|
|
WRM Bulletin
|
|
WRM GENERAL ACTIVITIES - Forestry model in Uruguay under siege Concern for the environmental consequences of the forestry schemes applied in Uruguay is growing all over the country. The planned installation of a pulp and paper mill in the small city of Fray Bentos, on the River Uruguay coast, has raised a wave of protest. This fact is impressive since the unemployment rate in that city is particularly high. WRM is active on both issues (plantations and the pulp and paper mill) and has facilitated the creation of a coalition of NGOs aimed at raising awareness and organizing opposition against the model. The coalition adopted the name of "Guayubira" (Patagonula americana), an almost extinct native tree of northern Uruguay. The coalition is becoming very active in different areas of the country and is also beginning to lobby parliamentarians to introduce changes to the current forestry legislation and to eliminate subsidies to plantations. - Suspected murder of Mexican activist On July 21 the WRM Secretariat addressed a letter to Mr. Tinoco Rubi -Governor of Michoacan, Mexico- to inquire about the odd circumstances in which Alberto Alonso Salmeron, President of Juchari Uinapecua Society of Michoacan and member of the Mexican Network of Forest Organizations, died while in police custody. According to information received from that country, Salmeron had previously received death threats because of his activities. The WRM Secretariat requested the Governor of Michoacan to carry out investigations to clarify Salmeron's death and eventually to implement measures to make the police agents who are suspected to have denied him assistance responsible for his death. Allegedly, Salmeron had received three bullet wounds and received no medical assistance in the police station, which resulted in his death. Source: Ernesto Ladron de Guevara, Union Nacional de Organizaciones Autonomas Campesinas, Mexico
WRM CAMPAIGNS In our last Bulletin we informed about the inprisonment of 42 Dayak-Ibans at Miri for resisting the expansion of oil palm plantations in their customary lands and disseminated their letter from Lambir Miri Central Prison. We are now pleased to inform that all of them have been freed. On July 7 a group consisting of 11 persons was bailed by their wives and relatives who were worried about their health. One of them -Mangagat Ak Bukong- was sent to hospital due to severe chest pains, while the others are seeking medical treatment as a consequence of the violence suffered in jail. Additionally, on August 5 the Miri High Court revoked a lower court's decision that three Dayak Ibans had acted illegally by protesting an oil palm plantation being developed on their Native Customary Land. They are Longhouse Chief TR. Riggie Ak Beloluk, Gengga Ak Timbang and Ungkok Ak Atau, all of them from Rumah Riggie, Sungai Nat, Tinjar in Baram area in Miri Division. The above three, together with six Ibans who had been arrested and detained on April 17 this year, were ordered by the Miri Magistrate's Court to execute a six month "bond to keep the peace," before they would be released. Three of the nine individuals chose to remain in prison for 18 days to protest the court's original decision. According to their statement at the time, "We do not agree with the Order because we never committed any criminal offense . . . the thing that is uppermost in our mind is the fact that by signing the bond to keep the peace as ordered, we are also accepting the Sarawak government and the oil palm plantation companies' baseless allegation that we do not have any right over our native customary land." On August 6 the High Court granted an appeal filed by the Ibans immediately after their imprisonment and squashed an order made by the Magistrate's Court for them to execute a bond to keep the peace. The High Court considered that the 42 Ibans had not been accorded the statutory protection provided under the Criminal Procedure Code for a fair hearing. Therefore the order to keep peace was considered illegal. This case can be considered an important victory for the Ibans of Riggie Longhouse and an important precedent for Dayak-Ibans communities throughout Sarawak, as the High Court's decision finally seems to consider their right to protest against the illegal entry of oil palm plantation companies into their customary lands. Source: Borneo Resources Institute. August 1997. - Brazil: the Tupinikim/Guarani struggle continues Even if the Minister of Justice devoted just a few minutes to meet with Indigenous Peoples' delegates and representatives of CIMI on July 15th, they were able to hand him 3800 signatures from 29 countries expressing support to their struggle. A meeting with the undersecretary was arranged for August 12th. In the meantime, Aracruz does not seem to change its attitude towards Indigenous claims. It hired Burson-Marsteller -the biggest public relations company in the world- known for its previous activities in favour of the past Argentinian dictatorship, of Philip Morris in the USA and Union Carbide after the infamous accident in India. As a reaction against Aracruz's main trade union SINTICEL, that has shown its support to the Indigenous Peoples' struggle and even denounced problems with the firm's management in Norwegian newspapers, Burson-Marsteller began a big campaign trying to show that SINTICEL does not represent Aracruz workers. LO (the biggest confederation of trade unions in Norway) and CUT (Brazilian Confederation of Trade Unions) support SINTICEL's firm position. Source: Winfried Overbeek. CIMI-Leste. July 1997.
LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS ASIA - India: wildlife conservation and people's rights A group of about 20 social activists, wildlife conservationists, researchers, lawyers, and mediapersons met from 10 to 12 April, 1997, at Bhikampura- Kishori in Alwar District, adjacent to the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan (western India). The meeting, called by the Indian Institute of Public Administration and Kalpavriksh, and hosted by Tarun Bharat Sangh, was an attempt to initiate a dialogue between those advocating the cause of wildlife protection and those struggling to uphold the human rights of rural communities living in and around wildlife habitats. Over the last few years, conflicts have erupted in many of India's national parks, sanctuaries, and other natural habitats, between officials and NGOs involved in wildlife conservation on the one hand, and local communities and social activists on the other hand. Clashes between the Forest Department and local people are increasingly common. A top-down, centralised model of conservation, which has ignored the dependence of local communities on the resources of natural habitats, as also their traditions of conservation, is one root of this conflict; other factors include the increasing politicisation and commercialisation of rural areas, breakdown of traditions, and the demands made by growing populations of people and livestock, all of which clash with conservation goals. Simultaneously, wildlife and wildlife habitats continue to be destroyed by the dominant industrial-commercial economy, and the rampant consumerism of the rich minority. The same governments which declared protected areas (national parks and sanctuaries) are today eager to open them up for mining, dams, industries, tourism, roads, and other so-called development projects, to the extent of being willing to even denotify them. Activists, conservationists, and community members have increasingly felt the need to respond to these conflicts, and to explore ways of working together to conserve wildlife, ensure local people's livelihoods, and challenge destructive industrial-commercial forces. Yet dialogue among us has been limited and sporadic. This meeting was an effort to initiate a more systematic process of dialogue and mutual understanding. The meeting agreed on a number of principles, strategies and joint actions. For further information on these, you can either request it from us or contact directly Ashish Kothari, I.P. Estate, New Delhi 110002, Tel: 91-11-3317309; Fax: 91-11-3319954; Email: akothari@kv.unv.ernet.in The final paragraph of the meeting's statement clearly establishes its approach to conservation: "We resolve to work together towards ensuring the conservation of species and habitats, and the traditional rights of access to resources of local communities, for which our main struggle will be against the destructive industrial-commercial economy." Source: Ashish Kothari, Indian Institute of Public Administration - Laos: Dams, Conservation and People To the oil and mining companies, repressive governments and banks we list among the world's exploiters, we must add another sector -conservationists. Unaccountable, opaque and pursuing a model of protection that is both repressive and outmoded, some of the world's biggest conservation organisations are becoming indistinguishable from other neo-colonial corsairs. Unwilling to contemplate the wider consequences of their actions, they have ensured that conservation is now one of the greatest threats to the global environment. This month, the World Bank will decide whether or not to support the construction of the Nam Theun 2 dam in Laos. One of the most destructive hydroelectric schemes on earth, it will drown 470 square kilometres of the remarkable forests and grasslands of the Nakai Plateau. Several rare animal species will disappear. The fisheries which help feed the catchment's thousands of indigenous people will be wiped out: mysteriously, this doesn't feature in the dam's environmental assessment. On the face of it there is nothing astonishing about this project: the World Bank, institutionally corrupt and apparently incapable of genuine reform, has been funding devastating dams for years. What is surprising is that two of the most active supporters of the dam, who have done more than any others to lend it credibility, are major conservation groups. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) recognise the destructive potential of Nam Theun 2. But it is, they argue, the only means by which sufficient money will be released by international donors to finance their plans for the remainder of the Nakai Plateau. Both organisations claim that the forests and wildlife of the plateau are being gradually degraded by the shifting cultivation and hunting and gathering of the region's indigenous people. The WCS appears to want local people to leave the Nakai-Nam Theun Conservation Area altogether. The IUCN will let them stay, but wants them to stop their traditional farming and adopt the "alternative livelihoods" it prescribes. The dam project will give these organisations the money they need for "proper management" - the IUCN has asked the Bank for $65 million. Moreover, by increasing state involvement in the region the dam will ensure that local people's activities are properly policed. Moreover, neither the IUCN nor the WCS has demonstrated satisfactorily that local people are a substantial threat to the ecosystem. Indeed it is arguable that conservation groups are only interested in the area because indigenous people have looked after it so well. Experience elsewhere in the world suggests that a strengthening, rather than a reduction, of local people's land rights is the only sustainable means of managing an ecosystem: they are the ones with a long-term interest in the health of their environment. Excluding people from their own resources while forcing them - as the IUCN advocates - to grow cash crops, could scarcely do more to set them against wildlife. But neither human rights nor wider environmental impacts seem to matter much to organisations like the Wildlife Conservation Society. Alongside the equally prestigious Smithsonian Institute, the WCS is also working with the Burmese regime. Earlier this year, the government forcibly relocated 30,000 people from an area it wanted for a nature reserve. Two thousand of them were murdered. Survival International has shown how the Worldwide Fund for Nature's intervention in the Philippines has helped reduce indigenous people to dependency and destitution. In East Africa, tens of thousands of nomads who have been excluded by conservationists from their best grazing lands now find themselves forced to over-exploit the rest of the savannah. The problem is as old as the conservation movement itself. Professor Grzimek, Hitler's curator of Frankfurt Zoo and the champion of the Serengeti National Park, claimed: "A National Park must remain a primordial wilderness to be effective. No men, not even native ones, should live inside its borders." Yet, beyond Antarctica, wilderness does not exist on earth: all land is affected by and reflective of human activities. Grzimek's preservationist model was never either a humane or realistic means of conservation. Yet the policy has become both too lucrative and too politically convenient to be changed. Big conservation groups, like anyone else attempting the sequestration of resources, align themselves with power against the powerless. Conservation organisations like the IUCN and the WCS are not the friends but the enemies of the environment. We must fight them as we fight the governments and corporations with which they so gleefully collaborate. Source: "Conservationists who are enemies of the earth", The Guardian. Wednesday August 6 1997, by George Monbiot
AFRICA - Malaysians in South Africa, South Africans in Brazil Malaysian forestry companies could be given a thirty-year concession in South Africa to establish 300.000 hectares of industrial tree plantations in the Transkei in Eastern Cape province. Such project has raised very difficult and delicate questions given that this is probably South Africa's most impoverished area and plantations are being presented as providing development, jobs and money. Malaysian companies would also receive exclusive rights to develop elite and exclusive tourist resorts in the most pristine areas of coastal forest endemism. For sure this will prevent rural people from having access to their own natural resources and will degrade the local ecosystems. On the other side of the ocean, South African pulp and paper company Mondi became, in May 1996, one of Aracruz Celulose's three major shareholders. Aracruz is the world's largest bleached eucalyptus pulp producer and owns 203.000 hectares of land in the Brazilian states of Espirito Santo and Bahia. Those plantations have invaded indigenous peoples lands, who are struggling to recover them and have resulted in widespread environmental degradation. Development, jobs and money are also used here as catchwords, but the true beneficiaries are mostly the companies' shareholders. Sources: Chris Albertyn, EJNF, South Africa; Aracruz Celulose: Facts and Figures 1996
SOUTH AMERICA - The pulp and paper industry faces problems in the Amazon The four big pulp and paper projects in the Brazilian Amazon (Companhia Suzano de Papel e Celulose and CELMAR in Maranhao, Jari Celulose in Para, and Champion in Amapa) are facing important problems from the economic, social and environmental points of view. The anarchic character of the pulp and paper industry has resulted in falls in the prices of market pulp. Rural workers denounce illegal work contracts while peasants protest about the expansion of the lands owned by the companies. Champion bought a total of 448.000 hectares in Amapa. Regional governments -as that of Amapa- have denounced that some of the land sales to the companies have been illegal since those were publicly owned. The utilization of agrotoxics in eucalyptus plantations has raised workers' protests. They claim suffering from headache and pains in their eyes and muscles as a consequence of the application of Round-up and DMA and denounce not having received the required health care. Source: Instituto Socioambiental. Parabolicas 30, June 1997 - Asian companies invade the Amazon A report on the activities of Asian logging companies in the Brazilian Amazon, prepared by a special committee of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies will be ready by the end of August. According to Deputy Gilney Viana of Matto Grosso (Workers' Party), two dozen transnational logging companies are working in the Amazon. Those financed by Malaysian and Chinese capitals entered the area in 1995. The Malaysian WTK Group bought 1.400.000 hectares at Carauari Municipality, Amazonia State, in association with the Brazilian company Amaplac that exports plywood. A second Malaysian group -presumed to be connected to Riguma and Jau companies- has created a holding for wood industrialization together with two Brazilian firms. This shows that the main strategy of foreign logging companies is to associate with national firms, with the aim of avoiding internal criticism for their depredatory activities. However, Brazilian companies themselves should also be responsible for conserving the Amazon environment. Viana pointed out that Article 225 of the Brazilian Constitution, that declares the Amazon as being a national heritage, needs to be regulated in order to avoid this kind of abuses. Nowadays foreign economic groups can exploit at will 8 to 10 million hectares of the Amazon without any kind of control from the public authorities. Source: Gaucha Ecologica (Radio Gaucha) and Ecologia en Destaque (Radio CBN/1120). Brazil. August 1997. - Gold fever threatens forests and people in Suriname The relatively untouched areas occupied by rainforests in Suriname -source of a rich biodiversity and ancestral homeland for thousands of Indigenous peoples and Maroons, descendants from ancient African slaves- are threatened by the increase of mining concessions that the Government is granting to foreign companies. Plans of Canadian mining companies Golden Star Resources and Cambior Inc. to mine gold in the Gross Rosebel concession, call for the relocation of the Maroon of Nieuw Koffiekamp, which is strongly resisted by that community. Since 1994, when the construction of the mining camp began, Golden Star has been denying them access to their gardens, hunting and fishing areas. A negotiation process is being carried out, but the Government and the companies would not consider the will of the community to stay in their lands. Only a resettlement agreement is to be negotiated. The basic reason for this is that Suriname is the only country in the Western Hemisphere that does not legally recognize some form of traditional land tenure. "Our lands are of fundamental importance for our survival as Indigenous and Tribal peoples. Without the land, forest and rivers there are no trees, birds, animals and fish and we as Indigenous and Maroon peoples will not be able to survive" declared a Gran Krutu (Great Gathering) of Indigenous and Maroon leaders held in November 1996. Golden Star and Cambior's background is not good at all: they were partners in the infamous OMAI mine in Guyana, that dumped 3-4 million litres of cyanide and heavy metal wastes into the Essequibo River when a dam ruptured in August 19, 1995. This is considered one of the worst mine disasters in history. Golder Associates of Toronto and Rescan of Vancouver, respectively responsible for the building of the failed dam at OMAI and the Environmental Impact Assessment of the Project, will also take part in the Gross Rosebel Project. As a matter of fact, the possibility of State control is inexistent since Suriname does not have any environmental protection law and the Government lacks any monitoring capacity. Thus the population of Suriname and especially its forest peoples are forced to rely upon self-monitoring and self-regulation of two companies that have proved to be completely unreliable in this respect. Moreover David Fagin, Chairman of Golden Star, has even stated that his company "has looked increasingly at the Guyana Shield because of the increased pressure from environmentalists and the government in the United States", where Golden Star is based. This company has also formed a joint venture with Broken Hill Property, an Australian mining giant, to explore the Tapanahogany and Tempati concessions. BHP's background does not look very clean either: it has had disputes with Aboriginal peoples in Australia and has caused environmental degradation in other parts of the world, for instance, the dumping of toxic wastes that occured in Ok Tedi copper mine in Papua New Guinea and the dispute for territorial rights with the community of Santa Rosa in Guyana. Finally a third case: the acquisition of three new mining concessions in the Brokopondo District by the Canadian Canarc Resource Corp, that has become one of the largest strategic mineral landholdings in Suriname. The Maroon communities affected by these concessions were previously neither informed nor consulted. Canarc's activities in the Baramita region of Guyana -where it worked associated with Echo Bay- brought it into conflict with local Indigenous peoples. As for Echo Bay it received a heavy fine under the US Migratory Birds Treaty Act for poisoning birds with cyanide at McCoy Clove mine in Nevada. Source: Forest Peoples Programme, July 1997 - Indonesian Forestry Incursions in Suriname After more than two years monitoring and carrying out research visits to Suriname, the Tropical Rainforest Team of IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) and SKEPHI have published an interesting report on N.V. MUSA Indo-Surinam -an Indonesian logging company- operating in that country. "Today in many countries in Africa, Central and South America, Mainland South Asia, South Pacific and even in eastern Europe, direct logging operations or indirect interests in timber supply can be seen in conjunction with the expansion of South Eastern companies. While natural forests in SE Asia have decreased to a critical state, the timber industry (plywood, pulp and paper) in Malaysia and Indonesia is ever ambitioning market expansion" state the authors. Important politicians and officials of Suriname have facilited MUSA's expansion ignoring public concern for the back-tracked record of the company. Even if -as is usual in this kind of projects- MUSA claims that its activity will bring social and economic benefits to the host country, reality shows the opposite. Apoera peasants, in West-Suriname, where MUSA is managing a concession for logging since 1994, denounce the ecological and social depletion accomplished by the company. MUSA's activities are a paradigmatic example of how transnational capital operates in the forestry sector. The report contains the following chapters: Preface Those interested in getting a copy please contact:
OCEANIA - Clonal tree monocultures and genetic engineering in New Zealand Aotearoa (New Zealand) has planted extensive industrial tree plantations (more than one and a half million hectares), mostly based on one exotic tree species: Pinus radiata. In recent decades planting clonal stock has become standard practice. Currently, more than 95% of new planting (this includes new afforestation and planting after harvest) is based on Pinus radiata clones, selected primarily for rapid growth (and thus reliance on fertilisers), tree form to maximise the amount of `clear' (knot free) wood, and qualities that suit industrial purposes. Current research focuses indicate that it won't be long before the industry will be attempting to release genetically engineered material, particularly for herbicide (glyphosate) resistance, particular growth form or wood quality traits, and sterility (to stop naturalisation into indigenous ecosystems). Source: Grant Rosoman, Greenpeace New Zealand, author of "The plantation effect: an ecoforestry review on the environmental effects of exotic monoculture tree plantations in Aotearoa/New Zealand." Wellington, Greenpeace, 1994. Email: Grant.Rosoman@dialb.greenpeace.org - Hawaii: Eucalyptus plantations arriving Amid strong local opposition, eucalyptus plantations are coming to Hawaii. Following a move by Bishop Estate, a huge local landowner, to lease 6400 hectares of ex-sugar lands on the Big Island of Hawai'i to a subsidiary of Prudential Insurance company for eucalyptus pulpwood plantations, the state and county of Hawaii are preparing to offer a rental agreement to Oji Paper/Marubeni on an additional 4150 hectares of public land. Oji/Marubeni are also seeking private land leases on the Big Island and elsewhere. Some 10,000 hectares of state lands, in addition, may soon be taken out of cattle grazing and put into pulp timber. The eucalyptus would be chipped on the island and shipped to Japan as a raw material for paper production, joining a flow of wood chips to Oji from countries as far-flung as Chile, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Viet Nam, and Fiji. State officials have denied any interest in eventually also bringing a pulp mill to the island. But local critics of the plantations, more than 2000 of whom have expressed concerns about Prudential's aerial spraying of herbicides and large-scale field burning, remain unconvinced. A local non-government organization called Friends of Hamakua, in conjunction with local farmers and community organizations, is in the midst of formulating an alternative land-use plan for the 4150 hectares on the verge of being leased to Oji/Marubeni. Hamakua County Councilman Dominic Yagong suggests that, instead of turning to tree monoculture, the county lease its lands to 144 landless members of a local agricultural co-op as a way of tapping the diversified potential of these "prime agricultural lands". Such a move, he claims, would provide far more jobs than would giving over public lands to the pulp industry for 55 years. A decision on the state and county lands is expected in the next month or two. For more information please contact: Source: Larry Lohmann, August 1997
|
 |
|||
|
|||
|
Go to Home Page
World Rainforest Movement
Maldonado 1858 - 11200 Montevideo - Uruguay
tel: 598 2 413 2989 / fax: 598 2 410 0985
wrm@wrm.org.uy
