OUR
VIEWPOINT
-
Regional networks: A step forward in the
struggle against plantations
Large-scale
rubber, oil palm, eucalyptus and pine tree plantations are being
promoted by governments in Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand and
Vietnam. However, affected villagers are openly protesting against
them. At a meeting held last month in Cambodia we learned that
local communities are strongly opposing these plans because they
see that these plantations are encroaching on their lands and
impacting on their livelihoods. During field visits in Cambodia
and Laos, we were able to witness that their forests have been
cut down, their upland rice fields destroyed and their grazing
lands occupied to make way to monoculture tree plantations.
As
well as in other Southern countries facing similar projects, NGOs
in the Mekong region have an important role to play in supporting
local communities’ right to make their own decisions over the
use of their lands and resources. However, some NGOs appear to
believe that opposition to plantations is not possible and that
the only option is to try to improve them.
That
assumption is simply not true. As an example in this respect,
it is worth mentioning that a concrete plantation project - Pheapimex-
has been recently stopped by local communities in Cambodia itself.
In many other cases, the expansion of plantations has been either
halted or greatly scaled down –such as in Thailand and recently
in Ecuador- as a result of organized opposition.
Struggles
at the local level have been strengthened by a number of activities
carried out over many years by people and organizations throughout
the world that have supported local communities, generated awareness,
disseminated information and analysis, carried out research, lobbied
governments and international institutions and organized campaigns
against large scale tree monocultures.
Although
opposition at the local level is the necessary starting point,
it is clear that the combined power of governments and corporations
–assisted by a large number of “expert” and “aid” agencies-
require strong opposition movements and that this implies the
need to create broad networks at the national, regional and international
level.
Such
networks already exist in many Southern
countries and a more recent development has been the creation
of formal and informal regional networks to oppose plantations
in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
In
the case of Latin America, the Network Against Monoculture Tree
Plantation was created at the World Social Forum in January 2003
and today is actively campaigning in almost all the countries
of the region.
As
respects to Asia, two meetings have been held –first in Thailand
in 2003 and last month in Cambodia- between representatives from
organizations working in the Mekong region, which have resulted
in agreements for working together to oppose the spread of plantations
(see article below “Cambodia: Mekong Regional Conference on Tree
Plantations”).
In
Africa, anti plantation campaigners in South Africa are now working
in close contact with organizations in Swaziland and Mozambique
and establishing contacts with organizations in other African
countries where plantations either exist or are being promoted.
(see articles on South Africa and Mozambique below).
People
participating in those networks are convinced that plantations
can be effectively stopped and –in spite of the difficulties-
are actively working for achieving that objective. The creation
of regional networks constitutes a major step forward in this
struggle and their success will ultimately depend on their capacity
to create a broad peoples’ movement against plantations. If
that is achieved, plantations will no doubt be stopped.
index
COMMUNITIES
AND FORESTS
- Gambia:
Where the rural population is at the centre of forest management
The
Gambia is a small (10,000 sq.km.) and economically poor country,
facing a number of social and environmental problems. Among the
latter, deforestation is probably the one that poses the greatest
threat to both people and the environment. Until the early 1900s,
the Gambia was covered by dense forests. In 1981 about 430.000
ha or 45% of total land area were classified as forest. In 1988
the figure had dropped to about 340.000 ha or 30% of land area.
Additionally, the degradation of the forest condition is so severe
that most closed forests have disappeared leaving only a tree
and shrub savanna of poor quality.
It
is therefore interesting to see how the Gambia –with very limited
financial resources- is now addressing the problem within a people-centred
approach. In this respect, the Forestry Department has developed
the “Gambian Forest Management Concept” (GFCM), which guides all
its activities.
A
few quotes from the GFMC document serve to illustrate a major
shift from mainstream forestry approaches:
-
“The forest administration and individual forest officer have
to see beyond the trees and become more concerned with people
and the multiple-use potential of forest lands. The traditional
approach of foresters needs to be widened in favour of involving
the rural population in management and rational use of their forests”
-
“Land-use decisions cannot be made from only the foresters point
of view, but have to take into consideration population development,
need for agricultural land, etc.”
-
“The objective of forest management must be oriented more towards
cattle grazing rather than to focus on mere protection or on the
production of timber and other forest produce”.
-
“The function of forestry staff has been changed from policemen
to management partners”.
The
GFMC puts the rural population at the centre of managing forests.
Consequently, it follows participatory approaches so that local
people are fully involved in planning, decision-making, organization
and administration. The introduction of Community Forestry was
in fact born out of the realization by the Department of Forestry
of the futility of its efforts at protecting forests without the
committed and willing involvement of the local community.
The
introduction and application of community forestry has proven
to be a process of confidence building and to take a long time
in creating a sense of forest ownership among the villagers due
to a profound mistrust about governmental actions and policies
based on past experience.
One
of the primary conditions a community has to fulfil before a Community
Forest Management Agreement is entered into between it and the
Department of Forestry is the creation of a Forest Committee at
the village level. This Committee is responsible for all work
organization at village level.
Basically,
community forestry implementation distinguishes three phases:
a preparatory phase during which the forest management by local
communities is prepared; a preliminary phase during which the
communities demonstrate their capacity in forest protection and
management; and a consolidation phase during which the communities
gain further managerial and technical forestry skills aiming at
self-management.
Once
the process is completed, a Community Forest Management Agreement
(CFMA) is established between the community and the Department
of Forestry, which grants permanent ownership rights over a clearly
demarcated forest to the community or communities. With the CFMA
the communities are entitled to keep the benefits derived from
their forests. The only condition attached to the CFMA is to manage
the forest resource according to a simple management plan.
The
Gambian experience appeared to be so interesting, that the WRM
secretariat decided that it would be useful to visit the country.
We therefore got in contact with the Director of the Department
of Forestry –Mr Jato S. Sillah- who kindly organized a number
of visits to community forests as well as interviews with relevant
forestry department staff. What we saw and heard basically coincided
with the stated forestry policy.
We
visited several community forests and talked with members of community
forest committees who explained us the numerous benefits they
were receiving from different forest uses. We had a meeting with
the National Beekeepers Association where they explained how this
activity helps in the prevention of forest fires and in increasing
rural people’s incomes (see
http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/107/Gambia.html). We saw foresters
without uniform interacting in equal terms with community members.
We saw posters of community forests that said “grazing allowed”.
Forestry staff explained the bureaucratic simplicity for achieving
community forest status. From the Director of the Department of
Forestry to the field staff everyone seemed truly convinced about
the Gambian Concept and committed to its implementation.
It
is of course true that a short visit to a few areas in a country
can in no way be proof of anything. However, this experience appears
to be a major step in the right direction and to have a potential
for replication in other countries facing similar problems. More
research is probably needed to assess the reality on the ground,
but the conceptual framework not only makes sense from a forest
conservation perspective but also from a social and economic one.
Article
based on information from: Gambian Forest Management Concept (GFMC).
Version 2. Draft, May 2001
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Gambia/GambiaGFMC.pdf Community
Forest Ownership: Key to Sustainable Forest Resource Management.
The Gambian Experience
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Gambia/GambianExperience.html
and trip to Gambia by Ricardo Carrere in June 2006
index
- Kenya:
The Mau Forest Complex threatened
Loss
of forest cover in Kenya has contributed to diminishing livelihoods
of many Kenyans caused by reduced land productivity, famine and
drought. The current drought experienced in the country in 2005/2006
is a case in point. Large-scale livestock deaths were reported,
and in many places, incidences of resource use conflict were witnessed,
leading to loss of human lives.
Though
most of Kenya’s forests have been decimated by degradation among
other factors, the Mau Complex forests cover, and in particular
that of the Maasai Mau Forest has been the most affected, and
has receded drastically over time.
The
Mau Complex, the largest forest of Kenya, covers some 400,000
ha. It lies between 2,000 m and 2,600 m
above the sea level, on the Western slope
of the Mau Escarpment, and is situated approximately 250 km from
Nairobi and border Kericho to the West, Nakuru to the North and
Narok to the South. It comprises South West Mau, East Mau, Transmara,
Mau Narok, Maasai Mau, Western Mau and Southern Mau. These seven
forest blocks merge to form the larger Mau forest Complex. Out
of all these blocks, only Maasai Mau is not gazetted.
As
a montane forest, the Mau Complex is one of the five main “water
towers” of Kenya, with Mt. Kenya, the Aberdare Range, Mt. Elgon,
and the Cherengani Hills forming the upper catchments of all (but
one) main rivers west of the Rift Valley. It feeds major lakes,
three of which are crossboundary.
The
Southern forests of the Mau Complex are
rich in biological diversity in terms of fauna and flora. They
host ungulates such as the Bongo and the yellow-backed Duiker;
carnivores, including the Golden Cat and the Leopard,
and the forest elephant. The forest of the Maasai Mau, in particular,
comprises large stands of cedar and podocarpus forests with scattered
natural glades.
A
large majority of Kenya’s population lives in Lake Victoria basin.
This region is crossed by major rivers flowing from the Mau Complex.
The water from Mau forests serves more that 4 millions people
inhabiting more than 578 locations in Kenya and several locations
in Northern Tanzania. In addition the Mau Complex provides continuous
river flow and favourable micro-climate conditions - which are
essential to crop production -, as well as many products including
medicinal plants, firewood and grazing.
The
forest is the home of the Ogiek Community, who from time immemorial
to date predominantly inhabit Mau forest in Rift Valley province
and until the 1950’s had been subsisting on sustainable hunting
of wild game and gathering of wild fruits. As a result of laws,
policies and the rapid spread of Western
religion and education, the Ogieks have
lost their cultures, traditions and territories. They now find
themselves practising small scale agriculture and livestock keeping.
The Mau forest is also vital for the pastoral Maasai, who graze
their animals there during the dry seasons.
More
than 46,000 hectares have been excised to convert the forest to
other alternative land uses like settlement and private agriculture
during the last decade. The impact of the ensuing massive deforestation
caused by factors including large-scale encroachment, charcoal
production, logging of indigenous trees, is already impacting
tremendously on water resources, drying boreholes, drying rivers.
The
Maasai Mau forest, with 46,278 hectares, is a major natural asset
in terms of water catchment, micro-climate regulation, biological
diversity. Between 1986 – 2003 it has suffered a loss
of 20,330 hectares. In a Status Report 2005, the aerial survey
shows that approximately 11,095 hectares in the western part of
the Maasai Mau Forest (Narok South Constituency) was destroyed
or heavily impacted by settlements. At the time of the survey,
the forest was being actively cleared, with numerous plumes of
smoke billowing out of the remaining forest canopy.
Forest
excision for settlement is a complex problem. Often, forests are
split off allegedly to resettle families that were forced to move
from neighbouring forests. Most of the
time, resettlement
is carried out without local communities’ participation with the
result that they are distributed on small parcels while powerful
people – well-connected grabbers, loggers and charcoal burners
–take most of the land (see WRM Bulletin Nº 55).
Article
based on information from: “Mau Complex Under Siege. Continuous
destruction of Kenya’s largest forest”, UNEP, Kenya Wildlife Service,
KFWG, June 2005; “Maasai Mau Forest Status Report 2005”, UNEP,
Kenya Wildlife Service, KFWG, and Ewaso Ngiro South Development
Authority; “Article 2 of the African Charter and the Ogiek: challenges
and way forward”, Kanyinke Sena, sent by the author, e-mail:
kanyinke@yahoo.com;
“Mau
Forest Complex On The Spotlight”, Ogiek Welfare Council, forum
for friends of Peoples close to Nature,
http://build.blodeuwedd.org/?q=node/288
index
-
Uganda: Sugar company plans to destroy Mabira
forest
A
Ugandan sugar company plans to expand its sugar estate destroying
7,000 hectares or nearly a third of Mabira forest, one of the
few remaining intact forests around the shores of Lake Victoria,
home to unique species of monkeys and birds.
The
plan has proved hugely controversial for threatening hundreds
of unique species confined to dwindling patches of rainforest
and may affect the rainfall in a region already suffering from
drought linked to climate change.
President
Yoweri Museveni ordered an assessment in August of the feasibility
of giving away a quarter of the protected Mabira forest reserve
to the privately owned Sugar Corporation of Uganda (Scoul), one
of Uganda's biggest sugar companies, for clearing to widen its
neighbouring sugar plantation. Museveni was quoted in the local
press as saying industry must take priority. "Forests are
easier to plant than constructing industries," the state-run
New Vision reported him as saying. "If you have factories,
you can get funds to conserve the environment." (!)
The
move outraged parliamentarians, Mabira residents and officials
at the National Forest Authority (NFA), who say the environmental
cost of trashing one of Uganda's last remaining patches of natural
forest would be incalculable. But the government says extra jobs
would outweigh losses caused by the removal of the forest.
"You
can't cut the forest. We'd lose our lives," said 50-year-old
John Kasule, who lives outside the reserve. "The forest brings
rain, we collect firewood from there, we use it for houses and
rope. There are 40 types of medicine we would lose," he said,
pointing to a dense green tangle of trees and thick vines stretching
into the distance.
The
forest absorbs pollution in an industrial area, sinking millions
of tonnes of carbon dioxide, and helps maintain central Uganda's
wet climate -- removing it would bring drier weather, hurting
crop yields, a NFA report said. "Mabira is a watershed for
two rivers contributing to the Nile, an ecological stabiliser
between two major industrial towns and it protects Lake Victoria,"
said NFA spokesman Gaster Kiyingi.
“Instead
of being negative ... we need to plant more trees," Environment
Minister Maria Mutagmba said. But others disagree. "How many
years have foresters been doing research in how to regenerate
rainforest? We don't know where to start," said Jacovelli.
"A tropical forest with hundreds of species is impossible
to replant. Once it's gone, it's gone."
Article
based on: “EU Scheme Cuts Uganda Sugar Funding in Forest Row”,
November 16, 2006, and “Plan To Axe Ugandan Forest For Sugar Sparks
Anger”, November 29, 2006, by Tim Cocks, Reuters News Service,
sent by Andrew Boswell, e-mail:
a_boswell_2004@yahoo.co.uk
index
-
India: Peasants resist take-over of land by
the ‘left’ Government in West Bengal
The
Indian province of West Bengal holds the unique record of being
ruled by the longest-serving ‘democratically-elected-left-government’
in the country, and, for that matter, anywhere else in the world,
as the left never fail to point out.
This
‘left’ state is on rampage, and terror was unleashed on peasants,
agricultural workers and small traders in Singur, an agricultural
area located in the fertile basin of the River Ganga.
West
Bengal contains some of the most productive agricultural areas
in Indian sub-continent, especially the sprawling green plains
washed by the river Ganga and hundreds of its tributaries. The
green comes from extensive rice cultivations that traditionally
dominated the Bengal landscape for better parts of last 2000 years.
A long period in which invading armies came and went, the British
built their empire and faded away, the Indian nationalism was
born and degenerated into an excuse for exploitation
-- he left had in fact branded India’s political freedom
as ‘false’. In 1948 the Indian Communist Party gave a call for
armed revolution that was to start from Bengal. The abortive revolution,
and many of the struggles that preceded and succeeded it centred
round the green of Ganga basin. The word ‘Dhan’ (Bengali term
for rice) became a word synonymous with struggle, around which
people rallied and fought, with sickles, bows and arrows, and
resisted feudal landlords and rich peasants, and started the journey
towards a new social order. In just 30 years since the country’s
independence, the Communist party survived repeated splits --
and severe state repression -- to
emerge as the dominant political force in Bengal.
Land
struggles led by left and more radical left engulfed Bengal in
the 1960s and 70s, and ultimately helped the better organised
among them to come to power. The rural poor, consisting of small
and marginal peasants, agricultural workers and share-croppers,
formed the strongest support base of the newly-elected Left Front
Government. After coming to power, the Government tried to serve
this constituency and initiated land reform measures like redistribution
of surplus lands and a much-needed process of recording Bargadaars
(tenants-at-will, and sharecroppers, those who tilled others’
lands on basis of verbal contractual agreements). These reforms
impacted positively on the economy of the region, and agricultural
production throughout the state increased manifold as large quantities
of new land were freed and came under tillage.
The
green fields of Bengal dominated the economy and politics of the
province, and let the left enjoy an uninterrupted reign that had
now been continuing for 30 years. It was an eventful 30 years
in which the political iconography and rhetoric of the left underwent
significant changes worldwide, and revolutions and militant land
struggles ceased to be in vogue in much of the erstwhile socialist
societies. The state of USSR withered away —in reverse, the People’s
Republic of China built a capitalist economy within a ‘reformed’
socialist state, and in many other countries the communists tuned
into social democrats and other ‘moderate’ sheds of left. These
tumultuous events failed to change the Bengal left, however. The
‘communists’ in power still swear by Stalin, love Fidel, give
Hugo Chavez a hero’s welcome, and celebrate left electoral victories
in Latin America. Looking at the red banners and hammer-and-sickle
flags that are usually prominently displayed everywhere, it seems
nothing has changed.
But,
beyond the red façade and the rhetoric, everything changed. The
inexorable globalization juggernaut and the ‘free’ market moved
in, shopping malls and wide roads replaced shanties, and the ‘communists’
metamorphosed into a hungry bunch of land speculators, contractors
and power-brokers. The Government became pragmatic and started
courting capitalists in public, the political logic being that
in the era of global capital, you can only build socialism by
developing capitalism! Also, one should always emulate China and
its giant strides towards development.
The
latest instance of this socialism-through-capitalism is Singur,
where the government has forcibly acquired about 1000 acres of
prime agricultural land for the Tata group's proposed low-cost
car factory. Police deployed by the 'Left' Government went berserk
at villages of Singur, while 'smoothening' the land acquisition
process. In an incident strongly reminiscent of the Kalinganagar
massacre (13 tribals were killed in police firing, while resisting
enclosing of their lands by the same Tata group) in neighbouring
province of Orissa earlier this year, police turned violent when
local farmers and agricultural workers resisted physical take-over
and attempted enclosure (the land was being enclosed with barbed
wire fences) of fertile farmlands. A large police contingent entered
people's homes, and beat up everybody present. Women were physically
abused, and even children and infirm old persons were not spared.
Some granaries were torched and fields were set on fire. Many
people were injured and more than 50 were arrested. The resistance
and rampage went on throughout the day, most of which was telecast
live by regional TV channels.
The
Police cordoned off Singur and neighbouring areas since the incident
on 2nd December and did not let anybody enter, including
noted social activist Medha Patkar. The ruling Communist Party
of India (Marxist) leaders including the Chief Minister Buddhadev
Bhattacharya publicly defended police action, saying that the
incident was just another ultra left show, and land acquisition
and construction of the TATA factory would go on as usual.
Spontaneous
protests against police brutality continue to rock Bengal, and
in Singur, peasants and agricultural workers are still on fast.
The scale and intensity of the popular protests have put the Government
on the defensive, and they now accuse the opposition of slander
and ‘disinformation’. The area is not that fertile, Government-controlled
media points out, and the state acquired only mono-crop lands
or permanent fallows. The Government insists that the car factory
and the socially responsible ‘national’ capitalists like TATAs
would lead to people’s development.
Why
does a car-factory need so much agricultural land? How many families
would the project directly displace? How much of the land acquired
was mono-crop? What are the numbers of agricultural workers and
unrecorded ‘bargadaars’ in the project area? The Government refuses
to give precise answers.
Official
facts, or the lack of it, show that the Government, in its commitment
towards capital, market and globalisation decided to wish away
the reality, and took up the 'challenge' to go ahead with
the project. This ‘challenge’ means ignoring the very real existence
of several thousand families dependant on this land: landless
labourers; seasonal tribal migrant agricultural labourers; cycle-van
operators and small transporters; traders who buy-carry-sell agro
products to distant wholesale markets; artisans and craftsmen;
and others involved in various occupations. Compensation can partially
offset the cost of land of the land owners but who can compensate
for the loss of livelihood?
Armed
police and rapid action force on the prowl, important concerns
and questions about Singur unanswered, the Bengal Government prepares
for other projects that include handing over of several thousand
acres of farmlands in Bhangar (near Calcutta) to the Salim Group
from Indonesia, staunch supporters of the infamous Suharto Regime
that killed thousands of Indonesian communists. Another chunk
of land would be handed over to Jindals for setting up a steel
plant in forest areas of South-West Bengal. In coastal areas of
South-West Bengal, the Government is all set to go ahead with
a US-aided 10,000 Megawatt Nuclear Power Plant that would displace
more than 200,000 peasants, agricultural workers and fisherfolk.
This last, if we have to believe the Bengal Government and the
Bush administration, is a climate-crisis-solution project, and
clean!
It
is ironic that this all-out attack on Bengal’s environment, economy
and people is led by the left, who, outside Bengal, are among
the most vocal opponents of development-induced displacement and
the ‘imperialist’ conspiracy to put the country’s natural resources
on sale. On the other hand, perhaps this typifies the new, ‘reformed’
reality of our times, where capital and the market enclose all
commons past and present, and appropriate familiar concepts of
subversion and opposition.
However,
new concepts emerge, and protests always get renewed, contrary
to capital’s end-of-history proclamations. In India, tribals in
Kalinganagar did not allow anybody from local administration and
TATAs into their area ever since the massacre.
Some kilometres away, villagers resist land acquisition for a
steel project by the trans-national POSCO group. Adivasis of Jharkhand
said a firm no to development projects on their ancestral lands.
In Bengal, peasants, workers and civil society groups protest
against unjust and tyrannical models of development. The ruling
left in Bengal would do better to heed these signs. Repression
provides only very short-term and potentially disastrous answers.
By
Soumitra Ghosh, NESPON and NFFPFW, e-mail:
soumitrag@gmail.com, with inputs from Nagarik Mancha, a Kolkata-based
citizens’ forum.
index
COMMUNITIES AND TREE
MONOCULTURES
-
Cambodia: Mekong Regional Conference
on Tree Plantations
“During
our time together, we heard directly from local community representatives
from twelve provinces in Cambodia and also from other countries
in the region about how their lives, livelihoods and environments
are affected by large plantations in their respective areas.”
The
above is part of the final declaration –the “Statement of Unity”-
resulting from the Mekong Regional Conference on Tree Plantations
held in Kratie, Cambodia on November 21-22, 2006. The meeting,
organized jointly by the NGO Forum on Cambodia, Oxfam Great Britain
(Cambodia), Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance
(TERRA) and World Rainforest Movement, brought together people
from the five countries of the Mekong region: Cambodia, Lao PDR,
Thailand, Vietnam and China, as well as representatives from other
countries. The meeting enabled participants to share experiences
and lessons learned on the issue of industrial tree plantations
and their impacts on local peoples' livelihoods. Additionally,
they also shared ideas and suggestions to resolve the problems
arising from tree plantations.
The
reason for organizing this meeting stems from the growing concern
over government plans for the expansion of monoculture tree plantations
in the Mekong region, including eucalyptus, pines, oil palm and
rubber trees.
Sharing
experiences, participants learned about the importance of forests,
lands and other natural resources for the livelihoods and cultures
of communities who depend on them for food, medicinal plants,
income and spiritual security. They coincided that “plantations
are not forests” and that “when forests are replaced by plantations,
the livelihoods of numerous communities who live in and around
these forests and protect and nurture them are lost.” As a result,
“plantations impoverish communities and their environments.”
Contrary
to government claims that plantations contribute to national economic
development and poverty alleviation, the conference participants
stressed that “plantations have increased poverty by displacing
entire communities, destroying crucial livelihood resources and
preventing the access of communities to natural resources.”
Even
worse, the shared experience showed that “in many cases, plantations
have come into communities with a certain level of violence; in
some cases the violence has been open and obvious as in killings
and imprisonments; in other cases, communities are subjected to
intimidation and threats in order to frighten people so that they
do not take action.” But even without open intimidation, participants
stressed that “the very act of taking land away from villagers
is an act of violence.”
Within
the context of current government plans for the promotion of large
scale tree plantations, conference participants agreed that experience
showed that “in all cases the only way to create change has been
through peoples' struggles”, emphasising that “struggle does not
mean violence; it means the different ways that local people adopt
to secure and defend their rights.” They also stressed that “using
the law is very important, but laws alone do not guarantee that
peoples' rights are protected” and that “the most effective strategies
for peoples' struggles come from the affected communities themselves,
not from NGOs and other outside groups,” adding that “by
working together with other communities and finding common positions,
people can strengthen their cause.”
The
most important result of the meeting was the shared commitment
to continue working together against the expansion of monoculture
tree plantations and a strengthened resolve for moving forward
in the region’s struggles. Participants recognised “the importance
and value of regional exchanges such as this” and supported “the
creation of further exchanges between people's organisations in
the region to continue our learning and develop our strategies,”
committing themselves to share the conference’s “findings and
principles with all our movements, networks and governments.”
See
the full text of the “Statement of Unity” at
http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Cambodia/Statement_Unity.html
index
-
Peru: Promotion of plantations based on falsehoods
Peru
is one of the few South American countries where large scale monoculture
tree plantations have not yet been introduced; however the government
is seeking to promote their expansion. In fact the country already
has a “2005-2024 National Reforestation Plan” [National Plan]
and also a “Law for the promotion of private investment in afforestation
and/or reforestation” [Forestation Law], the basic tools to make
tree plantations justifiable and feasible. The concrete goal for
2024 is to have covered 860,000 ha with commercial plantations,
basically in the Amazon, and 909,000 ha for “environmental protection”
plantations, basically in the Sierra.
On
reading these two documents it becomes very evident that the Peruvian
government has simply copied the model already implemented in
many other countries of the region and uses the same unfounded
arguments to achieve the necessary citizen support, in particular
in the regions where plantations are to be installed: generation
of employment, reduction of poverty, development, positive environmental
impacts. The promotion mechanisms are a carbon copy of those used
in other countries (tax exemption, soft loans, State research,
etc.) and the only innovative aspect (access to land by the private
sector) appears to be the most dangerous of them all.
On
setting out its aims, the Forestation Law starts off by stating
that “The promotion of private investment in afforestation and
reforestation is established in the framework of a strategy for
the reduction of rural poverty” and also mentions – among other
so-called benefits – the “generation of wealth and permanent jobs.”
The National Plan provides more details regarding jobs, affirming
that the plantations generate one direct job per 4 hectares, thus
creating 425.000 direct work stations. The Fund for the Promotion
of Forestry Development (Fondo de Promoción del Desarrollo Forestal
- FONDEBOSQUE) goes even further and in its information brochure
states that the plantations “generate at least one direct job
per 2 hectares.” According to this figure, the total number of
jobs generated by the plan would amount to 850,000.
Unfortunately
all this is absolutely unfounded. The data handled in Uruguay,
one of the countries mentioned as a “successful” example in the
National Plan, is worth noting. According to a study by the Statistical
Office of the Agriculture, Cattle and Fishery Ministry, afforestation
generates 7 permanent jobs every 1000 hectares (other sources
reduce this figure to 4.5 jobs per 1000 ha). This means that in
the best case, afforestation will scantly generate one direct
job per 143 hectares; a figure that is very far off from the absurd
affirmations of the National Plan and FONDEBOSQUE. The same situation
is repeated in other “successful” countries, such as Chile and
Brazil, where tree plantations have shown to be the worst option
possible regarding job generation. Tree plantations do not
reduce poverty, but only increases it.
Regarding
the environment, the National Plan maintains that tree plantations
of any type (whether exotic or native, monoculture or agro-forestry,
for production or protection) fulfil the same functions as forests.
Their impacts will not in any way be negative, but only positive.
In this respect, the Plan affirms that benefits include “regulation
of the water regime in the watersheds,” “control of soil erosion,”
“enhancement of soil and protection of crops,” “conditioning of
the habitat for flora and fauna,” among other benefits.
Sadly,
all this is also false for the simple reason that monoculture
tree plantations are not forests and therefore are unable to fulfil
the same functions as forests. In all the countries of the
region where large scale plantations exist, their serious impacts
on water have been observed,
also that they favour erosion processes, they lead to soil degradation
and have negative impacts on neighbouring crops and seriously
affect native flora and fauna. The plantations’ negative
impacts basically arise from their large scale. In the case of
Peru, it is precisely large scale plantations that are being planned.
Hence, the alleged environmental benefits will never materialize
and, on the contrary, serious negative impacts will be felt on
water, soil, flora and fauna. Plantations do not benefit the environment,
they degrade it.
On
the basis of these – and other falsehoods – the first article
of the Promotion Law declares “that the promotion of private investment
in afforestation and/or reforestation activities is of national
interest,” implying that the State will provide support to the
plantation companies, including tax exemptions, tax incentives,
foreign debt swapping and it will be the State itself that will
establish the plantations for “environmental protection,” mainly
on lands belonging to Andean peasant communities. That is to say,
it will be the Peruvian people who will pay (directly and indirectly)
for the installation of both private and State plantations.
What
is even more serious is that the plantations will become an instrument
for the privatization of State land. In fact, the National Plan
states that “the State will place at the disposal of the private
sector, through various mechanisms for acquisition, access to
private property of public lands to be given over to the establishment
of industrial forestry plantations.” In turn, the Forestation
Law, in its second article claims that “The State, through the
Agency for the Promotion of Private Investment (Agencia de Promoción
de la Inversión Privada - PROINVERSION) may allocate the sale
of lands it possesses having a capacity for greater forestation
use, for afforestation and/or reforestation purposes, through
public auction…”
In
short, these plans go against the interests of the most needy
and only promote economically powerful sectors that will have
access to land and to the benefits foreseen in this new legislation.
It is therefore essential that Peruvian civil society organizations
inform themselves and take a hand in the matter before it is too
late. There is still time to halt this process.
index
-Brazil:
International day of action for demarcation of the lands of the
Tupinikim and Guarani indians
Today [December 12], hundreds
of indigenous people from the seven Tupinikim and Guarani communities
in the state of Espirito Santo, Brazil, occupied the harbor Portocel,
from where the cellulose of the company Aracruz Celulose is being
exported to Europe, the USA and Asia. They are protesting together
with several solidarity groups in Brazil and abroad to ask the
Brazilian government once and for all to fulfill its constitutional
duty and demarcate the traditional lands of the Tupinikim and
Guarani indigenous peoples: 11.009 hectares invaded by Aracruz
Cellulose S/A, a major paper company.
In February 2006, Minister
of Justice Márcio Thomaz Bastos promised during a public
meeting in the State Parliament of Espirito Santo - in the presence
of indigenous peoples, parliamentarians, and other authorities
- to issue the Act of Demarcation before August 2006 and to ratify
the area before the end of the year. On September 12 2006, a report
in favor of demarcation was submitted by the National Indian Foundation
to the Minister of Justice. Since then, it has been in his hands,
awaiting a decision - legally, the decision should be made by
today, December 12, 2006. The Commission of Tupinikim and Guarani
Chiefs and Leaders argues that the agreed-upon deadlines have
not been fulfilled by the government, and have called for a day
of solidarity.
The delay has allowed Aracruz
Cellulose to adopt public actions against the indigenous communities,
among them a strongly defamatory campaign, encouraging prejudice
and racial hatred.
Today, solidarity groups in
Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and the United States are coordinating
demonstrations, especially at Brazilian Embassies and Consulates,
in solidarity with the protests led by the Tupinikim and Guarani.
Please take a moment to write
a brief letter to the Minister of Justice, asking him to recognize
the rights of the Tupinikim and Guarani by demarcating their ancestral
homeland: <mailto:gabinetemj@mj.gov.br>gabinetemj@mj.gov.br.
Sample
letter here
index
- First Steps of the
Southern African Plantation Action Network (SAPAN)
In
response to timber industry efforts to expand the area of land
under industrial timber plantations by 600,000
hectares, a Plantations Campaign was started by a small group
of NGOs in South Africa in 1995.
Alien
trees, including mainly Wattle (Australian Acacia species), Pine
and Eucalyptus now cover more than 3 million hectares in the well
watered and agriculturally more productive eastern part of the
country. However, as much as 1,5 million hectares of that is made
up of abandoned or neglected plantations, or of areas that have
become heavily infested with invading plantation tree seedlings.
These infested lands represent a major liability to the national
economy, consuming scarce water resources and impacting negatively
on rural communities and natural biodiversity, but have been largely
ignored both by government and the industry that caused them.
The
Timberwatch Coalition was established as a local network in 1997,
but over the following years it grew into a national NGO coalition
of 10 environmental organisations that recognise the need to address
the harm caused by the substantial negative social and environmental
effects of large-scale timber plantations. Through ongoing involvement
in policy processes and by building a supporter network in the
timber plantation growing areas, Timberwatch has succeeded in
heightening public awareness of the previously hidden or ignored
costs associated with plantations. This has led to the introduction
of a more transparent and inclusive process to consider applications
for licences for new plantations, and has helped to limit their
expansion in South Africa.
This
local success must however be viewed in the broader context of
the southern African region, in which a number of countries have
already been affected by plantations. In Swaziland, although a
relatively small country in terms of land area, nearly 10% is
covered in colonial-era style timber plantations that have effectively
forced Swazi people off their traditional land, and undermined
community farmers' opportunities for access to grazing land and
water.
There
are also established plantations in Angola, the DRC, Malawi, Zambia,
Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Mozambique, but in recent developments,
it has been suggested by the World Bank and various timber industry
players that Mozambique has the potential for an additional seven
million hectares. The government there has already approved new
plantation projects in Niassa and Manica Provinces, although there
appears to have been very little consultation with environmental
NGOs and local communities. Nor does it
appear that there has been any formal investigation into the harmful
impacts of timber plantations on traditional social and cultural
values and self-sustaining local economies.
It
appears there will be increasing demand for plantation timber
for pulp, and biomass for biofuel production is expected to grow
quickly as fossil fuel use in industrialised countries is restricted
through international pressure to reduce emissions of CO2 into
the atmosphere. From available information, it appears that plans
to convert to biofuel use by European nations largely anticipate
the importation of biodiesel and bioethanol from Africa and other
regions in the 'developing' world. What this means is that most
countries in the SADC (Southern African Development Community)
are likely to be targetted as cheap opportunities for the establishment
of destructive large-scale monoculture crops including tree plantations.
In
response to this threat, Timberwatch plans to help establish a
broad network of interested individuals and environmental organisations
across the SADC region. The idea was analyzed during the Annual
Meeting held in Durban on November 18. The group knows that experience
sharing is a necessary ingredient for the idea to grow and become
a reality. Thus, one of the members of the Latin American
Network against Monoculture Tree Plantations was invited to attend
the meeting in order to share the successful process that led
to the establishment of the network in Latin America.
As
a following step, Timberwatch participated in the meeting organized
in Mozambique by Geasphere -- one of the member organizations
of Timberwatch – where delegates of local organizations discussed
the negative impacts of large scale monoculture tree plantations
(see article on Mozambique in this issue).
It
is expected that the Southern African network will increase awareness
of the main issues surrounding the establishment or expansion
of industrial timber plantations and to help to establish local
activist groups within the affected countries. With support and
encouragement from the international NGO community, this network
will play an important part in preventing scarce African resources
from further exploitation by the agents of wasteful Northern
consumerism.
By
Wally Menne, Timberwatch, e-mail:
plantnet@iafrica.com
index
-
Cambodia: Indigenous people resist the
spread of industrial tree plantations
“All
villagers understand the need to protect the forest. We can't
live without it.” The speaker is a villager from Dak Dam Commune
in Mondulkiri province in the north-east of Cambodia. “Now our
life is more difficult,” he said.
About
20 of us (from Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines and
the UK) sat with villagers in the shade of a large tree near the
village school. We were on our way to the “Mekong Regional Conference
on Tree Plantations” which would take place in Kratie over the
next two days. We had travelled to Dak Dam to hear how the indigenous
Phnong community is struggling to keep its land against Wuzhishan,
a Chinese-Cambodian company with close links to the Cambodian
government. In August 2004, the Cambodian government awarded permission
in principle to Wuzhishan to establish a 199,999 hectare concession
with 10,000 hectares approved immediately for trial and commercial
planting.
“The
company increased its area of land to 20,000 hectares,” a villager
told us. Another told us the company had taken 30,000 hectares.
Neither Wuzhishan nor the government has given villagers a map
of the plantation operations. “People asked why the company could
take the land,” a villager said. “We struggle against the company
because we need the land for farming. We have complained for two
years to this company.”
Villagers
grow no paddy rice, but cultivate upland rice on rotational swidden
fields. The company had planted on some of villagers' swidden
fields. This year, there had been a drought in the area and some
rice was destroyed.
“The
company cut down all the trees on our land, including the spirit
trees,” one of the villagers said. “Our people are suffering as
a result. The company also destroyed the land we use for burying
our ancestors. The company came to cut the big trees. We never
cut these trees. On the top of the hill we grew fruit trees. The
company cut all the trees and now we have no fruit. We used to
sell the fruit in the market to buy food.”
The
impact on culture since the company arrived in their land was
a recurring theme during the meeting. “The trees and land were
respected by our culture. As indigenous people we believe it is
important to live together in a certain way. There has been a
change in the community's culture since the arrival of the company,”
a villager explained.
“Children
and girls have been exploited by the company workers,” added another.
“Young girls have fallen in love with workers and then the company
moves to another area. We are afraid of the workers. They drink
wine and beer and do bad things.”
“The
government has forbidden burning the grasslands,” a villager said,
“but we need to burn to make the grasslands better for grazing.”
The company hired workers to monitor the villagers who attempted
to burn the company's trees or land.
A
villager told us how the company uses chemicals to clear the grass
in the areas it plants. “The chemicals ran into the rivers and
streams. This is our drinking water. The chemicals killed fish
in the streams.”
Villagers
protested to local authorities about the company's operations.
The result was heavy-handed repression. Villagers were prevented
from leaving the province, to go to Phnom Penh to attend workshops,
for example. When hundreds of villagers walked into Sen Monorom
to ask the District Governor to address their problems, they were
met with water cannons. The authorities told them to return to
their villages and promised that they would resolve the situation
in a couple of days. “But nothing has happened,” pointed out a
villager. “The authorities said that this is development of our
country. But this is not development.”
Earlier
this year, villagers arranged a meeting to discuss the problems
with Wuzhishan, but no one from the company turned up. “One of
our villagers tried to meet with the company in Phnom Penh, but
this came to nothing. The company never responds to our
complaints.”
Sawaad,
a farmer from northeast Thailand and one of the participants in
the Mekong plantations conference, spoke to the villagers. “Fifteen
years ago in Thailand, we faced the same problems,” he said. “We
did not have enough experience when Phoenix Pulp and Paper started
planting eucalyptus trees. Eucalyptus causes problems with water,
the environment and livelihoods. Land rights is a big issue. Before
we knew that there was a problem, it was already there. At first
people wrote letters. It was the same as here. We sent lots of
letters but no one replied. Then we started to form groups and
expanded to hundreds of people.”
Sawaad
smiled as he explained how farmers in Thailand organised to resist
the spread of plantations on their land. “People have to find
their own ways to put pressure on the government. In Thailand,
we set up the Northeast Small Farmers Network and the Assembly
of the Poor. We held rallies to protest and to negotiate with
the government. In the past 15 years I don't know exactly how
many protests there have been, but it's probably between 300 and
500. In 1997, the Assembly of the Poor held a protest for 99 days
outside Government House in Bangkok. Sometimes the protests involved
hundreds of people, sometimes tens of thousands. We need to rely
on ourselves, on our movements. We can't rely on anyone else.”
One
of the Phnong villagers asked how the government reacted to the
protests. “The government did everything it could to stop us,”
Sawaad replied. “I have been in jail eight times. But we were
able to work as a network, not just small groups of people. So
if the government attacked one person, or jailed one person, the
network just carried on working.”
We
drove away from the village through the rolling hills. We could
see the company's pine trees planted in small, cleared circles
dotted over the landscape. As it started to rain, I remembered
the words of one of the villagers: “We will keep complaining to
the government until the government gives us our land back.”
By
Chris Lang, e-mail:
http://chrislang.org,
www.chrislang.blogspot.com
index
-
Laos: Vietnamese companies set up rubber plantations
in the south
In
July 2004, a business delegation from the Vietnam General Rubber
Corporation visited Laos. At the time only a small area was planted
with rubber in the south of Laos. “We can provide 50,000-100,000
hectares of land for Vietnam to grow rubber,” Thongloun Sisolit,
the Lao Deputy Prime Minister, told the delegation.
A
few months later, the Lao government licensed a US$30 million
project by the Dac Lac Rubber Company, a Vietnamese state-owned
company. The Dac Lac Rubber Company is named after a province
in the central highlands of Vietnam where the company has 14,000
hectares of rubber plantations. The company aims to plant 10,000
hectares with rubber trees in Champasak, Saravane, Sekong and
Attopeu provinces, on a 50-year land lease. By October 2006, the
company had planted 3,200 hectares with rubber trees.
The
Vietnam Economic Times reported Thongloun Sisolit as describing
the company’s project as “a model to help his people gear up for
commercial production”.
But
Dac Lac Rubber Company has replaced forests and villagers’ land
with rubber plantations. The company paid compensation where it
cleared cash crops, but provided no compensation where it cleared
farmers’ upland rice fields. Before the company established its
rubber plantations, much of the land was a mixture of rice fields,
fallows and forest. The company simply declared it “degraded forest”
and cleared the land.
In
March 2005, another Vietnamese company started operations in Champasak
province. The Viet Nam-Laos Rubber Joint Stock Company plans to
plant 10,000 hectares of rubber trees with a total investment
of US$30 million. The company pays a rent of US$9 per hectare
per year to the Lao government. The company is part of the Vietnam
General Rubber Corporation.
In
December 2006, the Quang Minh Rubber Production Joint Stock Company
signed a contract with the Lao Planning and Investment Committee,
for a US$15 million project to plant 4,900 hectares of rubber
plantations in Sekong and Attopeu provinces.
Last
month, World Rainforest Movement was in Laos and visited one of
the Viet Nam-Laos Rubber Joint Stock Company’s plantation areas
near Mak Ngeo village in Champasak province. A sign in the plantation
forbids cattle grazing. One side of the dirt track had been fairly
recently planted. The red soil and rows of metre-high rubber trees
stretched away into the distance. Beyond the plantation we could
see the remains of the forest that had been cleared to make way
for the rubber trees. On the other side of the track the rubber
trees were older and more than two metres high. Four Lao villagers
were clearing grass and small shrubs from around the trees. The
villagers told us that they had lost their land to the company.
Working together they could clear about 150 metres a day, sometimes
more, sometimes less, depending on how bad the weeds were. The
company paid them 50,000 kip (about US$5.25) for each 150 metres
distance that they cleared, so they each received a little over
US$1 a day.
About
200 Vietnamese workers are employed here. While we were there
two Vietnamese workers arrived on a motorbike. One of them spoke
Lao and started instructing the workers. He'd been in Laos for
about a year.
A
little further up the road, we saw a rubber tree nursery. Cuttings
from rubber trees are planted in compost in small plastic bags.
Once the cuttings sprout leaves and roots they can be planted
out. The cuttings came from Vietnam.
A
few years ago, a Malaysian oil palm company set up a trial plantation
nearby. Today the plantation is neglected and overgrown. Near
the oil palm plantation is a newly cleared rubber plantation,
surrounded by a fence and a ditch to keep out cattle.
In
May 2006, at a workshop on “Rubber Development in Laos” held in
Vientiane, Sounthone Ketphanh, Deputy Director of the Lao Forest
Research Centre, explained that market demand for rubber in China
had encouraged investments from Chinese and Vietnamese companies
in rubber plantations in Laos. The Chinese investments are in
the north of the country and the Vietnamese in the south.
According
to a report in the Vientiane Times, Sounthone described
the benefits of rubber plantations: “Unlike other cash crops,
rubber offers long-term benefits to farmers for a period of 30-40
years. Farmers not only benefit from tapping latex but also from
intercropping in the first few years after planting and from selling
the timber when tapping comes to an end.”
Participants
at the meeting noted that the price of rubber on the world market
follows “boom and bust” cycles, which could spell disaster for
companies and farmers growing rubber trees on their land. Since
May 2006, the price of rubber has plunged, although analysts are
predicting that it will recover.
Southone
acknowledged another problem. “On the downside,” he told the workshop
in Vientiane, “the rapid growth of rubber plantations causes large-scale
loss of forest resources and watershed destruction, which is particularly
important in Laos where rural food security is directly related
to forest heath.”
By
Chris Lang, e-mail: http://chrislang.org,
www.chrislang.blogspot.com
index
-
Uruguay: Though not yet in operation,
Metsa Botnia’s pulp mill already smells rotten
It
is almost certain that the Finnish public know little or nothing
about Uruguayan history and on how this history relates to the
current Metsa Botnia pulp mill project in this country. It is
therefore important to explain that a military dictatorship ruled
Uruguay from 1973 to 1984. During that period the military violated
every possible human right and torture was common practice during
those years. Thousands of Uruguayans –men and women- were tortured
and imprisoned; scores of people were killed and “disappeared”
and thousands had to live in exile during that period. A similar
military dictatorship ruthlessly governed Argentina during those
same years.
For
Uruguayans and Argentinians the military are still a symbol of
widespread human rights violations. In Uruguay, many of the officers
that in those years were in charge of torture, killings and disappearances
are today’s colonels and generals. The Finnish public needs to
know that a few days ago, the forces they command have been ordered
to protect the building site of Metsa Botnia’s pulp mill and that
this is severely affecting the image of Finland itself.
This
situation has not happened by chance. The need for police –first-
and military protection –later- is the result of this Finnish
company’s tactics, that have alienated neighbouring communities,
particularly in Argentina. Instead of trying to build bridges
of understanding, the company has consistently refused to accept
the need to convince and has instead tried to impose itself. It
refused to halt the building work when requested to do so by the
Uruguayan President himself to facilitate negotiations with neighbouring
Argentina. It has had a number of confrontations with workers
and trade unions, which have been exacerbated with its decision
to bring in hundreds of workers from Eastern Europe and other
foreign countries. The company’s exaggerations regarding the level
of pollution and smell from a pulp mill doubling the size of those
it operates in Finland have resulted in a total loss in credibility
about the company’s seriousness.
The
result is that Metsa Botnia is now also responsible for the militarization
of the region and for having created a dangerous situation of
confrontation with the powerful sister Republic of Argentina.
Instead of bringing development to the country, it has brought
in internal divisions and external problems. The open support
it is receiving from the Finnish government blurs the distinction
between the company and the country and whatever the former does
will impact on the latter.
The
Finnish people should demand explanations from their government,
because the image of the country itself is at stake. A country
that until recently had a positive perception is now being increasingly
questioned in both Uruguay and Argentina. The fact that the Uruguayan
government needs to back a Finnish investment with military personnel
says clearly that both the company and Finland are in big trouble.
When military presence becomes necessary it means that much has
gone wrong. Much more could go wrong if by any chance
the soldiers receive order to shoot at people. Something smells
rotten in the state of Metsa Botnia and it’s not –yet- the smell
of pulp production.
Press
communiqué of the Uruguayan Guayubira Group, December 12, 2006,
e-mail: info@guayubira.org.uy,
http://www.guayubira.org.uy
(Update:
On Monday 18th, the government announced that, following
the request of Botnia, it ordered the withdrawal of the military
troops deployed to survey the construction site of the company’s
pulp mill in Fray Bentos. Botnia, responsible
for the militarization, now argues that “the tense, worrying and
insecure conditions diminished substantially”. It remains rather
unclear to which conditions is the company referring, since the
bordering Argentinian communities still maintain the blockade
of the bi-national bridges, as well as the difficulties for a
proper dialogue between the governments of both sides of the river
persist. Why has Botnia changed its mind? Maybe the militarization’s
denounce has damaged the international image that the company
wants to give? On the other hand, the
decision brought relief to the Ministry
of Defence which admitted that “such
a display of force means a significant effort for the Uruguayan
Army”. However, it warned that the troops might be deployed again
in case it is necessary.)
index
FOCUS ON: CARBON
DEALS
-
Mozambique: A warning against the promotion of monoculture
tree plantations
In
1997 the Kyoto Protocol was formalized within the United Nations
Convention on Climate Change to limit carbon emissions causing
global warming. Although since then the situation has become more
acute due to the accelerated impacts of climate change, during
the Conferences talk mainly addresses the “opportunities” of this
catastrophe, understood as business.
During
the latest Conference held in Nairobi, Kenya,
last November, one of the “opportunities” that was most emphasized
referred to the possibility for impoverished countries of Africa,
Asia and Latin America obtaining profits through “CDM projects”
(what they call the Clean Development Mechanism and we call the
Carbon Dealers’ Market). Among the projects are those known as
Forestation and Reforestation for Carbon Sinks (see WRM bulletin
No. 37), and the establishment of crops for biofuels (see WRM
bulletin No. 112). In neither of these cases
