OUR
VIEWPOINT
-
Tenth anniversary of the bulletin: Thank you
all very much!
With
this issue, the WRM bulletin reaches its tenth year. This anniversary
provides an opportunity to give visibility to the numerous people
who, in one way or another have made it possible – month by month
and year after year – to issue the bulletin.
It
is important to start by saying that one of the most outstanding
features of the bulletin is that it is produced through a wide
network of people all around the world, who are willing to share
the knowledge they have about local, national and international
realities. It is those inputs that enable the bulletin to contain
so much valuable and first hand information. Only a few of these
people are, or consider themselves to be, journalists, but in
fact they fulfil – and very seriously – this function.
All
these people, from the most diverse realities and cultures, have
something in common: a shared vision regarding the essential things
in life such as rights, equity, respect for nature and the search
for a better future for humanity. In the specific case of
forests, they share the idea that not only is their protection
necessary, but that it necessarily requires the recognition of
the territorial rights of the people who live therein and who
depend on them.
This
explains another feature of the bulletin: its articles are never
neutral, but written from and at the service of peoples’ struggles.
The information they contain is objective, but the authors do
not merely describe what is going on, but place themselves on
the side of those who defend their rights.
Thus
the bulletin is a tool, collectively produced and placed at the
service of struggles. These – and not the mere dissemination of
information – are the bulletin’s most important objectives: collaboration
and support to struggles.
The
word “struggle” usually evokes images of people mobilized around
concrete claims. For example, those of local inhabitants opposing
the logging of their forests or the installation of a hydroelectric
dam or opposing eucalyptus plantations. And of course these struggles
are permanently brought to the forefront and supported by the
bulletin.
However,
the word “struggle” also includes wider scenarios, such as the
struggle for the recognition of indigenous and traditional peoples’
territorial rights, the struggle for changes in destructive production
and consumption models, the struggle in defence of climate and
biodiversity, and many others.
In
every case, the bulletin attempts to provide information and serious
analyses, but at the same time comprehensible to all, as a way
of empowering people. The struggle for changes – both at
local and global levels – requires people to be well informed.
In turn, for this to take place the communication language must
be within everyone’s reach, without loosing the necessary depth.
Of
course for the bulletin to be disseminated every month, for people
to have the opportunity to share their knowledge, for the language
to be understandable, coordination and facilitation are required.
This is what we at the WRM secretariat are doing and we feel very
honoured to be able to fulfil this task.
However,
the merit for the quality and usefulness of the bulletin not only
rests with those who facilitate it or who write its articles,
but also with its most important protagonists: the thousands and
thousands of people whose struggles inspire and give life to the
bulletin.
Thank
you all very much!
index
COMMUNITIES
AND FORESTS
-
Benin: Large scale oil palm plantations for
agrofuel
The
race for agrofuels has reached Benin. With heavy support from
the government and forming a key part of the “agricultural revival
strategy” promoted by the IMF restructuring programme, millions
of hectares of agricultural and forest land are to be turned over
to agrofuel production for export, with no discussion or concern
for the impacts that this will have on the Beninese, their food
production and their environment.
The
research undertaken by Josea Doussou Bodjrenou of Nature- Tropicale
exposes how the discussion about new agrofuel developments has
clearly been about production for export and maximising profit.
Information about specific development plans, land targets, or
deals with foreign companies and governments have been difficult
to obtain, and there is a virtual vacuum of legislation in which
these developments are going ahead.
Benin’s
Agricultural Revival Programme will entail significant palm oil
developments, as well as the scaling up of biodiesel from Jatropha,
peanuts, and bioethanol from sugarcane, manioc and other crops.
Oil
palm is native to the wetlands of Western Africa. There are already
a number of palm tree monoculture plantations in the South of
Benin, but these should only serve as a warning against future
developments, due to the complications and difficulties experienced
by communities attempting to sell their palm products. The community
cooperatives that coordinate the palm sales with government have
been plagued by a history of corruption and conflict. Into this
scenario, private companies have stepped in, offering to buy the
oil directly from the communities, at a higher price. But when
the communities switched over, and gave their products to the
industries, the companies failed to pay. Benin palm oil cooperatives
found themselves in trouble, but without sympathy or help from
government.
Now,
the government aims to find 300,000-400,000 hectares of land in
the humid Southern Benin areas of Oueme, Plateau, Atlantic, Mono,
Couffo and Zou for oil palm plantations. This zone hosts 50% of
the country’s population on only 7.7% of the national territory.
This suggests that agrofuels will be competing with food production
in the prime agricultural lands of Benin. Much of the food crops
will also be used for agrofuel production. Industrial companies
will be supported to obtain land for these initiatives. Although
policy is not clear on where, or from whom, this land is to come,
it is likely that small scale farmers will be excluded where their
interests conflict with industries.
Looking
at demographic growth rates in Benin, especially in urbanised
areas, it is obvious that maintaining food supply will call for
an increase in food crops, especially root crops. But it is clear
that the production of biofuels will drive farmers to allocate
less land to food crops, leading to food insecurity. In Northern
Benin, in the Banikoara region, farmers abandoned production of
food crops for cash crops: cotton and peanuts. Today, food insecurity
is rife. Where once they fed themselves, the World Food Program
(WFP) and the Catholic Relief Services now feed populations. Most
of the population’s purchasing power is very low, and the increase
in food prices due to decreased stocks, will favour imports and
distribution of poor quality foods, food aid dependency, and possibly
GMOs.
The
government of Benin is not openly admitting that they will destroy
any ecosystems for biofuel production. But it is obvious that
encouraging large-scale industries as well as small-scale farmers
to find hundreds of thousands of hectares of land to grow agrofuels,
will involve huge increases in land under cultivation, for both
food crops and agrofuels as well as expansion into the remaining
wetlands, sacred and communal forests, fallow lands and rich biodiverse
ecosystems in Southern Benin.
Josea
Doussou Bodjrenou notices in his research that Benin differs from
some of the other countries in Africa, in that the discussion
about biofuels has barely touched on the idea of meeting national
energy security needs. Instead, the government is clear that this
is about maximising profits for both state-owned and private companies.
However, those profits are unlikely to filter down to the rural
poor of Benin.
The
areas of land that are being talked about are enormous. Although
it is not easy to know what portion of the proposed new land in
the agricultural revival programme will be for agrofuels, it is
planned that 3 million hectares of new land will be found for
the scheme by 2011.
The
scale of the plans for biofuel production in Benin leave no room
for doubt that enormous pressures will threaten the food security,
land rights, and ecological habitats of the Beninese. In a country
already struggling to cope with the exploitation and poverty brought
about by a focus on cotton production for export, a large-scale
conversion to agrofuels can only exacerbate the problems facing
Benin’s rural poor.
Article
based on: “Biofuel case study: BENIN”, summary of research undertaken
by Josea Doussou Bodjrenou of Nature-Tropicale for the report
“Agrofuels in Africa –The impacts on land, food and forests”,
African Biodiversity Network, July 2007. http://www.gaiafoundation.org/documents/ABN%20Agrofuels%20Africa.pdf
index
-
Bolivia: The Amazon
peoples discuss their future
A
forum has been opened in Bolivia to discuss the issues and the
vision of the Bolivian Amazon and to give back to the indigenous
peoples the dignity stolen from them by the conquest of America.
Last
June in the Amazon city of Guayaramerin, the Ministry of the Presidency
of the Bolivian Republic organized the First Amazon Forum on “Macro-Regional
Identity and Development.” One of the centres of the debate was
local identity and the present situation of indigenous peoples
that represent the country’s greatest ethnic-cultural diversity
and in particular, the critical situation of the most vulnerable
originating groups. Some of these are threatened by strong acculturation
processes and the violation of their human rights, others are
in danger of physical extinction and some live in voluntary isolation.
At
the opening session, Evo Morales Ayma, the first President of
Bolivia to be born within an originating indigenous community,
stated before some three hundred participants – where a motley
group of indigenous and peasant leaders from the whole of the
Amazon stood out – that “To defend the Earth is to defend humanity.
To save the environment is to save humanity.”
At
a forum the previous day, indigenous peoples and peasant communities
from the Amazon region had established the strategic outline for
what they understand must be the Amazon development policy. Among
its foundations, they affirmed that it “must be based on the special
protection of indigenous peoples in a state of extreme vulnerability
and particularly those who are at risk of disappearing, as they
are the Amazon’s cultural, historic and ethnic heritage.”
These
positions were expressed in a proposal, denouncing the attempts
by transnational companies to pursue their avidity to privatize
and monopolize the Amazon’s natural resources, presently allying
themselves with the Departmental prefectures of Beni and Pando.
Furthermore,
the proposal defends the right of the indigenous peoples to an
autonomous and communal territory within the region, considered
to be one of the most important biodiversity reserves in the world.
The
proposal also rejects the Brazilian government’s intention of
building mega dams on the Madera River, which would place at risk
the environmental and social integrity of a large part of the
Bolivian Amazon. The Brazilian government has just granted an
environmental licence for dams at Jirau and Santo Antonio on the
Madero River, going against the position of the Brazilian and
Bolivian representatives of the Peasant Communities, Peoples and
Organizations and other people affected by the dams, gathered
in the “Social Movement in Defence of the Madero River Basin and
the Amazon Region.” The Madero River Complex is a pilot
project for a new management of the South American territory,
that intends to establish a kind of parallel state, with its private
sovereignty, its own rules, beyond the sovereignty of national
laws.
On
this occasion, the political minister, Juan Ramón Quintana, stressed
the fact that “it must be the indigenous peoples that, together
with the state negotiate sovereignty and territorial control in
the Amazon to end centuries of colonial exploitation and discrimination.”
According to the official, genocide and aggression towards the
indigenous Amazon people has been a tool used to consolidate economic
interests external to the region such as those that marked the
rubber boom at the end of the nineteenth century. This continued
through the second half of the twentieth century and beginning
of the twenty-first century with disregard for indigenous issues,
projecting the power rationale of vernacular right-wing political
“caciques” and their present demands for an isolating autonomy,
counter to the demands of the indigenous movements.
“The
Amazon must become a linking and integrating factor in a country
as diverse as Bolivia and within the Amazon, indigenous peoples
must act along the same lines to overcome feudal and racist stigmas
that still survive in the region,” stated Minister Quintana, who
was responsible for reading out the “Guayaramerin Declaration”
(available at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Bolivia/Declaration_Guayaramerin.html),
closing the first Amazon forum.
The
following sentences are taken from this declaration, signed by
all those present at the event: “from this forum is born an irreversible
process that will help to heal the wounds of history, both those
that bereaved our indigenous peoples and peasant communities,
and those that degraded and ransacked our nature and our biodiversity.”
Further on it adds “from today on a new history starts, the history
of Amazon dignity.”
Article
based on: “Primer Foro Amazónico en Bolivia defendió derechos
de los pueblos indígenas más vulnerables de la región” (First
Amazon Forum in Bolivia defended the rights of the region’s most
vulnerable indigenous peoples) Pablo Cingolani, e-mail: pablocingolani@yahoo.com.ar
sent by the author; “¿Liderazgo sudamericano de Brasil? La aprobación
de las represas del río Madera viola los principios para la convivencia
pacífica de las naciones” (South American leadership of Brazil?
The approval of the dams on the Madera River violates principles
for peaceful and harmonious cohabitation of nations), FOBOMADE,
Foro Boliviano sobre Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo,(Bolivian Forum
on Environment and Development) e-mail: comunicacion@fobomade.org.bo,
http://www.fobomade.org.bo
index
-
Central Africa: Deforestation brings HIV/AIDS
to indigenous communities, mainly women
Indigenous
peoples living in the tropical rainforests
of Central Africa are widely dispersed and identify their groups
by a variety of names. Numbering a total of 300,000 to 500,000
people, those members of communities from several ethnic groups
characterized by their small stature are identified under the
generic name of “pygmies” (see WRM Bulletin Nº 119). Considered
to be the original inhabitants of the continent, pygmy populations
have lived as hunter-gatherers in the forests of Burundi, Cameroon,
the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the Republic of Congo
(ROC) since time immemorial. They have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship
with the rainforest on which their livelihood, medicinal practices
and culture depend entirely.
But
now, this delicate balance may be about to disappear. Intensive
commercial hunting, the opening of roads into the forests due
to logging activities, and systematic deforestation have devastated
the rich ecosystem of the tropical rainforest threatening the
very existence of the community. According to the Rainforest Action
Network, “Between 1980 and 1995, Africa lost more than 10 percent
of its forests, or approximately 150 million acres. In the 1990s,
the rate of deforestation increased.”
In
keeping with their traditions, pygmies have used to turn to the
rainforest in times of sickness. This relative self-reliance for
health services has allowed many groups to remain isolated from
major epidemics that have affected neighbouring communities, such
as cholera, meningitis or even Ebola. However, as the forests
have receded under mining and logging activities, its original
inhabitants have been pushed into populated areas to join the
formal economy, working as casual labourers or on commercial farms,
thus being exposed to new diseases. This shift has brought them
into closer contact with neighbouring ethnic communities whose
HIV levels are generally higher. HIV/AIDS has spread in the pygmy
community.
Studies
in Cameroon and ROC in the 1980s and 1990s showed a lower prevalence
of HIV in pygmy populations than among neighbouring ones, but
recent increases have been recorded. One study found that the
HIV prevalence among the Baka pygmies in eastern Cameroon went
from 0.7 percent in 1993 to 4 percent in 2003.
Speakers
at a recent conference held in Impfondo, 800km north of the ROC
capital, Brazzaville, noted that impoverished Twa pygmy women
of communities in Burundi, DRC, Rwanda and elsewhere were turning
to commercial sex work to make ends meet, but ignorance about
the pandemic meant many were unaware of the dangers of unprotected
sex.
"Almost
all indigenous women in Burundi are illiterate ... ignorant of
the fact that HIV/AIDS can also attack them," said Léonard
Habimana, Burundi's first Twa journalist and the promoter of a
private radio station, Radio Isanganiro, which educates people
about the dangers of sexually transmitted infections, sexual violence
and HIV/AIDS in pygmy communities.
"Because
of poverty, sexual exploitation of indigenous women became a common
fact," said Kapupu Diwa, head of a network of local and indigenous
populations advocating for the sustainable management of forest
ecosystems in central Africa.
Commercial
sex work has also been bolstered by logging and infrastructure
building, which often place large groups of transient labourers
in camps set up in close proximity to pygmy communities.
A
widely believed myth that sex with a Twa woman has the power to
cleanse men of the HI virus places Twa women at additional risk.
Human rights groups have also reported widespread sexual abuse
of indigenous women in the conflict-ridden eastern DRC.
Despite
these risks, pygmy populations generally have poor access to health
services and information about HIV. In 2006, the British medical
journal, The Lancet, published a study showing that the Twa consistently
had worse access to healthcare than neighbouring communities.
According
to the report, "Even where healthcare facilities exist, many
people do not use them because they cannot pay for consultations
and medicines, do not have the documents and identity cards needed
to travel or obtain hospital treatment, or are subjected to humiliating
and discriminatory treatment."
Article
based on: “Minorities Under Siege - Pygmies today in Africa”,
IRIN, http://www.irinnews.org/InDepthMain.aspx?InDepthId=9&ReportId=58605;
Central Africa: HIV/AIDS a threat to indigenous forest communities,
PlusNews, http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=72155
index
-
Ecuador: Indigenous peoples close to extinction
because of illegal logging
On
27 April 2007, following a visit to the Amazon region, the President
of the Republic, Mr. Rafael Correa decreed a ban on timber extraction
from this area because of the imminent disappearance of the country’s
native forests. In spite of this declaration, the extraction of
cedar wood in the Yasuni National Park (YNP) and in the Intangible
Zone continues non-stop.
The
Yasuni National Park and the Intangible Zone are the territory
of the Tagaeri/Taromenane Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation
(IPVI). The invasion of their territories by oil and logging companies
and tourists has placed these peoples in danger of extinction.
To date, various measures have been set out on paper to avoid
this happening, but have not been implemented.
In
a visit to the Intangible Zone, members of the Huaorani People
together with Accion Ecologica campaigners verified the presence
of various crews of loggers extracting cedar wood from the dense
forest. The situation of these men is so precarious that they
have no other alternative than placing their lives at risk in
order to obtain an income to survive on. Those who benefit and
control the timber business in Yasuni are not these daily labourers
who risk their lives, but the logging companies safe in comfortable
and influential positions, manipulating their strings of power.
At
the bridge over the Shiripuno River, deep draught canoes loaded
with crews of labourers, fire-arms, chain-saws and mules easily
penetrate into the forest to extract cedar wood planks, a highly
appreciated timber because of its quality and scarcity.
In
this part of the Amazon region, Presidential Declarations or Delimitation
of Intangible Zone Decrees or the ban on cedar and mahogany logging
issued by the Minister of the Environment on 11 February 2007,
do not count. They do not count because there is no-one to implement
these measures. So far no coordination has been established between
the responsible authorities and ministries, there are no checkpoints
on the highways nor at the Park entrance, nor at the ports, the
forestry system continues to be deficient and corrupt, and timber
circulates merrily towards Guayaquil to be exported or to Tulcan
for the Colombian market.
Navigating
along the Shiripuno River we found two large canoes calmly going
down river with their passengers towards the timber camps installed
in the forest. The signs of invasion are visible and clear in
the middle of the forest: plastic, trash and large blocks of cedar
planks floating along the river-side and semi-concealed along
its banks.
A
clandestine sawmill is located near the Cononaco River, the planks
were piled up waiting for “their owners” to come and collect them.
Close to this place various attacks by the Tagaeri/Taromenane
have taken place to defend their territory from the invaders.
In spite of the risk of further confrontations, cedar continues
to be extracted from this site.
The
trip continued along the Shiripuno until reaching the Huaorani
community of Boanamo. Opposite the landing stage was a canoe which
was being loaded with wooden planks that arrived in a smaller
vessel along the narrow Boanamo River. Three men unloaded the
timber and then returned upriver.
The
people from Boanamo stated that another Huaorani called Ike from
the Tigüino community had ordered this timber to be removed.
They had not negotiated with Boanamo and entrusted the guide for
this trip to ask Ike when he came out whether it was true the
timber was his.
Fifteen
people live in Boanamo. The chief of the community is Omayegue.
Neither he nor his wife speak Spanish. Nor are they in agreement
with the extraction of timber from their territory. During the
afternoon and the night we spent with the community, we spoke
with Nantu Guaponi, our guide for this trip, about his disagreement
with timber extraction and his willingness to find economic alternatives
for the community.
According
to the conversations held with this community, the Taromenane
live a few hours trek away from Boanamo. Omayegue knows
the routes and even spends whole weeks travelling over the territory,
just as the Huaorani people have done for thousands of years.
We
travelled some 15 minutes up-river along the mouth of the Tiwino
until we found an inhabited loggers’ camp. There were clothes
hanging on a line and a campfire was burning. The camp had a black
plastic roof and appeared to house a lot of people. The conditions
were rudimentary: we could just see the roof placed on some logs.
On the river close to the camp was a medium-sized canoe carrying
barrels of fuel. Large quantities of planks were half-hidden about
one hundred meters away from the camp.
On
the way back, on the Auca route, no checkpoints were to be found
to control the trucks loaded with timber.
These
facts prove that illegal cedar logging is an unsolved problem
within the Yasuni National Park, the Huaorani Territory and the
Intangible Zone. Urgent action is required to put an end to this
dangerous threat. The Intangible Zone’s specially protected condition
is known by all the actors (except by the free peoples living
in voluntary isolation) and even so, nobody respects it. Nor is
there any desire to enforce existing legislation. As the loggers
say “say what they will in Quito, here all is still the same.”
Urgent
measures must be adopted, including checkpoints at the entry of
the Yasuni National Park, timber control points, permanent monitoring
of truck traffic, awareness and economic alternatives for the
indigenous communities involved in the trafficking, negotiations
and job opportunities to enable the loggers entering the YNP to
leave it peacefully, follow-up on complaints made to the prosecutor’s
office against middle-men, thus leading to the heads of this mafia.
It
is very important to reach agreements with the local populations
so that they become the main actors involved in the conservation
of the YNP and its resources.
Policies
must be developed for the protection of Indigenous Peoples in
Voluntary Isolation in coordination with the indigenous peoples'
organization CONAIE. The Intangible Zone must be declared indigenous
territory of the IPVI, preserving its condition of intangibility
perpetually and measures promoting contact must be prohibited.
Additionally,
no more licences must be granted for the extraction of oil within
the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve and the international community should
support the proposal to keep crude oil underground in the ITT
block, as suggested by the Ecuadorian Government.
By
Nathalia Bonilla, Forest Campaign, Acción Ecológica e-mail: foresta@accionecologica.org,
www.accionecologica.org
index
- India:
A plan for the takeover of forest land by industry
In
2002, under the Tenth Plan, the Indian government set the national
goal of having 33 percent of the country’s geographic area under
“green cover” by 2012. The plan was even presented as part of
India’s commitment towards the Millennium Goal on environmental
sustainability. However, it is much more about industrial encroachment
of forest land for tree plantations.
The proposal looks
simple: India has large tracts of lands without tree cover. These
are lands classified as forests but lying degraded. The country
needs to plant trees. But the government says it lacks funds.
Industry says that it needs raw material from forests. It has
the capital to pay for planting trees and the technology and managerial
ability to do massive afforestation. If trees are planted, the
poor will get jobs. This is a win-win option and is called a multi-stakeholder
partnership for forestation.
The
proposal has been worked in close consultation with industry,
in particular the wood-consuming pulp and paper sector which needs
to grow -- according to estimates, in 10 years there will be a
demand gap in paper and paper-board of 5-6 million tonnes. It
needs 1 to 1.2 million ha of degraded forest land to grow its
raw material. This will give it its competitive advantage and
it can increase its share in the global market. If this happens,
it will need another 1 million ha of degraded forest land to produce
“surplus” for export. It wants large, contiguous areas so that
it can achieve economies of scale.
The
biodiesel industry is also a big player — its demand for forest
land has been incessant. It is desperately scouting for large
areas to grow its oil plants. Again, economics teaches it that
the cheapest option is to grow captive plantations and that is
what it wants. Already big players — Reliance, UK-based D1 Oil
as well as British Petroleum — are lobbying hard to change laws,
which will allow captive plantations on forest lands.
Also,
there is the possibility of earning carbon credits, as trees sequester
carbon. There is money in forests. And industry wants it.
The
industry has asked for the rules to be relaxed further. For instance,
it wants the criterion that the maximum parcel of land that can
be bid on be limited to 50 hectares (ha)
to be removed. “Economics of scale demand
that industry should be given large parcels of land — 6,000-10,000
ha of contiguous lands,” said David Gardner of Jaakko Poyry Consulting.
In addition, the Confederation of Indian Industry wants a tax
exemption on the grounds that “it is re-greening the country and
bringing development”. It forgets that it is getting the mother
of all subsidies — free land — to underwrite its development.
There
is an additional issue: Under existing laws, planting trees on
"forest land" by industry is not permitted. A 'suitable'
re-definition of forest land would help proposal proponents move
ahead. The mission 'what-is-a-forest' started last year. A consultant
to the ministry for this project proposed a definition of a forest
that already promises to add new potholes in the already-bumpy
road of forest management. This is the definition: "An area
under Government control notified or recorded as 'forest' under
any Act, for conservation and management of ecological and biological
resources." In this definition, there is no space for the
livelihood and ecological needs of local communities, who live
on these lands, but whose rights are often not recorded or asserted.
Many
in India know that the proposal to increase
forest and tree cover had been pushed,
each time with some changes in the detail of the scheme, each
time with bigger and bigger players in the fray -- the last was
in early 2000, when Reliance Industries almost secured rights
over forests of Andhra Pradesh. Each time the proposal has been
rejected because it is understood that it will do nothing for
poor people who depend on the forests and nothing even for the
forests it aims to protect.
"The
forests do not belong to the state or industry and cannot be owned
or traded," said Shankar Gopalakrishnan of the Campaign for
Dignity and Survival, an umbrella organisation of forest community
groups. More than 40 million people depend on the country's resource-rich
forest areas -- which make up around 25 percent of the landmass
-- eking out a living from cattle grazing, collecting firewood
and simple farming, and they will lose their homes and their livelihoods
if the big corporates move in and get their way.
For
people crucially dependent on forest lands, this movement of enclosure
would be devastating. More and more it would lead to tensions
between the richer in the village — less dependent on the commons
for survival — who can afford to ‘agree’ to private control and
those who are landless and marginalised and have no alternative
but to use these lands.
Article
based on: “Indian plan to lease degraded forests sparks anger”,
by Nita Bhalla, 29 Jun 2007, Reuters,
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/DEL303993.htm; “Defining
forest in Indian context”, Archi Rastogi, Down to Earth,
http://www.centralchronicle.com/20070611/1106301.htm; “Private
Affairs”, Down to Earth, A
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/section.asp?sec_id=9&foldername=20060415;
index
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Mangrove Action Day (26 July) - A Global
Call to Action
Since
the year 2000, every July 26th has become an annual global commemorative
day for the mangroves. This year's theme is entitled "On
Behalf of Indigenous and Traditional Communities and Food Sovereignty."
In
reference to this year's campaign, the Latin American Mangrove
Network, Redmanglar International states that International Mangrove
Action Day “proclaims a call for the rights of the indigenous
and traditional communities of the mangrove ecosystem based on
the recognition of our territory where we build our culture, our
identity and the base for our food sovereignty.”
Redmanglar
explains that “The indigenous and traditional mangrove communities
of Latin America, have millenary lived, in a vital way, related
to the ecosystem. In this space we put dreams; we find our past,
our present and future. Here we live together with our grandfathers
and grandmothers, with our sons and daughters, with our brothers
and sisters from all the Americas and the world. Here we stand
up together for our territory, for our food, for our work, for
our dignity.
This
26th of July we wish that the whole world hear our voices-- the
voices of the indigenous and traditional communities of the mangrove
ecosystem. We hope that these voices reach all of our societies,
the indolent authorities, the depredator enterprises. We desire
that we can hear each other-- all the voices of the South-- and
that we continue walking together on behalf of our ideals.”
Article
based on information from: “On Behalf of Indigenous and Traditional
Communities and Food Sovereignty!, July 26th - International Mangrove
Action Day”, by Lider Gongora Farias, President C-CONDEM, Executive
Secretary Redmanglar International;
http://redmanglar.org/redmanglar.php?c=635
Alfredo
Quarto, Executive Director, Mangrove Action Project, mangroveap@olympus.net,
http://www.mangroveactionproject.org
index
COMMUNITIES AND TREE
MONOCULTURES
-
Brazil: Indigenous Peoples re-start actions
to take back their land from Aracruz
In
an “Open Letter to the population and Brazilian authorities”,
the Commission of Tupinikim and Guarani Chiefs and Leaders state:
“Today
(24/07/2007) we are starting to carry out several peaceful actions
with the aim of retaking possession of the 11,009 hectares of
lands that belong to us and that have already been thoroughly
identified by the FUNAI [the Federal Agency for Indigenous Issues]
as lands traditionally occupied by us, Tupinikim and Guarani.
Initially
we plan to halt the cutting of eucalyptus trees and take the non-indigenous
persons, who are illegally in our lands, out of the area. Then,
we will organize collective working days to reconstruct some of
our villages (Olho d´Agua, Macacos and Areal), destroyed by Aracruz
Celulose when it invaded our lands. We will build houses and plant
food crops and native tree species in order to recover and reforest
our lands.
Through
a stop in the cutting of eucalyptus trees and taking out the
non-indigenous people, we aim at protecting the eucalyptus plantations,
so that they can be used as payments for due reimbursements to
Aracruz Celulose for the existing 'improvements' in the 11,009
hectares. The halting of the eucalyptus cutting will also apply
to us, indigenous peoples, as one more proof of our desire to
cooperate with a quick and peaceful solution to the problem.
However,
we want to reaffirm that our actions result from the delay of
the federal government in solving a dispute that has been going
on now for almost 40 years. We always complied with our commitments
with the government, but the government not always complied with
theirs. It is worth while to remember that the ex-Minister of
Justice Márcio Thomas Bastos, during a public meeting in the Espirito
Santo State Parliament in February 2006, promised to demarcate
our lands by the end of 2006. However, in January 2007, just before
leaving the Ministry, he irregularly sent back the land demarcation
files to FUNAI, in spite of the fact that he had all the necessary
elements to sign the demarcation decrees of our lands. Recently,
7 months later, the files returned to the Ministry of Justice.
How much more time will be necessary for signing the demarcation
decrees and other necessary measures?
Finally,
we want to make clear that our struggle aims at recovering our
land and that we will not desist from this right. If the neglect
and delay of the federal government persists, we will intensify
our actions to consolidate the possession of the lands of our
ancestors and of our children and grandchildren, including restarting
the cutting of eucalyptus trees by the indigenous communities.”
24
July 2007, Commission of Tupinikim and Guarani Chiefs and Leaders
index
-
Chile: The short-lived lies of a “successful”
forestry model
Chile
is where the “forestry model” introduced into the countries of
the South – that is to say large-scale monoculture tree plantations,
mainly aimed at producing pulp for export – has been “sold” best.
The
1973 military regime created a framework for the introduction
of neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatization and unilateral
economic opening up, whereby the forestry sector was developed
as one of the pillars of Chilean macro-economy. Forestry
activities in Chile come second in importance to copper mining
and are among the ten main products concentrating 50 percent of
the total value of exports.
What
is not said is that although the major forestry companies have
contributed to create an outstanding macro-economy, it is also
true that they have generated similarly outstanding levels of
social inequality and the replacement of native forests by exotic
monoculture tree plantations, impoverishing and evicting from
their ancestral lands the people who lived there. They have also
caused landscape and environmental degradation, in particular
affecting water.
So,
during the season of the year when there is the greatest demand
for labour, in the commune of Los Sauces, Province of Malleco
in the South of Chile, the Mininco forestry company gives work
to only 19 people from the commune and pays them very low salaries.
In a region where wheat once grew and there were native forests
of oak, raulíes and lingues, today the exotic plantations of Monterrey
pine and eucalyptus occupy almost two thirds of the arable land.
The largest timber companies -Mininco, Arauco, Cautín, Comaco,
Casino and Tierra Chilena, among others- settled in this predominantly
rural commune, where twenty per cent of the population are Mapuche
indigenous people. Like in other parts of the country, their enormous
profits are expressed in a loss of quality of life for the local
people. Thirty-three point eight per cent of the population live
in either poverty or dire poverty.
Agricultural
activities declined 22 % over the past 10 years, gradually forcing
over 1,400 people to migrate to towns where they build poverty
belts amid the opulence of the forestry companies. One of the
reasons is the lack of water as the plantations have dried up
the soil. Every summer the municipality has to deliver water by
truck for domestic consumption.
In
addition to the lack of water is the problem of agrochemical contamination.
The neighbours in the rural sectors of Porvenir Bajo and Porvenir
Alto suffer from serious health problems due to plantation spraying
by the Comaco forestry company. Agrochemicals, in particular herbicides
(glyphosate and simazine), are mechanically or manually sprayed
before plantation and at various times during the first stages
of growth of the trees, polluting rivers, brooks and irrigation
channels.
Maria
Martinez lives with her husband on a small property next to a
pine plantation and their only source of water is the nearby stream.
They use it for family consumption, for the animals to drink and
to water their crops. “I have had pains in my stomach,” said Maria
with concern. Ten of her twelve sheep died and she is convinced
that they were poisoned by pesticides, “because the company has
sprayed the banks of the stream.”
The
neighbours denounced agrochemical spraying even along the border
of the public highway. An irrigation channel running parallel
to the highway drains murky waters of a suspiciously white colour
and along its edges the vegetation looks burnt. In the summer
the forestry trucks come and go at all hours, raising clouds of
dust (with pesticide waste) that goes into the houses, damages
the grass the animals feed on and makes the products of family
vegetable plots inedible.
In
Los Sauces there is a reason to fear chemical poisons. In 1997
a woman of 70 and a boy of 14 both died, intoxicated by an anticoagulant
rat poison (bromadiolone) scattered by the Bosques Arauco company.
At that time, various persons were intoxicated, and domestic animals
and cattle died. Later a child died after having eaten wild mushrooms
that his family, like many others, used to gather and consume
without any ill effects. The father of this child was also intoxicated
but managed to save himself. As a discussion started on this issue,
the municipality entrusted a study to the Austral University of
Valdivia, which indicated that “uncontrolled dispersion of large
amounts of toxic substances such as pesticides (herbicides, insecticides,
fungicides, etc.) used in agriculture can make normally edible
wild mushrooms poisonous."
In
the Mapuche community of Lorenzo Quilapi Cabeton, in the Queuque
sector of Los Sauces, most of the young people have emigrated
in search of jobs. “We suffer a great deal because of the forestry
companies,” says Pilar Antileo. Her family no longer has a vegetable
garden, because “you can’t plant without water."
They used to have up to 150 hens that laid eggs”, some
for use and some to sell, but now this is impossible because the
foxes that the forestry companies released to catch the rabbits
[that were affecting the pine trees], also eat the hens.” After
aerial spraying various people who consumed wild mushrooms were
intoxicated. “A woman, Margarita Espinoza, died and a child
of 13 found some dead rabbits and took them home. They eat them
and were all sick. The child died and the mother continues to
be sickly even now. Another woman, Mercedes Huenchuleo, went up
to the hill to look at the animals and smelt a bad smell. She
got sick and died. They said it was a heart attack,” said Pilar.
There are other cases of questionable deaths that people associate
with pesticides.
In
the Guadaba Abajo sector, spraying from planes was started three
years ago in the Forestal Cautin plantations. Ireni Polma, from
the Antonio Pailaqueo community says that her family’s bees died
and that since then she has had a permanent allergy on her face.
The
most commonly used herbicides in Los Sauces are simazine and glyphosate
(Rango and Roundup). The former is sold in Chile with a “green”
seal (indicating supposedly low toxicity) but it has been restricted
in the European Union since 2002.
It
would now seem that the forestry companies are resorting to even
more poisons as a hitherto unknown disease is attacking the large
monoculture Monterrey pine plantations. It is a fungus that attacks
the trees’ needles, drying them up so they look “burnt.” The gradual
loss of leaves not only leads to a lower growth rate but also
makes the trees prone to other diseases that eventually lead to
their death.
The
first attacks of “pine needle damage” were detected in 2003 but
alarm only spread at the end of last year when from affecting
some isolated plots only, the fungus covered nearly 100 thousand
hectares. Most of the damaged plantations are located in the southeast
of the Biobio Region, Province of Arauco, where half the area
is covered with Monterrey pine plantations.
One
of the main plantation companies –Forestal Arauco- has already
started aerial spraying. This of course has caused various kinds
of damage to the communities neighbouring the plantations. Some
inhabitants affirm that following the spraying, adults and children
showed symptoms of eye irritation, headaches, nausea, vomiting
and diarrhoea. Several bee-keepers even affirmed that the fungicides
caused the death of almost half their hives.
This
is the bitter reverse of the “successful Chilean forestry model”:
destruction and environmental degradation, eviction, unemployment,
disease and death for the local communities – all this to support
the profits of a handful of companies.
The
“successful” forestry model has very weak foundations and the
lies about its success are short-lived.
Article
based on information from: “Chile: ¿un caso modelo? Desafíos en
los umbrales del siglo XXI”, (Chile: a model case? Challenges
at the threshold of the twenty-first century) Claudio Maggi/ Dirk
Messner, INEF1, http://www.meso-nrw.de/modelo.pdf;
“Las plantas de celulosa y el sector forestal. Visión de la agrupación
de ingenieros forestales por el bosque nativo (AIFBN)” (Pulp mills
and the forestry sector. The vision of the association of forestry
engineers in favour of the native forest), http://www.ecosistemas.cl/1776/articles-74477_recurso_1.pdf;
“Venenos en las forestales” (Poisons in the forestry companies),
Revista Enlace, Nº 76, April 2007; “La misteriosa enfermedad que
inquieta a las compañías forestales. La otra plaga de Arauco”,
(The mysterious disease troubling the forestry companies. The
other pest in Arauco), Nación Domingo, by Darío Zambra (http://ln.fica.cl/muestra_noticia.php?id=3010),
sent by Lucio Cuenca, e-mail: l.cuenca@olca.cl
index
-
Congo, Republic: Thousands of hectares of
land for eucalyptus, oil palm and mining
Between
1991 and 2001, Shell Renewables -a division of Shell Oil International-
implemented a forestry operation based on the planting and harvesting
of fast-growing cloned eucalyptus trees (see WRM Bulletin 46),
with the aim of establishing a high-yield source of biomass for
future energy generation.
Later
on, Shell sold its plantations. Very recently MagForestry -the
forestry division of MagIndustries, a Canadian company involved
in industrial and energy projects in Central-Africa (most notably
the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo)- took
over control of the former Shell’s 68,000 hectare eucalyptus plantation
through the acquisition of all the shares of Eucalyptus Fibre
Congo S.A. (EFC), the lessee of the industrial plantation.
EFC
currently holds an exclusive 50 year forestry concession agreement
with the Government of the Republic of Congo, which is renewable
by EFC for an additional 21 years. This enables MagForestry to
appropriate thousands of hectares of land to carry out not only
a forestry activity that produces very few jobs, but also to secure
long term land rights for its mining branches: MagMining's brine
well mining field, MagMinerals' potash plant and MagMetals' magnesium
smelter.
The
eucalyptus plantations lay near the Congo’s Atlantic port city
of Pointe-Noire, from where MagForestry can send its shipments
to the seaports of Antwerp in Belgium and Rotterdam in the Netherlands,
ready to be distributed all over Europe or to be re-exported to
anywhere in the world.
Another
budding business adds to the package. The biomass fuel boom prompted
MagForestry to begin the construction of a 500,000 tonne per year
wood chipping plant on those lands, aiming at becoming a major
supplier for the rapidly growing global biomass market.
At
the same time, the Spanish company Aurantia is investing in a
cluster of palm plantations in the Republic of Congo with the
aim of producing biodiesel from the oil. Feasibility studies are
already underway to analyse the different plantation and mill
sites, and to assess the state of the existing logistical infrastructure
in the country.
The
actual size of the investment has not been disclosed and the company
did not offer any insights into how it sees itself within the
context of sustainability and of the fragility of Congo's environment,
neither into how it would guarantee its palm oil is produced in
an environmentally friendly manner.
Meanwhile,
dangerous outcomes from a study commissioned by the EU and carried
out by the CIRAD, announce that Congo “has around 12 million hectares
of land suitable for the establishment of woody energy crop plantations
(such as eucalyptus and acacia)”. This may entail that private
groups take over those 12 million hectares of land to carry out
their business.
Big
business in the Congo’s lands… for big companies.
Article
based on: “500,000 tonne mill for energy wood chips in the Republic
of Congo”, Biopact, http://biopact.com/2006/11/500000-tonne-mill-for-energy-wood.html;
“Une société espagnole veut investir dans l'exploitation de l'huile
de palme au Congo”, Congoplus.info, http://www.congoplus.info/tout_larticle.php?id_article=2269;
“Spanish company Aurantia to invest in Congo's palm oil sector
for biodiesel”, Biopact, http://biopact.com/2007/03/spanish-company-aurantia-to-invest-in.html
index
-
Indonesia: Agrofuel from oil palm –the
poor pay with higher edible oil prices
Despite
announcements from the authorities, the cooking oil price in the
Indonesian domestic market has not gone down. On the contrary,
the first week in June has passed and the price continued soaring.
A
year ago, the world's top palm-oil producers, Malaysia and Indonesia,
decided to set aside nearly 40 percent --six million tonnes--
of their crude palm oil output for biodiesel production. Industry
analysts had warned that the move could further boost edible-oil
prices, making it expensive for both food and energy users to
buy vegetable oils.
Increased
demand for fuel use as well as high prices of other vegetable
oils like soybean oil in the US has also pulled palm oil prices.
This has led poor households in Indonesia to consume waste oil
--the oil that has been used for cooking and is later reused.
Ironically, “biofuel” will feed cars.
The
agrofuel boom does not prove to trickle down on local people.
The cooking oil price jumped up until it reached the highest rate
of Rp9.000/kg. And the most serious condition is the case of an
Indonesian village of Tebo district, an oil palm plantation center
in Jambi Province, where the cooking oil price reached Rp 10,000
(USD 250)/kg in June.
Oil
palm companies are bound to send a proportion of crude palm oil
for it to be processed as cooking oil. However, in Riau Province,
around 18 companies never complied with the rule. In the Sumatra
region, the company is more interested in selling crude palm oil
to the international market than to sell it at the cheaper domestic
price.
Cooking
oil is one of nine staple foods in Indonesia. The soaring price
of edible oil has undermined peoples’ livelihood, impacting on
family industries like fried chips, fermented soybean cake, and
tofu, which have started to go bankrupt.
Edible
oil high prices have affected not only peoples’ income but also
their health. Poor communities which cannot afford to buy palm
cooking oil buy oplosan edible oil -- cooking oil already used.
In other cases, cooking oil sellers aiming at keeping their income
levels mix the oil which has been used for cooking and will be
reused with a chemical product to clear up the color of the oil.
The result in both cases is far from health standards.
Indeed,
it’s a high price the poor have to pay for the agrofuel fever.
Article
based on: “Biofuel for machine, ‘Jelantah Oil’ for human”, SETARA,
sent by Rivani Noor CAPPA, e-mail: rivani@cappa.or.id,
www.cappa.or.id
index
-
Papua New Guinea: Women most affected by
oil palm plantations
Extensive
areas of PNG’s tropical forests have been cleared to give way
to export-oriented oil palm plantations, which have been established
under the “Nucleus Estate Smallholder Scheme”. This means that
a central company having its own plantation also contracts small
farmers to supply it with oil palm fruit. The structure of the
Nucleus Estate Smallholder Scheme and the nature of oil palm itself
are raising serious concerns amongst civil society.
Most
of the social and environmental impacts of oil palm plantations
have been well documented (see WRM bulletins 104,
86, 74). However, one issue that has received little attention
is that oil palm plantations have differentiated gender impacts.
For
instance, the oil palm companies only pay the men, although women
–and even the whole family- also work in harvesting the oil palm
fruit. This means that the men can spend the money they receive
in whichever way they see fit, while women are left without payment.
Additionally, the fact that women work long hours doing back-breaking
work for little reward within oil palm plantations, means that
at the end of the day they are too tired to carry out properly
the extra burden of cooking and taking care of the children.
Growing,
collecting and hunting of food is an important part of PNG culture.
Women sell goods in the village markets, thus obtaining an income.
At the same time, this activity provides for a valued time for
socialising with other village women. When customary lands are
converted to oil palm, many of these age-old traditions are lost
and women find themselves left without both the income and the
opportunity of socialising.
Concerned
about the changes that oil palm is generating in their community
and about pollution from the oil palm mill affecting their rivers
and their children’s health, local women established the Sorovi
Women’s Association. The Association aims at bringing women together
to discuss and find practical solutions to these issues.
The
activities of the Association includes capacity building regarding
the social and environmental impacts resulting from oil palm plantations
and palm oil processing. At the same time, the Association is
also working to help women to develop small-scale income generating
activities that they can undertake to reduce their reliance on
growing oil palm to earn a living and support their families.
There
is no need to convince local people of the value of their natural
resources – they depend on them every day for their survival.
They need land to make bush gardens, which still supply the majority
of Papua New Guineans with their daily food needs. They need access
to forests to gather fuel wood and timber for building houses
and canoes. They depend on healthy rivers for drinking, cooking
and bathing. The saying in Papua New Guinea is ‘Graun Em Laip’
– land is life! As long as you have land and forests you’ll always
have a roof over your head and you’ll never go hungry! Unfortunately,
oil palm plantations have negative impacts on all these aspects
and it is women who suffer the most.
Article based on information
from: Australian Conservation Foundation,
http://www.acfonline.org.au/default.asp?section_id=96, "Anatomy
of a Campaign", by Andrea Babon,
http://www.acfonline.org.au/uploads/res_Habitat_AP_3.pdf
index
NEW TRENDS
-
‘Reduced Emissions From Deforestation’ (REDD):
Can Carbon Trading Save Our Ecosystems?
At
the Climate Change Convention's COP13 in
Bali this year the working group on reducing tropical deforestation
is due to report back. It is expected from discussions conducted
so far that proposals based on Costa Rica’s Payments for Environmental
Services (services contributed by forests such as carbon sequestration,
sustaining biodiversity and feeding the rainfall cycle) will be
advocated in a new policy proposal known informally as ‘avoided
deforestation’. ‘Avoided deforestation’ will be proposed under
the title of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation in Developing
Countries or REDD. The ‘reduction’ figure has not been decided
but a formula described as the 50-50-50 option; reducing deforestation
rates by 50% by 2050 and then continuing deforestation at that
rate until 2100, ultimately it is claimed saving 50 billion tonnes
of carbon emissions (advocated by Dr Peter Canadell of CSIRO Marine
and Atmospheric Research and the Global Carbon Project) appears
to be gaining support.
One
factor in the choice of a lower than 100% figure appears to be
the size of the compensation payments; for example the 2006 Stern
Review cited payments of $5 to $10 billion per annum for a 70%
reduction in deforestation. Other factors include the vested
interests of corporations and governments supporting ‘avoided
deforestation’ who are simultaneously backing the ongoing use
of old growth forests for forest products and monoculture plantations
including the production of biofuel crops. ‘Avoided deforestation’
of course legitimises such destruction for all forests not covered
by payments.
The
World Bank is spear-heading the set-up of a $250 million ‘avoided
deforestation’ pilot project to pay governments for not turning
parts of their forests into plantations. This is also part of
a much bigger plan for a mega-fund called the Global Forest Alliance,
a partnership between the World Bank, logging and plantation companies,
science institutes, business donors and large conservation NGO’s
such as WWF, Nature Conservancy Council and Conservation International.
WWF are already in negotiation with the Indonesian government
to use similar funding to protect 1 million hectares of classified
‘conservation forest’ in West Papua as the remaining 9 million
hectares of conservation forest by default become sanctioned for
deforestation.
From
a systems perspective such proposals deal with the surface or
symptomatic problem – uncontrolled deforestation - without dealing
with the fundamental problem that the biosphere is in a state
of critical carbon sink deficit (we emit 50% more emissions than
are absorbed by carbon sinks) and some ecosystems are on the verge
of collapse.
The
following 7 arguments summarise how such non-systemic thinking
permeates the entire debate and risks making ecosystem destruction
and climate change rapidly worse.
1.
The Amazon, now in its third year of drought may well be on the
verge of large-scale ecosystem collapse. This would trigger emissions
of up to 120 billion tonnes of carbon along with abrupt and catastrophic
climate change. Anything short of a complete halt to deforestation
in the Amazon increases the likelihood of this outcome.
This makes a mockery of the 50 billion tonnes of avoided carbon
emissions projected under the 50-50-50 proposal discussed earlier.
2.
A systemic view of the ‘compensation principle’ would include
equity considerations. 35 to 65 million people stand to
be displaced from their forest homes as a result of biodiesel
plantations in Indonesia alone, yet ‘avoided deforestation’ would
seek to compensate corporations and governments instead for their
lost revenue!
3.
Stern estimates that it would cost $12-93 million per annum to
administer, monitor and enforce a ban on forest destruction. This
is less than one hundredth of Stern’s estimated of $5 to $10
billion p.a. costs for protecting just 70% of global forests.
Such large payments could only be maintained in a strong economic
environment making such a protocol vulnerable to a global recession
or inflationary pressures both of which are likely and either
of which could make REDD impossible to sustain. The implications
of dwindling ‘avoided deforestation’ payments are obvious. So
far there isn’t a single example of successful ‘payments for environmental
services’ scheme that is based solely on carbon trading or solely
on market-based approaches. Schemes lauded as successful include
at the most 10% carbon finance.
4.
The REDD proposals are inherently incompatible with a maximum
global emissions quota for carbon. Without a scientifically predetermined
maximum or ‘cap’ on emissions, reductions are ad hoc and meaningless
from a point of view of stabilising climate.
5.
Assigning a monetary value to forests and carbon trading requires
precise emission figures and carbon inventories. Assessments can
have a 10-fold variability making them unreliable and open to
abuse.
6.
Setting a target for avoided deforestation is likely to thwart
essential alarm calls from indigenous peoples, conservation organisations
and scientists for greater forest protection as unfunded forests
become legitimately open to land-use change.
7.
Although undecided, if ‘avoided deforestation’ excludes ‘selective’
industrial logging it will again accelerate degradation.
Selective logging can reduce the carbon held in forests by up
to 70% and leads to major biodiversity losses, dehydration and
susceptibility to fire.
In
contrast to all the above, a systemic approach considers root
causes and attempts to offer fundamental solutions. Guaranteeing
the land rights of indigenous communities and supporting community
ownership and forest management for example have each been shown
to successfully halt deforestation. The role played by indigenous
peoples and particularly women who have a long history in safeguarding
forests acts as an amplifying loop, one which could be extended
to include the restoration of degraded and deforested lands.
A
ban on deforestation is also a systemic approach because it recognises
that our reduced carbon sink capacity is already dangerously in
overshoot i.e. is inadequate to maintain the majority of life
on earth. When the Paraguayan government instituted a moratorium
over the eastern half of the country, deforestation was cut by
85%. Successful moratoriums on deforestation have also been
conducted by Costa Rica, China and Thailand.
Supporting
land rights, funding restoration, introducing education and awareness
raising initiatives and implementing penalties for violating a
ban would both weaken the hold of corporations and skewed government
policy whilst simultaneously generating the virtuous cycles necessary
to restore ecosystems and stabilise climate.
Synthesis
by Almuth Ernsting <almuthbernstinguk[at]yahoo.co.uk> and
Deepak Rughani, <dee.rughani[at]btinternet.com>, Full report
on 'Reduced Emissions From Deforestation': Can Carbon Trading
Save Our Ecosystems? by same authors, available at:
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/docs/Avoided_Deforestation_Full.pdf,
<info[at]biofuelwatch.org.uk>
index
-
Voices from North and South against agrofuels
While
the promotion of agrofuels -wrongly called biofuels- continues
increasing and resulting in the establishment of more and more
plantations in Southern countries to produce them, many voices
of representatives from North and South denounce their impacts
and intend to influence those who are taking
decisions to promote them.
One
of the decisions that is already causing a considerable increase
in the production of agrofuels, is the one taken by the European
Union which established the target that by the year 2020, 10 %
of transport should be using agrofuels.
It
is important to underscore that this decision was taken in spite
of the documentation provided to the European Union proving that
this decision would be affecting the majority of the world’s population,
that lives in Southern countries.
By
the end of June this year, more than 15 representatives of non-governmental
organisations, Indigenous Peoples’ organisations and other social
movements met with the European Parliament in Brussels, the Dutch
Parliament in The Hague and with other representatives of European
organizations and govermental representatives and participated
at the XII Meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific,
Technical and Technological Advice of the UN Convention of Biodiversity
in Paris. Many were the testimonies about the direct and indirect
impacts of agrofuel production on the global South.
Among
others, representatives from Asia stated that oil palm plantations
are a tremendous disaster for indigenous peoples and local communities
in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea
Representatives
from Latin America, described how sugar cane, soy and eucalyptus
monocultures have caused massive migration, expulsion of small
farmers from their lands and have increased rural and urban poverty
in Brazil; how in Colombia agrofuel plantations are exacerbating
the problems of sovereignty and land tenure, that are a key cause
of conflict in the country; and how tree plantations -even the
ones certified by FSC- are having negative impacts on people and
the environment in Uruguay.
African
representatives pointed out that water resources, biodiversity,
local communities’ security, health and economies are being affected
in those African countries where monoculture tree plantations
are already a reality.
During
the same days, organisations from the North and the South called
for a moratorium on European Union imports of agrofuels from large
scale monoculture plantations; and on their promotion through
targets and incentives, including tax breaks, subsidies, and financing
through carbon trading mechanisms, international development aid,
or loans from international financial institutions such as the
World Bank. Such a moratorium will allow time for the in depth
study of the tremendous impacts of large scale monocultures already
felt by their expansion serving other industries as pulp and paper.
In
Paris, at a meeting of a UN scientific advisory body on biodiversity,
the majority of government delegates expressed serious concerns
about the risks of large-scale production of biofuels to forests,
ecosystems, indigenous peoples and local communities. A large
number of NGOs and Indigenous Peoples Organizations from around
the world present at this meeting also expressed their concerns
about the risks and made a call for their evaluation before continuing
with the promotion of agrofuels.
While
all this was hapenning in Europe, representatives from organizations
at an International Meeting on Agrofuels and Food Sovereignty
held in Quito from June 27 to 29 presented personally a letter
to the Minister of Energy containing a strong message to his government:
“The
present government faces two alternatives: to support a production
model based on diversity, sustainability, that garantees food
sovereignty, the continuity of the way of life of Indigenous Peoples,
afro-descendents and peasants and the conservation of the biodiversity,
or support agri-business. We hope that the government’s decision
will be in favor of the people”.
That
same letter is valid for all governments –North and South- that
are currently taking decisions on the issue of agrofuels. The
decision they take will show if they are in favour or against
the people.
Article
based on information from the Report of the Debate “Biofuels –
implications for the South” Dutch Parliament, The Hague, June
29, 2007, by GFC and CEO, available at here;
information published by WRM during the SBSTTA meeting in Paris
available at:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/actors/BDC/SBSTTA/news_SBSTTA.html,
and the Quito declaration at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/temas/Biocombustibles/Declaracion_Quito.html
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