a subregional post it was under the
condition he aligned himself with the position of a Minister who,
if our sources are true, was not exactly a referent in matters
of good political and economic governance.
Conclusions
First
of all, it would be advisable to strengthen the capacity of the
African people to define for themselves the functions of their
forestry administrations. Secondly, it should be made clear that
the fact of reflecting on these administrations, analyzing the
factors that affect them, including diplomacy, is not an intellectual
or diplomatic heresy. Furthermore, this approach is not entirely
new, it is a prolongation of the efforts made for decades now
by numerous authors, mainly in the field of international relations
sociology and it provides social visibility to factors that are
frequently ignored but which explain to a great extent the reasons
for the ineffectiveness of so many measures adopted at conferences,
seminars and workshops.
This
is a timely approach, considering that Central African forestry
administrations are much more open than they were in 1960. In
this context, the inclusion of African people’s concerns in the
functions of forestry administrations will be favoured, not because
of the discretion of the actors but because of the support of
public opinion and of companies. This implies that the rationalization
of decision-making processes requires, at the forefront, public
training on the sociology of these administrations and on international
relations.
Furthermore,
when actors in the so-called sustainable development only manage
to provoke the rejection of the honest people they are attempting
to help, it is hard to affirm that they are aiming, as their mission
would suppose, at promoting an improvement in the living conditions
in Central Africa. In this case, unless the international community
makes an effort to remove them from African forests, it will be
participating in poor forest governance and contributing to unsustainable
development.
Finally,
those who examine the function of the administrations studied
in this analysis will agree that it is necessary to build national,
subregional and regional markets for quality forest products.
Such action will doubtlessly be insufficient to achieve that the
forestry administrations arrange themselves in function of the
needs and aspirations to welfare of the inhabitants of Central
Africa. However these are important advances that should be strengthened
in the future thanks to a better organization of the beneficiaries,
to rational experience and, above all, to the justified support
of public opinion.
By
Assitou Ndinga, e-mail:
ndinga_assitou@yahoo.fr. (Ndinga, A.,
Gestion des forêts d’Afrique centrale. Avec ou Sans les concernés?
L’Harmattan, collection Études Africaines,
Parls, 2005).
index
- Costa Rica: Gringos landing at Tortuga Landing
A
computer. That is what the US citizen Paul Lambert, representative
of the Tortuga Landing company offered the Ministry of Environment
and Energy (MINAE) as compensation for having built a 105 metre
long and 4 metres wide road and for having eliminated natural
regeneration in a forest in the terrestrial maritime area of Quepos,
a Central Pacific locality. This occurred during a “conciliation”
hearing which took place on 17 February at the Environmental Administrative
Tribunal (file No. 184-05-3-TAA).
Previously,
and unaware of the road and the felling, on 16 May 2005, the Costa
Rican Federation for the Conservation of the Environment (Federación
Costarricense para la Conservación del Ambiente - FECON) had lodged
a complaint against Paul Lambert (File No. 05-007294-647-PE) with
the General Attorney of the Republic, requesting the collaboration
of the authorities to investigate an apparent case of fraud involving
the sale of plots in the above mentioned forest, which is part
of the State-owned national heritage and therefore inalienable
and non-lapsing. That is to say: it is not private property.
The
web site
www.latitude9.com published an advertisement for Tortuga
Landing, offering the paradisiacal forest on the shores of the
tropical sea at Punta Quepos and showing a sketch of the urbanization
project comprising fifteen exclusive plots, nine of which located
in the terrestrial maritime area. The plots had the word SOLD
written on them with the exception of one, valued at US$ 450,000.
The
text in English announced: “Last site up for sale at Tortuga Landing!
Tortuga Landing is a private community located in an exuberant
tropical forest on a private creek…The private sandy
beach is one of the last Pre-Columbian points of arrival of marine
turtles, preserved in a natural state… One of these plots, approximately
¾ of a hectare, is located on the southern side of the beach and
surrounded by virgin forest. One of the last sea-front opportunities
in the area!"
(Following the complaint, the text and graphic illustrations of
the advertisement were removed from the internet page and replaced
by others.)
When
I learnt about the complaint to the Environmental Tribunal I asked
to be included as a part of it and thus I learnt of other revealing
data:
-
In 1998, Paul Lambert commissioned the
preparation of the Regulatory Plan for Playa Para (a land planning
project) that only covers part of the beach (700 metres) and that
is tailor-made to fit the Tortuga Landing project. Presently this
Regulatory Plan is being contested.
-
Neither Tortuga Landing nor Paul Lambert have an approved concession
in Playa Para.
-
In order to approve the concession to Paul Lambert, the Municipality
of Aguirre conditioned it to the building of a road.
-
Prior to his appointment as President of the Environmental Tribunal,
Lic. Carlos Briceño Obando carried out functions in the Presidency
of the Republic and in the Municipality of Aguirre.
-
To advise him on environmental matters, Paul Lambert relies on
the services of the company “Alternativas de Gestión Ambiental
Sociedad Anónima” - A.G.A.S.A. (Alternatives to Environmental
Management Corporation), which includes members of the Costa Rican
environmental organization Apreflofas.
I
conclude with this reflection: In this increasingly polarized
Costa Rica, it is not a coincidence that the three coastal provinces
(Guanacaste, Puntarenas and Limon), the richest in biodiversity
and where tourism brings in the most foreign currency, should
paradoxically be the provinces showing the lowest rates of human
development. In order to satisfy the needs of some under the pretext
of “promoting ecotourism and attracting foreign investment,” turtles
and natural wealth in general are irresponsibly being replaced
by gringos, dollars…and computers.
By
Juan Figuerola, e-mail: juaneco@costarricense.cr
index
- Gambia: Bee-keeping as a tool for forest
protection and restoration
In
the early 1900s Gambia was covered by dense and almost impenetrable
forests. Today there are only some few remnants of primary forest
left, with 78% of the remaining forest area classified as “degraded
tree and shrub savannah vegetation.” The main cause of this forest
degradation process can be traced back to the introduction of
groundnut (peanut), which became the main export-oriented cash
crop, mostly aimed at supplying the French market with industrial
and cooking oil.
In
The Gambia, the easiest and cheapest way for preparing the land
for cultivation is the use of fire, and at end of the dry season
people are actively setting fire to small and large areas of land.
In many cases, those fires spread to the nearby tree and shrub
vegetation, thus further contributing to forest degradation. Fire
prevention and control thus appear to be essential for the protection
of the remaining forest areas.
In
a recent visit to the country, the WRM interviewed Amadou Ceesay
(CEO) and Ousman Joof (Production manager) from the National Beekeepers
Association of The Gambia (NBAG), who explained the importance
of their activity –coupled with community forest management- in
the conservation and restoration of forests, particularly regarding
fire prevention.
They
explained that community forest management is a long term project
and that people need to identify income generating activities
within those forests. According to Ceesay, “one of the best identified
activities is beekeeping. The moment they have their equipment,
in only 2-3 months they can begin to receive earnings, and beekeeping
provides more than the annual farming income.”
The
result is that people are then interested in protecting the forest,
because they need enough trees and flowers for their bees, so
they sustain existing ones and plant more. With hives, community
forests are well protected from forest fires, not only because
beekeepers wish to maintain their source of pollen, but also because
they need to protect the hives themselves -located inside the
forest- from fires. Ousman Joof says: “We serve as forest guardians:
no cutting, no burning, more planting. We need year-round flowers,
so we plant different species.”
The
activity is promoted in partnership between the NBAG, the Forestry
Department and the community forest committees. While the former
takes care of training and marketing of the honey, the Forestry
Department assists in the provision of equipment and transportation.
It
is also important to note that beekeeping and honey consumption
are not alien to Gambian culture. On the contrary, there is a
long tradition in the use of wild honey and in most communities
there is traditional beekeeping knowledge. The bees themselves
are native to Africa, thus being very resistant to disease. According
to the NBAG, “the idea of incorporating beekeeping into community
forests came from the farmers themselves, and most of the honey
produced is sold in Gambia, where it is also used in medication”,
emphasizing that “every household has honey.” People are now thinking
of planting trees to realize other incomes: wax, fruit, jams (with
honey and mango), firewood.
In
words of Amadou Ceesay, beekeeping “is the fastest and cheapest
way of protecting forests, because local communities benefit from
it.”
index
- India: Joint Parliamentary Committee Report
- A Victory for the Struggling Forest People
The
National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers (NFFPFW) welcomes
the report submitted by the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC)
on the draft Forest Rights Bill and is hopeful that the Central
Cabinet will approve it and will send it to the Parliament. NFFPFW
further acknowledges the role played by the Chairman and members
of the JPC, and contribution of all other social movements, struggle
groups of forest people and movements in shaping this Bill through
their suggestions, and submissions before the JPC.
The
present United Progressive Alliance
government led by the Congress Party
introduced “The Scheduled Tribes (Recognition
of Forest Rights) Bill, 2005” in the Parliament on 13 December
2005 promising to correct the injustice meted out to the tribals
in the past. Though most of the civil society groups and struggle
groups and movements welcomed the move by the Government, it was
pointed out by many that the draft Bill was limited in scope and
restricted rights over forest land to the scheduled tribes only
thereby depriving and violating the rights of non-scheduled tribe
forest dwellers. The draft Bill was also criticised for undermining
the role of the gram sabha [village council], bringing in a spectra
of large scale eviction in having 1980 as the cut of date and
keeping the option open for displacement of thousands from the
National Park and Sanctuaries.
NFFPFW,
fighting for rights of forest-dependent people since its inception
in 1998 while welcoming the draft Bill, raised the demand for
a more comprehensive legislation on forests, and was perhaps,
one of the first
groups in the country to publicly voice its concern on the limited
scope of the Bill and demanded that non-scheduled tribe forest
dwellers should be brought in to the ambit of the draft Bill.
The
NFFPFW, along with its constituent groups and the North Eastern
groups, also voiced the complex nature of the forests, its laws
and relationship between the forest dependent and forests in the
north eastern states that was not reflected in the draft. Since
then, NFFPFW along with other struggle groups and movements, consistently
echoed its concerns to policymakers, interacted with political
parties and members of Parliament, and legislators. NFFPFW made
a detailed presentation of its suggested amendments to the draft
Bill before the Joint Parliamentary Committee.
This
is certainly a moment of victory and reaffirms our faith on peoples’
power. However, we at NFFPFW are aware about the new challenges
it throws open now. The biggest challenge will be to force both
the Houses of the Parliament to pass the Bill, and in the time
of implementation of the Act at the ground level as there is bound
to be conflicts and enough preparations need to be done to deal
with such situations.
NFFPFW
believes that this is a part of the larger issue of livelihood
and ownership of forest resources and there are much larger challenges
hovering around implications of climate change, usurping of common
property rights, destruction of natural forests in favour of plantations,
and commodification of forest for global trade. Increased interventions
by International Financial Institutions in environment sector
in the country is taking away the space of communities and facilitating
a process of commodifying these sectors.
There
is a need to strengthen the collective struggle and defeat all
those efforts which are in conflict with the lives and livelihoods
and dignity of the forest dwelling communities. NFFPFW pledges
to carry forward that struggle for the rights of forest communities.
By
Ashok Chowdhury, sent by Mamata Dash, National Forum of Forest
People and Forest Workers (NFFPFW), e-mail: mamata_dash@yahoo.com
index
- From Mexico to Ecuador – twinned in history,
memory and resistance
Many
letters have been sent from abroad to the Government of Ecuador
in the framework of the campaign to support Ecuadorian social
and indigenous organizations that are endeavouring to avoid the
adoption in that country of a legislation that will imply the
expansion of large scale monoculture tree plantations (see the
article on Ecuador in this bulletin). But we want to publish
the full version of the letter sent by the Council of Traditional
Indigenous Doctors and Midwives of Chiapas (the Compitch) because
it reflects the feeling of many and is dictated by the heart of
a Latin American people that at this time beats in unison with
the Ecuadorian people.
“Dr.
Ana Alban Mora, Minister of the Environment of Ecuador and… the
others
We
are grass-roots Mexicans, indigenous Mayas, inhabitants of the
forests of Chiapas, all equally Latin American.
We
are members of the largest (but not necessarily most important)
organization of traditional doctors of Chiapas, a Mexican South-Eastern
Federal State. We come from different political affiliations,
from all religious creeds and all the indigenous tongues still
spoken in this State.
There
are not many of us, but believe it or not, in 2001, after two
years of resistance, we got the IBCG United States bio-prospecting
project cancelled. One year ago, 24 hours after a lightening march,
we also managed the cancellation of the State bill to define (corporatively)
the biological wealth of the State. A few months ago we were able
to neutralize the bill on a federal law for access to genetic
resources. The reason for our nonconformity and mobilization has
always been the same: the lack of consultation with the interested
parties, in this case us, and others like us, the social majorities.
They
tell us that the same is happening in Ecuador, that they are not
convening the grass roots organizations to participate in a process
of public discussion affecting their natural resources - in this
case forests - but they do convene the business class, the moneyed
class.
We
will not make a formal, administrative petition, asking for the
bill to be suspended or modified. But just take a mirror, look
at it and look well at what it reflects, towards the past and
towards the future, as we should always see in a mirror. If this
mirror only reflects the present, that is to say, permanence of
the same, then you loose and our grass-roots Ecuadorian companions
win, because you know, our mirrors from the grass roots reflect
memory and times to come, that is to say, where the face they
are looking at comes from and what is waiting for it on the basis
of the face that is looking at it. But they also win, we win because
with us, the difference is, madam Minister, that nobody pays us
to defend the wealth of our homelands that we safeguard for everyone’s
happiness and because, contrary to you, by doing this we multiply
ourselves.
For
IUCN, FAO, World Bank, Tropenbos International, Dutch Ministry
of Agriculture, and annexes, we add some respectful prayers because,
in view of their common track record, we conclude that the above
reflection will not be enough..
From
the faithful mirror of history with time, ours and that of your
peoples:
The
Board of Directors of the Council of Traditional Indigenous Doctors
and Midwives of Chiapas (the Compitch).
President:
Manuel Pérez Jiménez, Secretary: Domingo López Sántiz, Treasurer:
Francisca Pérez Pérez
Palenque,
Chiapas, Mexico, this 20th day of June, 2006”
index
COMMUNITIES
AND TREE MONOCULTURES
- Brazil: Indigenous representatives campaign in Europe to recover
their land occupied by Aracruz Celulose
Paulo
Henrique de Oliveira, a Tupinikim leader of
Caieiras Velhas and Coordinator of the Articulação de Povos e
Organizações Indígenas do Nordeste, Minas Gerais e Espírito Santo
- APOINME (Articulation of Indigenous People and Organizations
from the Northeast, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo),
and Antônio Carvalho, a Guarani chief, travelled to Europe in
April/May 2006, to publicise their struggle to demarcate Tupinikim
and Guarani lands in Espírito Santo (see WRM Bulletins Nº 94,
96, 102, 103) . They spent three weeks travelling to Norway, Holland,
Germany and Austria where they talked to various groups about
the 11,009 hectares of their land currently in the possession
of Aracruz Celulose --Brazil’s giant pulp producer. The following
is Paulo de Oliveira’s account of the trip.
“We
left Brazil on 25 April, aiming to show what is happening with
indigenous people in Brazil, and more specifically in the State
of Espírito Santo, where the indigenous territory is occupied
by a multinational company, Aracruz Celulose S.A., in which some
European countries, among other countries, hold shares.
In
Norway, a country which invests 34 million Norwegian crowns (approximately
4.5 million Euros) in the company, we held a meeting with the
Bank of Norway, with members of the Parliament and with the Council
of Ethics of the Government Pension Fund. We asked them to withdraw
all the investments they hold in the company.
Some
of the factories that buy pulp from Aracruz are based in Germany.
There we took part in meetings with some of these companies, with
the Forest Stewarship Council (part of Aracruz’s operations were
certified by FSC as well managed), with the Ministry of Development,
with members of the Parliament of the Green Party and with some
NGOs. We talked about the disrespect shown by Aracruz Celulose
for the indigenous people and for the Brazilian Constitution,
which guarantees Indigenous Rights. We asked the various people
and organisation that we met to put pressure on Aracruz so that
it returns the lands, respects the decision of the Minister of
Justice and that the Brazilian government demarcates the Tupinikim
and Guarani lands as soon as possible and enforces the Brazilian
Constitution.
During
the trip, we were able to have many discussions with other NGOs,
to strengthen our struggle and our organization, as well as to
see that the Europeans are very sensitive towards the indigenous
cause and that they make all efforts to help us. For example,
the children of a school we visited willingly polished shoes to
raise funds to help us in our struggle.
However, I hope that
the politicians, the companies, the Ministry of Development, the
FSC and the Bank we visited are able to fulfil their promises,
and that Aracruz returns the lands. I hope that the government
speeds up the process of demarcation and that we may continue
our struggle, helping our brothers and sisters who fight for their
lands, for their rights, for their dignity, because our struggle
does not end here. This is just the beginning of a struggle for
a better life and a better planet.”
The
struggle of the Tupinikin and Guarani peoples seems to bear fruit.
Such has been the international discredit of Aracruz for its usurpation
of indigenous land that the company itself has recently announced
that it decided to “request the voluntary
temporary withdrawal of FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification
of the forests [eucalyptus
plantations] pertaining
to its Guaíba Unit located in the State of Rio Grande do Sul.
This certification, which was obtained before the acquisition
of this unit, had previously been revalidated three consecutive
times and was to expire in December 2006.”
What
has this to do with the struggle in Espirito Santo? Aracruz
itself acknowledges
the link. In its press release (at
http://www.aracruz.com.br/web/en/imprensa/noticias/noticias178.htm)
it states that “some stakeholders had expressed concern to the
FSC about the revalidation of the UG certificate — not related
to forestry management in Rio Grande do Sul, but rather a land
dispute between the company’s Barra do Riacho Unit (more than
2,000 km away) and indigenous communities in the State of Espírito
Santo”.
This is clearly a damage control operation. In this way, Aracruz
is acknowledging the success of the indigenous peoples’ campaign
in generating international support to their struggle to recover
their lands and is trying to avoid broadening opposition within
the FSC certification arena.
While
this issue is developing, Aracruz tries to conceal its
real face with big money that can hire
broadcasting spaces to capture huge global audiences. A new nationwide
propaganda in the current World
Football Cup
shows national
celebrities, like former football player Pelé, playing a ball
to each other, while a voice says: “Aracruz: fazendo um papel
bonito lá fora”, meaning in English “Aracruz: playing a nice role
out there” (there’s
a world play since in Portuguese the word “papel” has the double
meaning of "role"
and "paper",
the end product of the cellulose produced by Aracruz).
Nothing
more far from reality, and local communities know it well. On
June 16, in Jacutinga, a community at Linhares, north of Espírito
Santo, seven tractors of the company were put in motion to pull
down part of the Brazilian Mata Atlântica
forest. The action was carried out on a holiday, but was nothwithstanding
deterred by the firm resistance of pesants from the Movement of
Small Peasants who have been protecting the area for more than
twenty years (see report from the
Alert against the Green
Desert Movement
at
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Brazil/Aracruz_World_Cup.doc).
Not
certifiable, not reliable. Aracruz should not be viable.
index
- Brazil: Impacts of eucalyptus plantations
on women
The social and environmental impacts of monoculture eucalyptus
plantations have been well documented in many countries. However,
the gender dimension has usually been overlooked, thus hiding
the differentiated impacts they have on women. The following quotes
from a research carried out in Brazil on Aracruz Cellulose’ plantations
and pulp mill operation are therefore very useful to shed some
light on the issue and to encourage other people to look further
into these less well-known impacts.
“Indigenous
women, Afrodescendents (Quilombolas) and peasants, who used to
live with their families and communities in the places taken over
by eucalyptus plantations, had their socioeconomic role well defined.
As reported by Mr. Antônio dos Santos, from the Indian settlement
of Pau Brasil, Indian women had specific tasks. They produced
certain types of handicrafts such as sieves, for example, while
the men made bowls and oars. Together with the men, they worked
on the land planting and hoeing, and also fished. The Quilombola
women, for example, produced bijú --a typical food of this population--
to feed their families and to be sold and to produce income.
With
the arrival of the eucalyptus plantations, the women, like the
other inhabitants of the region, experienced the changes in the
organization of their territory and of their place in the community;
in what they produced and how it was produced. Their socioeconomic
role in the family and community underwent alterations and several
of these women, after having lost their land, were forced to seek
another place to live and work. They migrated with their children
and relatives to urban regions, close to the place where they
used to live, which is the case of many families that moved to
the cities of São Mateus and Aracruz. Others sought the metropolitan
region of the state, increasing the size of shanty towns, and
to continue caring for their houses and families, exchanged rural
activities for those of maids, cleaning women or washerwomen of
urban middle and upper
class families.
The
women that still resist in the midst of eucalyptus also continue
taking care of their homes and families, but at the same time,
face more difficulties than before. For example, the rivers and
streams that were used for washing clothing, and from where they
used to take drinking water and fish in, are mostly contaminated.
Accordingly, the members of the family, including the women, are
forced to go to other places to obtain drinking water. Doralim
Serafim dos Santos, a Quilombola, says that ‘nobody here washes
clothes in this stream, since the clothes become yellow and filthy.
When I was growing up we used to clean fish in the stream and
the water was crystal clear’.
Another
problem is the lack of native forest, a source of the raw material
necessary to create handicrafts. In addition, the contamination
of the soil caused by the use of pesticides on plantations jeopardizes
the planting of medicinal herbs by women. Medicinal herbs are
used frequently by traditional populations to prevent and combat
illnesses. The shortage of good and sufficient land also complicates
the coordination of domestic tasks and agricultural production.
Nowadays women have to cover long distances to work on third party
plantations, in the coffee and sugar cane fields, for example.
These women are more subject to occupational accidents. It is
also worth adding that today, in the state of Espírito Santo,
26% of the families, i.e., 800,000 homes, have women as heads
of the family. This means that Espírito Santo is one of the Brazilian
states with the greatest number of homes headed by women in proportionate
terms. This item of data indicates that paid work for women has
ceased to be merely a form of boosting the family income and has
become vital for the subsistence of women and of their families.
There
is also the experience of indigenous women that, with the loss
of their conditions of subsistence, sought alternative ways of
contributing to the family financially. Some have become the maids
of the bosses of the company Aracruz. However, in 1998, after
the process of self-demarcation of indigenous lands, they were
discharged in retaliation. They had to go after other types of
work outside the Indian settlements. However, some of them were
luckier and managed to get jobs as teachers and health agents
in the actual settlements where they live. All this effort on
the part of women to contribute towards the family income has
produced changes in their traditional role, which has been affecting
the entire community to a certain extent. On the other hand, in
spite of the ruin produced by Aracruz’s large agro-industrial
project, the company seeks to be close to this population at all
times, organizing aid actions. One of the last alternatives that
we have news of is the organization of professionalizing courses
for these women, with the objective of making them into manicures,
pedicures and waitresses, professions foreign to this population.
Another
situation that merits emphasis is that of the reduced quantity
of women from neighboring communities that work at the company
Aracruz. It is not surprising that in the year 1998, only 6.8%
of the company’s employees were women, according to data from
the time.
Nevertheless,
most of the women that worked at Aracruz performed cleaning services,
worked in the administrative sector of the plant, or in the nursery
and in planting of seedlings, perhaps because women are supposed
to be more qualified for this type of activity that requires careful
manual work. However, nowadays this activity is already almost
totally mechanized. The majority of these services are now outsourced.
In
work on the land, women also suffered occupational accidents like
men. One example of an accident occurred on July 14, 1986, when
a former worker from Aracruz Celulose was descending a ‘grota’
with a box of 30 eucalyptus seedlings, weighing 45 kilos. She
fell and broke her spine. After having been transferred to an
office cleaning job, she was fired as she was unable to stand
up any more. Now aged 51, she cannot even carry a chair and needs
to control the pain in her spine with medication. She has never
managed to get another job.
Often,
however, women, in an invisible role, had to care for their husbands,
sick and the victims of accidents caused by the work carried out
on the plantations. Doralina says that ‘there were days when he
came home with his eyes hurting and was almost unable to get to
sleep at night, then his eyes got really bad, he couldn’t see
properly, and did a few tests’. There are cases of widows of ex-workers
from the company Aracruz and outsourced companies that need to
maintain the house alone, without any support”.
Excerpted
from the research “Eucalyptus Plantations and Pulp Production.
Promises of Jobs and Destruction of Work. The case of Aracruz
Celulose in Brazil”, by Alacir De Nadai,
Winfridus Overbeek, and Luiz Alberto Soares, commissioned by WRM
and The Network Alert against the Green Desert, May 2005,
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Brazil/fase.html
index
- Colombia: Community challenges multinational
company Smurfit Carton de Colombia
Colombia is involved
in the same process taking place in several Latin American countries
regarding the
establishment of fast-growing monoculture tree plantations.
Recently the wrongly-called
“General Forest Law” was adopted, or as the environmentalists
have christened
it, the three-lie law: it is not a law, it is not general, nor
is it about forests. In order to be a law it ought to serve the
interests of Colombian society as a whole and not those of the
major forestry companies. In turn, it would be a general law if
it were to cover other forest-related issues such as community
use or ecosystem restoration –just to name a few examples– and
not just forest exploitation. Finally, it is not a forest
law but a law of an economic nature that enables and facilitates
the entry of large timber companies to exploit forests which,
in the framework of this law, are seen as mere merchandise.
At the same time,
a complex network of actors, ranging from international financial
institutions such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development
Bank, together with various “cooperation” agencies from different
countries –Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, USA, just to name
a few– have appeared on the scene to prepare the ground just as
they have done in various other Latin American countries.
The General Forest
Law comes hand in hand with many evils for Colombian forests and
the Colombian people, among them opening doors for the establishment
of fast-growing tree plantations.
Presently Colombia
has approximately 200,000 hectares of pine and eucalyptus plantations.
The main company operating in the country is the transnational
corporation Smurfit Carton de Colombia. This company owns large
tracts of tree plantations --40.000 hectares—and a factory producing
cardboard and paper. It also has a track record of violation of
human rights, deforestation and contamination (see articles published
in previous bulletins no. 77, 43).
The company owns
areas planted with pine and eucalyptus trees in the Cauca Valley.
Presently it is planning to increase their extension in the Valley
area and for this purpose intends to enter the Municipality of
Guacari, more precisely in the Vereda of Santa Rosa de Tapias,
Alto Pomares sector.
However, the company
had not reckoned with finding an organized community, unwilling
to allow the company to enter its lands.
The area in question
is an extremely rich high zone, where sources of water spring
and serve 17 communities comprising 1,500 peasant families who
inhabit this area. These peasant families are smallholders,
owning an average of 4-5 “plazas” (1 plaza = 6400 metres of land).
The predominant crop on their farms is coffee, but it is also
combined with a great diversity of other crops, such as vegetables,
fruit-trees, bamboo (which they use to build their houses). They
also combine animal husbandry, breeding animals such as pigs,
cattle and poultry. They obtain almost all the necessary
elements for subsistence from their land and work.
Water –which the
springs in the uplands provide– is a central element enabling
them to produce food on their farms. They know that the
entry of Smurfit in the uplands and the establishment of fast-growing
tree plantations imply the depletion of a resource that is presently
shared among the peasants and essential to maintain their food
sovereignty.
Smurfit intends to
enter these highlands by associating itself with one of the large
landowners still remaining in the area. This family owns 320 hectares
of land. A first step by the company to enter the zone will be
to occupy these 320 hectares and then advance purchasing lands
until the peasants who resist selling their properties are surrounded
and finally obliged to abandon the land.
When the peasants
found out about the company’s plans they started to organize themselves,
obtain information and lodge complaints with the various entities
involved in an attempt to curb the company’s progress. At
various meetings they had strong confrontations with the company
representatives, who threatened the peasants and told them that
Smurfit “will enter come what may.”
Smurfit invited the
peasants to visit its “planted forests” and to show them the innumerable
benefits they will bring. They visited the plantations in 4 wheel-drive
vehicles, together with company technicians. They saw nobody in
the 4,500 hectares visited, a situation strongly contrasting with
the situation in the areas they presently inhabit. The silence
of the plantations bewildered them. They saw no birds, not a single
cricket, not a single house, the earth was no longer earth but
stones… The company guided the tour and did not allow them to
talk to the inhabitants of the area they visited. It was then
that they decided to organize their own tour of the same zone
with their own resources to see with their own eyes and not those
of the company and to talk to the local communities on the impacts
of the plantations. They corroborated what they already knew:
Smurfit must be stopped!
