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WRM Bulletin
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Issue Number 16 - October 1998 |
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OUR VIEWPOINT Trees, forests and climate in Buenos Aires The Conference of the Parties (COP4) of the Climate Change Convention will be meeting during the first two weeks of November in Buenos Aires. Much of the discussion will concentrate on the role of forests as carbon sinks and many negotiations will include deals between Northern and Southern countries on how to trade emissions and sinks: we emit, you sink. While the whole world expects that COP4 will bring about solutions to global warming, the fact is that many Northern governments --and particularly the major emitters-- will try to trade much of their emissions instead of limiting them at source. On the other side, many Southern governments will be eager to sell their sinks at the best price possible. If it weren't tragic it would be funny: humanity is facing a major threat and governments are tinkering with figures and money instead of implementing real solutions. Apart from the above, there are a number of further problems which confuse the whole issue, namely the definition of forests, the confusion between carbon reservoirs and sinks, the reductionist view of forests, and the question of whether tree plantations can be carbon sinks. The climate change negotiations are based on the FAO's definition of forests. According to this organization, a forest is "an ecosystem with a minimum of 10 per cent crown cover of trees and/or bamboos, generally associated with wild flora, fauna and natural soil conditions, and not subject to agricultural practices." The term 'forest' is further subdivided, according to its origin, into two categories: natural forests and plantation forests. Natural forests are "a subset of forests composed of tree species known to be indigenous to the area", while plantation forests are subdivided into: a) "established artificially by afforestation on lands which previously did not carry forest within living memory" and b) "established artificially by reforestation of land which carried forest before, and involving the replacement of the indigenous species by a new and essentially different species or genetic variety." Amazingly enough, such definition has gone basically unchallenged until now. Any lay person can see that a plantation is not a forest, but the "experts" confuse the issue and define any area covered with trees as being a "forest".The only case in which a plantation could be termed a forest is that in which an area originally covered by forests is replanted with trees and shrubs original to the area. However, this category is explicitly not included in the definition of plantation forests! From our perspective, tree plantations have only one thing in common with forests: they are full of trees. But the two are essentially different. A forest is a complex, self-regenerating system, encompassing soil, water, microclimate, energy, and a wide variety of plants and animals in mutual relation. A commercial plantation, on the other hand, is a cultivated area whose species and structure have been simplified dramatically to produce only a few goods, whether lumber, fuel, resin, oil, or fruit. A plantation's trees, unlike those of a forest, tend to be of a small range of species and ages, and to require extensive and continuing human intervention. Plantations are much closer to an industrial agricultural crop than to either a forest as usually understood or a traditional agricultural field. Usually consisting of thousands or even millions of trees of the same species, bred for rapid growth, uniformity and high yield of raw material and planted in even- aged stands, they require intensive preparation of the soil, fertilisation, planting with regular spacing, selection of seedlings, weeding using machines or herbicides, use of pesticides, thinning, mechanised harvesting, and in some cases pruning. The above is not an idle or academic discussion. Accepting the FAO's definition implies accepting plantations as a substitute for forests and therefore accepting that, being "forests", they have a positive social and environmental role to play. This is totally false. It is well documented that large-scale industrial tree plantations have already proven to be detrimental to people and the environment in a large number of countries and in many cases they have been a major cause of deforestation. We therefore demand of the FAO --and those who accept its definitions-- that "natural forests" be called simply forests (primary and secondary) and "forest plantations" be called tree plantations. A second important confusion is that between carbon reservoirs and carbon sinks. A full-grown forest is a carbon reservoir. Its carbon intake through photosynthesis is balanced with its carbon emissions. The amount of carbon contained in a forest is basically the same all the time. If the forest is destroyed, the stored carbon will be released --sooner or later-- to the atmosphere, thus contributing to the greenhouse effect. Forests that have been cut and are regrowing can be very efficient in capturing carbon (both in trees and undergrowth) and therefore, as part of many other equally important functions they perform, they can be considered as carbon sinks. As trees grow, their intake of carbon is higher than their emissions, thus having a net positive balance regarding the amount of carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere. On the other hand, tree plantations --which are being publicised as the main carbon sinks-- have yet to prove this role. In general terms, any area converted to tree plantations should until proven otherwise be regarded as a net carbon source and not as a carbon sink. In numerous cases, plantations have replaced either primary or secondary forests and this has meant the release of more carbon than that which the growing plantation can capture, even in the long run. There is a second crucial issue: will these plantations be harvested or not? If harvested, then they would at best be no more than temporary sinks, capturing carbon until harvest and then releasing most of the captured carbon in a few years (in some cases even in months) as the paper or other products of the plantation are destroyed. If not harvested, then tree plantations would be occupying millions of hectares of land which could be dedicated to much more useful purposes, such as providing people with food. There is yet another issue concerning the changes that a plantation introduces to the local environment. Converting wetland to plantation can, for instance, result in the release of important amounts of carbon dioxide from the soil. There are therefore many uncertainties about the assumption that plantations anywhere can be carbon sinks for any length of time longer than the early period of fast growth --and perhaps not always even then. This "common sense" assumption needs to be supported by research before plantations are accepted as carbon sinks. The distinction between carbon reservoirs and sinks is not a theoretical discussion either. The conservation of a forest cannot be seen as a measure to mitigate global warming, but as a measure to avoid increasing the problem. A forest can be compared with an oil deposit underground. If the oil is kept there, the current situation will not improve, but it will not be aggravated. Therefore, forest conservation should be seen as a necessity to avoid further problems. On the other hand, it is true that secondary forest regrowth can have a beneficial effect. However, until now, governments and "experts" have emphasized plantations (and not secondary forests) as one of the main solutions to global warming. This is linked to the above discussion on the definition of forests as well as to the discussion that questions the reductionist approach to forests. At the climate change level, forests are being seen strictly as carbon stores; at the forestry level, forests are seen as wood for industry; at the agricultural level as obstacles to crops; at the pharmaceutical level as potential medicinal plants. Such approaches are all wrong if each is considered in isolation, because forests contain all those potential functions, but only as long as they are viewed as a whole and not as divisible parts. When they are seen and treated as having just one function, then the consequences are negative impacts to local societies and to local environments. Such an approach is obviously present in the following argument, already being promoted by some "experts": given that primary forests are only carbon reservoirs --and not sinks-- then it makes sense to cut them, to convert them into durable goods (whereby the carbon within will remain locked in the wood until the "durable goods" are destroyed) and to plant a fast growing tree monoculture instead (which will supposedly retrieve extra carbon from the atmosphere). As economists would say: a win-win solution. But forests are not only carbon reservoirs. They perform a number of environmental and social functions which cannot be replaced by those of any plantation. The win-win situation becomes a lose-lose one for local peoples, water catchments, local flora and fauna, agricultural production, etc. The reductionist approach of seeing forests and trees as carbon reservoirs and sinks is also antagonistic to the policy of biodiversity conservation to which the world's governments have committed themselves, particularly when large-scale plantations are promoted as a major solution to the problem. This contradiction was noted by the Conference of the Parties of the Biodiversity Convention (Bratislava, 1998) which "notes the potential impact of afforestation, reforestation, forest degradation and deforestation on forest biological diversity and on other ecosystems, and, accordingly, requests the Executive Secretary to liaise and cooperate with the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to achieve the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity." Translated, the message is: you are looking at forests and plantations only from your own narrow viewpoint and forgetting that forests (and not plantations) are essential for biodiversity conservation. Both from a social and environmental perspective (including but not limiting the issue to climate change), we strongly support forest conservation, including primary and secondary forests. But we equally strongly oppose the conversion of forests, forest lands and grasslands to supposed "carbon sink" monoculture plantations, which entail only one (dubious and unproven) positive impact (the capture of carbon dioxide) and a much larger number of negative impacts on peoples' livelihoods and on their environment. COP4 should thus focus on the emissions side of the equation (limiting the use of fossil fuels, including the much-promoted natural gas). This would involve real commitments to reductions from Northern countries. On the reservoir side of the equation, it should support other ongoing international processes aimed at forest conservation. Regarding sinks, it should only provide incentives for secondary forest regrowth in all countries of the world --and not just in Southern countries-- with the involvement of local communities willing to have an opportunity to bring their forests back. And put the crazy idea of covering millions of hectares of fertile lands to "carbon sink" tree plantations where it belongs: in the dustbin.
CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEBATE Are tree monocultures a solution to global warming? The Kyoto Protocol, agreed in December 1997, has been criticised for its market-oriented approach, since it tends to establish a trading system to buy and sell carbon emissions. Tree plantations have gained a major role in relation to this issue because of their supposed condition of carbon sinks. The Protocol established that afforestation is one of the activities that Annex I countries can undertake to achieve their "quantified emission limitation and reduction commitments" for greenhouse effect gases (Art. 2). It also stated that "removals by sinks resulting from direct human-induced land-use change and forestry activities, limited to afforestation, reforestation and deforestation, since 1990, measured as verifiable changes in carbon stocks" are to be considered by Annex I countries to meet such commitments (Art 3.3.). According to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) this group includes industrialised countries and ex-planified economy countries, in process of transition to a market economy. The so-called Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), defined by the Kyoto Protocol in Article 12 as a form of cooperation between both groups, provides a way by which Northern countries will be able to comply with their commitments, simply through the establishment of extensive tree monocrops in the South. When a public or private entity of an Annex I country invests in a plantation project in the South, it is the investing country that will receive emission reduction certification for the project. As a matter of fact this provision, that goes together with the net approach, means that industrialized countries are freed of their responsibility to cut their carbon emissions in a significant way, while the South will offer their territory to projects aimed at capturing them, which will bring negative environmental consequences with them, as tree monocrops do. On the other hand it is not fair that those countries historically responsible for global warming would now receive assistance from poor countries. This is "foreign aid" upside down, isn’t it? Let’s take the case of the tree plantation project promoted by the Dutch FACE Foundation (Forests Absorbing Carbon Dioxide Emissions). This organisation aims to plant 150.000 hectares of trees to absorb CO2 equivalent to that emitted by a modern 600 MW coal fired power plant. Half of this area has been set up in the Ecuadorian Andes. Far from promoting the use of native species, the project is based on eucalyptus and pines. Even though these exotic species grow slowly in that environment, FACE justifies their use by saying that most of the native species in Ecuador have disappeared because of deforestation and that local people’s knowledge about them have been lost with the forests themselves. This is however untrue and the only reasonable argument to justify the use of exotics is that they are easier and cheaper to plant. Large-scale monoculture plantations are known to be detrimental to the environment , both in natural forests and in grassland ecosystems: decrease in water yield at the basin level, acidification and loss of permeability of soils, nutrient depletion, alteration in the abundance and richness of flora and fauna. Nevertheless, there is an aspect of plantations that is perhaps not so well known: their social and cultural effects. Indigenous peoples and local communities that live in the forests are suffering encroachment of their lands by plantation companies and are forced to leave them, losing their lands and livelihoods, what means undermining the material and spiritual basis of their respective cultures. In many cases, plantations require the previous destruction of the natural forests. The case of the Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous peoples in Espirito Santo, Brasil, is paradigmatic. After a long and unequal struggle to recover their ancestral lands, taken away by Aracruz Cellulose to establish eucalyptus plantations for pulp production, they were recently forced to sign an agreement that reduces significantly the area of their lands, to the benefit of the company. In the Portuguesa state of Venezuela, Smurfitt Cartons is dispossessing local peasants of their lands and destroying and replacing riverine forests with eucalyputs, pines and gmelina monocrops. Oil palm plantation companies in Sumatra, Indonesia, are expropriating local peoples’ lands, which has resulted in civil unrest, since they are willing to defend their lands and livelihoods. Similar situations involving either eucalyptus and/or oil palm are also frequent in Sarawak, Malaysia, where indigenous peoples are being dispossessed of their traditional lands to make way to plantations and are fighting back to defend the forests. In Chile, large-scale pine plantations have expelled peasants from their lands and substituted the forests that provided to people's livelihoods. The list of local communities affected by tree plantations is indeed very long and the above are just a few examples to prove the social and environmental destruction that this "solution" can imply if implemented at an even larger scale. Other global processes --as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests-- are now warning about the potential impacts of tree plantations on forest biological diversity and on other attributes of natural ecosystems. Even the Kyoto Protocol itself mentions that Annex I countries "shall strive to implement (their) commitments ... in such a way as to minimize adverse social, environmental and economic impacts on developing country Parties" (Art. 3.14). However, actions are going in the opposite direction to words. National inventories of greenhouse-effect gases that every state has to prepare for monitoring its situation in relation to the commitments of UNFCCC consider the increase of tree plantation areas --called "planted forests"-- as positive for the global environment and include carbon capture by plantations in their respective budgets. Such methodology was adopted without taking into account the mentioned negative impacts nor the regional or local features that can affect the calculation. The net effect of a plantation on carbon intake--once all the variables are taken into account-- is still at the hypothesis stage. In sum, the promotion of tree monoculture plantations under the CDM by the ongoing global process on climate change has a weak scientific basis. From a political, social and environmental perspective, far from being a solution to the problem, they contribute to consolidate a scheme that is threatening people and the environment worldwide. A change in this approach is urgently needed. Article 9 of the Kyoto Protocol itself considers the possiblity of implementing such changes "in the light of the best available scientific information and assessments on climate change and its impacts, as well as relevant technical, social and economic information". But, of course, this is not a matter of wording but of political will. Shall the COP4 in Buenos Aires be another lost opportunity?
For and against forests conservation and climate stabilization Deforestation and forest degradation worldwide have been and are cause of concern. Rates of loss in tropical as well as in temperate and boreal areas are alarming. All tropical forests have suffered an increase in the rate of deforestation, while the few remaining primary temperate forests, as well as boreal forests are under severe threat. Forests are not empty. They are the home of million of indigenous people and local communities, which live in or near them and depend on their resources. Besides the services forest ecosystems provide at the local level, they are a major factor for the stabilization of the global climate. This function is of course not new, but the ongoing process of discussions and negotiations on global warming have emphasized its importance. In effect, the UNFCCC in its Art. 1.7 defines "reservoirs" as "a component of the climate system where a greenhouse gas or a precursor of a greenhouse gas is stored". Since, according to the above mentioned definition, mature forests are enormous carbon reservoirs, their conservation is capital for avoiding an increase in the athmosferic carbon dioxide concentration. On the contrary the destruction of primary forests, through fires for example, adds considerable quantity of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Deforestation and changing land-use patterns also add other greenhouse gases to the air. The conversion of forest to rangelands increases the liberation of methane and the burning of forests adds nitrous oxide to the atmosphere. It is out of discussion that forest conservation worldwide would be an effective way of achieving the ultimate objective of the UNFCCC, that is "the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" (Article 2). Article 4.1.d of the Convention establishes –among the commitments of all Parties- their obligation to promote and cooperate in the conservation and enhancement of sinks and resevoirs, including forests. Nevertheless, and in spite of the official conferences, consultations and workshops happening here and there, that result in nice declarations and recommendations, very little has been done to stop this destructive process and avoid its detrimental effects. This cannot reasonably be attributed to the evil nature of the stakeholders involved, but to the logics of the dominating economic system. The market oriented approach has completely ignored the negative effects of forest destruction on the forests themselves as a natural resource, on global climate and, for sure, on the people that live in and on them. Promotion of cash-crops, ranching schemes, tree monocrops, commercial logging, oil exploitation, large dam projects are showing that deforestation is not casual or "natural" but the consequence of such an approach. Some cases shall be mentioned.
The above mentioned examples are a token of the present discouraging situation and illustrate what the text of the UNFCCC really means by "human activity that alters the composition of the global athmosphere" (Article 1.2). At the opposite side, other people are confronting these destructive schemes in their everyday actions to conserve their land, resources and cultures, and are thus positively contributing to climate stabilization:
These people and many others in similar conditions should be regarded as the authentic contributors to the achievement of the "ultimate objetive of this Convention" (Article 2). Several international legal instruments and initiatives mention the role of indigenous peoples and local communities in forest conservation. For instance, the Indigenous Peoples Convention, introduced by the ILO in 1989, calls upon the signatory states to take measures to protect and preserve the environment of the territories indigenous people inhabit and to recognize their land rights. The "Call for Action" issued during CBD COP2 in Jakarta, in 1995, stressed "the need to develop and implement methods for sustainable forest management which combine production goals, socioeconomic goals of forest-dependent local communities, and environmental goals". Unfortunately, the present trend of global negotiations on climate change does not seem to go in this direction. The Kyoto Protocol is being regarded more as a trading agreement than as an environmental agreement, since Northern countries and private corporations –main responsible for the alteration of the world’s climate- are the most relevant actors in the diplomatic scene and seek to impose their points of view. The "promotion of sustainable forest management practices" –as stated in Article 2.ii of the Kyoto Protocol as an obligation of Annex I countries- seems to be only dead letter.
Forest-related quotes from UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol Framework Convention on Climate Change: Article 1.7. "Reservoir" means a component or components of the climate system where a greenhouse gas or a precursor of a greenhouse gas is stored Article 1.8 "Sink" means any process, activity or mechanism which removes a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas from the athmosphere Article 2. The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the athmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time frame sufficent to allow ecosystems to adpat naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic develoment to proceeed in a sustainable manner. Article 3.3 The Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change ... Efforts to address climate change may be carried out cooperatively by interested Parties. Article 4.1 All Parties, taking into account their common but differentiated responsiblities and their specific national and regional development priorities, objectives and circumstances, shall: a) Develop, periodically uopdate, publish and make available to the Conference of the Parties, in accordance with Article 12, national inventories of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol, using comparable methodologies to be agreed upon by the Conference of the Parties... c) Promote and cooperate in the development, application and diffusion, including transfer of technologies, practices and processes that control, reduce or prevent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse effect gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol in all relevant sectors, including ... forestry ... d) promote sustainable management, and promote and cooperate in the conservation and enhacement, as appropriate, of sinks and reservoirs of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol, including ... forests. Kyoto Protocol: Article 2,ii Protection and anhacement of sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases ... promotion of sustainable forest management practices, afforestation and reforestation. Article 3, 3. The net changes in greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks resulting from direct human-induced land-use change and forestry activities, limited to afforestation, reforestation and deforestation since 1990, measured as verifiable changes in carbos stocks in each commitment period, shall be used to meet the commitments under this Article of each Party included in Annex I. The greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks associated with those activities shall be reported in a transparent and verifiable manner and reviewed in accordance with Articles 7 and 8. Article 3,4. Prior to the first session of the conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parety of this Protocol, each Party included in Annex I shall provide, for consideration by the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, data to establish its level of carbon stocks in 1990 and to enable an estimate to be made of its changes in carbon stocks in subsequent years. The Conference of the Parties, serving as the meeting of the Parties of this Protocol shall, at its first session or as soon as practicable thereafter, decide upon modalities, rules and guidelines as to how, and which, additional human-induced activities related to changes in greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks in the agricultural soils and the land-use change and forestry cathegories shall be added to, or substracted from, the assigned amount for Parties, included in Annex I, Article 3,7. ... Those Parties included in Annex I for whom land-use change in forestry constituted a net source of greenhouse gas emissions in 1990 shall include in their 1990 emissions base year of perior the aggregate anthropogenic carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by sources minus removals by sinks in 1990 from land-use change for the purposes of calculating their assigned amount.
WRM STATEMENT WRM statement to the Fourth Conference of the Parties of the Climate Change Convention Buenos Aires, November 1998 The WRM is deeply concerned about the direction in which the climate change negotiations seem to be leading, particularly after the Kyoto Protocol. A great number of Northern governments appear to be currently more concerned about seeking to buy their way out of their responsibilities to the global environment --particularly through the Clean Development Mechanism-- instead of implementing actions to effectively counter the greenhouse effect. On the other hand, many Southern governments seem to be equally interested in such approach, and eager to sell their environmental services at the best price possible. The climate change problem which the world is confronting is however well-known and so are the remedies. The buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is the result of unsustainable production and consumption practices. One of the main greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide. The majority of the emissions of this gas stem from two main sources: the use of fossil fuels and deforestation processes (which release carbon stored in biomass). The remedy is therefore to eliminate the use of fossil fuels and to put a stop to deforestation. The question is not whether these solutions are possible to achieve now (the knowledge and technology certainly exist), but if governments are creating conditions to reach that objective and if solutions will be implemented before the world's ecosystems and societies reach a total colapse. Unfortunately, this does not seen to be the case. Tropical forest peoples from all over the world are witnessing a major push in oil and gas exploration --in many cases promoted by multilateral development banks--and are struggling to put a stop to it. Southern governments, hand in hand with Northern oil and gas companies, repress those peoples, while Northern governments turn a blind eye on what their companies do. Those local peoples, while defending their own rights, are simultaneously defending the global environment, given that if their struggles are successful it will mean that less fossil fuel emissions will be released to the atmosphere and fewer tropical forests destroyed. Deforestation processes continue unabated and the destruction will continue until major changes are introduced to the current unsustainable global economy. Here again, local peoples are standing up to defend their forests and forest lands and are also repressed by their governments to the benefit of local elites and transnational corporations in the logging, mining, oil, plantation, agriculture, aquaculture and other production areas. Tree plantations, promoted as one of the main solutions to climate change, are themselves resulting in further deforestation processes in many Southern countries, where forests are being substituted by monoculture tree plantations. At the same time, this solution is creating further problems to local peoples and local environments, as the displacement of local populations (resulting in further deforestation), the depletion of soil and water resources, the elimination of habitats of local wildlife and flora, etc. We therefore demand governments present at the COP4: 1) To undertake real commitment to forest conservation by supporting --instead of repressing-- local communities willing to preserve their forests 2) To create conditions to allow local communities to manage their community forests, including the legal recognition of the territorial rights of indigenous and other traditional forest and forest-dependent peoples 3) To address the land-tenure issue and promote a genuinly participatory agrarian reform in order to avoid planned and unplanned peasant migrations to the forests 4) To avoid the promotion of large-scale monoculture tree plantations (particularly exotics) and to promote the re-establishment of forests through the plantation of species native to each area in those cases where local communities are willing to bring their forests back 5) To avoid the implementation of infrastructure and other projects which could directly or indirectly result in deforestation processes 6) To address the international underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation 7) To coordinate with other international processes dealing with equally important environmental issues, such as the Convention of Biological Diversity and the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests, to make sure that initiatives within the different processes are not antagonistic to each other, such as in the case of the promotion of large-scale carbon sink tree plantations, which contribute to further deforestation and biodiversity loss.
WRM GENERAL ACTIVITIES News from the International Secretariat On October 2 the WRM International Secretariat addressed the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights, supporting the document sent to this international organization by CEJIL (Centre for Justice and International Law) and CIMI, denouncing the Brazilian government for ignoring the Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous peoples land rights and demanding the inmediate filing of the Federal police investigation against the Dutch missionary Winfried Overbeek. Ricardo Carrere participated in the Latin American Workshop of the Joint Initiative to Address the Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation held in Santiago de Chile from 8-10 October. The five case studies presented at the workshop are available in our web site, where we will be including the studies presented at the other seven regional processes (some are already available). The WRM International Secretariat launched an action alert to support the First Pacific Walking for Land Rights and Self-determination of the Ngobe people and other indigenous peoples of Costa Rica, that took place between 11 and 12 October. By means of a letter we also expressed to the Ambasador of Costa Rica in Uruguay our support to this action. On October 20 we sent faxes to Ecuadorian authorities supporting the struggle of the Cofanes indigenous peoples, who have recently occupied the Dureno 1 oil well in the Ecuadorian Amazon, as an action of protest against the depleting activities of the oil industry in their ancestral territories. A message was also sent to the company Bosques Arauco, dated October 28, expressing our concern for the situation of the Mapuche community of Cuyinco, which is defending the native forests of Cerro Alto in southern Chile against logging activities by this company.
Chilean ecologist receives international prize Juan Pablo Orrego, Chilean anthropologist and ecologist, member of the NGO GABB (Grupo de Acción por el Bio Bio), received the 1998 prize from the Norvegian organization Right Livelihood Foundation for his permanent defence of the Bio Bio watershed and the Pewenche indigenous peoples against hydrolelectric projects in the VIII and IX Regions in southern Chile. The award –known as the Alternative Nobel Prize- is confered to people and organizations distinguished by their actions for world environment and peace.
An action alert for the Costa Rican mangroves launched by the WRM International Secretariat on October 13 –following a request from Mangrove Action Project (MAP) -contributed to leave unchanged the text of the national law that protects these rich ecosystems. The Government had proposed the Parliament to introduce some modifications in the law, that would have opened up these protected areas to the shrimp farm expansion.
In its chapter related to forests, "Life out of Bounds" deals with the menacing trend of tree monocultures for biodiversity. Those interested in purchasing the book, please address the Worldwatch Institute's website <www.worldwatch.org>, or call the Institute directly, at (U.S. dial) 800-555-2028, or the online bookseller amazon.com. Chris Bright, "Life Out of Bounds: Bioinvasion in a Borderless World" (New York: WW Norton, 1998). Issued as a part of the Worldwatch Environmental Alert Series. 288 pages; $13.00.
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