WRM Bulletin Nº 52 / November 2001

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OUR VIEWPOINT

- Improvements in forest-related international processes

The issue of forests is being addressed by three major international processes: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) and the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Until recently, the three processes appeared to be moving in different and not too positive directions, but there are now some signs that the situation might be improving.

The recently held meeting of the CBD's Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) was in this sense a welcome surprise. The main theme of the meeting was forest biological diversity and the aim was to produce a programme of work to ensure the conservation of that biodiversity. In the end, participants agreed on a number of "elements for an expanded programme of work on forest biological diversity", to be submitted to the Conference of the Parties. Most of those elements point at the right direction, including local peoples' rights, participation, equitable sharing of benefits, sustainable use, capacity-building and many other relevant issues.

It is of course true that biodiversity experts by no means represent their governments' thinking on biodiversity conservation. However, the SBSTTA's recommendations will form the basis for the discussions of the upcoming Conference of the Parties (April 2001), and government delegates will find it difficult to dismiss their own experts' recommendations.

Another important result is that SBSTTA decided to establish closer links with the UNFF process in order to ensure that both processes move in the same direction. As a first step, a CBD-UNFF meeting will be organized in Ghana next January, including NGO/IPO participation. It is hoped that this meeting will be particularly useful to ensure that the UNFF takes biodiversity on board in a much more significant manner than the fora that preceded it --the Intergovernmental Panel and Forum on Forests (IPF and IFF).

Additionally, experts appear to have begun to understand that large scale monoculture tree plantations are not only not forests, but that they are themselves a major cause of biodiversity loss. They are therefore increasingly less keen to promote them as part of the solution, even when they appear to be still unwilling to openly oppose them.

At the Climate Change Convention level the situation is conflicting with biodiversity conservation, given that the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in fact promotes large scale tree monocultures as "carbon sinks". However, a decision adopted this month by the Seventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on "land use, land-use change and forests" clearly establishes the principles governing activities within the Kyoto Protocol, among which the requirement "that the implementation of land use, land-use change and forestry activities contributes to the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable use of natural resources." This means that large scale tree monocultures could be out of the CDM if proven to be detrimental to biodiversity or to the sustainable use of natural resources ... which they always are.

All the above positive news are of course still only on paper and in far too many cases have very little in common with what governments are actually doing at the ground level. In fact, at times these international processes appear to be more akin to "virtual reality" than to true reality. At times, it is difficult to repress the overwhelming wish to shout out when delegates from governments that are well-known for widespread forest destruction take the floor and describe all the allegedly positive actions they are carrying out to protect forests, which everyone there knows is untrue.

In spite of the above and in spite of the many shortcomings of these processes, it is important to acknowledge that international processes and agreements eventually lead to action and, in the worst case scenario, may at least provide local peoples and organizations with more tools to protect their rights and their forests. For this to happen, it is important that the actual texts agreed upon are positive. We therefore believe than what has happened this month --particularly at SBSTTA-- contains many positive elements that may lead to much needed action to protect the world's forests.

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LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS

AFRICA

- Cameroon: Unsustainable forestry for European benefit

Cameroon, with 475,000 square kilometres and a 14.7 million population, has timber as a major export commodity, second to oil. The country is facing a high level of debt to bilateral creditors (France, Germany and Austria, to begin with), and also the World Bank and the IMF. Additionally, corruption at all levels has contributed to the deterioration of the country’s economy.

The forestry industry remains as one of the few profitable businesses within the formal sector, in a country which is a mixture of desert plains in the north, mountains in the central regions and tropical rainforest in the south and east. The amount of forested area is estimated at 225,000 square kilometres, of which 175,000 have been identified by the government as productive forests.

A new forestry law was passed in 1994, setting basically a framework for industrialisation. The law identifies six different types of logging permits: sales of standing volume, exploitation permits, individual felling authorisation, concessions, state exploitation and wood recovery permit. Of these, only concessions require management plans and are allocated through a competitive bidding process --though prioritising price to quality. The Sales of Standing Volume are the most solicited since they do not request a management plan, foreigners can apply for them and allow sub-contracts --which diminish responsibility and accountability for forest exploitation.

The country has weak legislation monitoring and enforcement processes and lacks political will to stop illegal logging and trade, which presently are a trait of the Cameroonian forestry sector. It has been predicted that logging at this rate means that the forests in Cameroon will run out of commercial timber within 15 years.

European companies dominate the forest industry in Cameroon --as concessionaries and also subcontractors to concessions allocated to Cameroonian nationals. Also most timber production goes to European processing plants and consumers: in 1998, Italy and France accounted for over 61% of log exports, superseding China which occupies now the third place, followed by Spain and Portugal. Other major beneficiaries are Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.

Unsustainable logging has meant that companies are moving ever further into primary forest areas, driving roads into large areas of previously inaccessible forest, thereby opening the forest up to other activities, with decimation of wildlife in many areas being but one of the negative derivations.

Though logging companies are supposed to pay a local tax to contribute to development projects, local people rarely see any benefit from their operations. The lack of any real choice in their development options may explain why some forest-dependent people prefer illicit operations. The intrusion of the cash economy into the forests has disrupted, for example, Pygmies’ traditionally close-to-nature lives. Now, they often capture bushmeat for commercial traders who follow the logging roads or find commercially-exploitable trees for loggers, thereby accelerating the end of their livelihood.

Closing the circle, intimidation of local people, NGOs and government officials by company employees tightens the knot around Cameroonian people's neck.

All the above shows clearly why government officials --from both Cameroon and European countries involved in logging, trade and consumption of this wood-- are so unwilling to address the underlying causes of forest loss, among which unsustainable consumption patterns in consumer countries and external debt constitute some of the major causes.

Article based on information from: "Sold down the river", Forests Monitor, March 2001

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- Congo, D.R.: Millions of acres of forest under unsustainable logging

Located in the heart of the African continent, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s 2.3 million square kilometres territory covers most of the Congo River basin and has a narrow outlet into the Atlantic. The center and northern regions are covered with rainforests (1.1 million square kilometres in 1993) which, although sparsely populated, are the major livelihood for many of the country’s 48 million people who depend on the forests for non-timber forest products such as food, building materials and medicines.

Though a country rich in natural resources, landlessness, competition for land and a long history of conflict have led a great proportion of its population to poverty, hunger, chronic malnutrition and indebtedness.

Logging companies operate without an institutional or legislative framework to ensure sustainable and equitable use. Most timber exports are of logs, though in April 1999 there was a brief ban which was lifted three months later on account of pressure from the forestry sector. The World Bank also contributed to increase timber exports with US$ 12 million given for that purpose with the aim of paying the country’s debt.

The extremely low yield of logging operations resulting from a highly selective cut where only the best trees are taken, just accelerates the pace at which rainforests are being opened up.

Since 1996, several Malaysian timber companies have been exploiting the forests of CDR: Idris Hydraulic Bhd. has timber concessions totalling three million acres in CDR and Gabon, and in 1997 Innovest Bhd. bought two timber concessions in CDR totalling nearly two million acres. The German company SIFORZAL has been granted a logging concession of more than six million acres. Additionally, China is promoting logging in CDR to supply its huge internal market.

Although there are several protected areas, the war has prevented management and monitoring of those within conflictive zones. But also those outside the war zone are not being properly monitored.

In social terms, on the one hand logging companies provide a certain level of health, education and transportation services to local people usually neglected by the State, but on the other hand, they pay very low wages and feel no responsibility for Congolese workers once they have finished logging and moved away. This means that those who have moved into the forest to work for the company often have to switch to clearing the forest to grow food in order to feed their families. They --and not the companies or the government-- are then blamed for destroying the forest, while those responsible for the social, economic and environmental destruction triggered off by unsustainable logging cash their profits and leave. The victims thus become victims twice, while the forests continue to disappear.

Article based on information from: The World Guide 2001/2002, Third World Institute/New Internationalist Publications Ltd.; World Rainforest Information Portal, http://www.rainforestweb.org/Rainforest_Regions/Africa/Congo_Democratic_Republic ; "Sold down the river", Forests Monitor, March 2001

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- Gabon: More logging concessions in the hands of foreign firms

With a total area of 268,000 square kilometres, 80% of which are forests and many of them primary rainforests, Gabon is Africa’s second largest timber producer. Okoumé and, to a lesser extent, Ozigo wood species represent the bulk of Gabon’s production accounting for up to 80% of the country’s total timber production.

Mostly based on natural resource extraction --including timber-- for export markets, Gabon’s economy has been highly vulnerable to external factors like the Asian economic crisis, which drove it to a financial crisis in 1998, higher unemployment and increased poverty and indebtedness.

Although with the highest GNP per capita in the continent, those are void figures which do not reflect the real internal distribution of wealth since the monies go to a local elite while most of the population remain in poverty.

The forestry sector is the second source of foreign exchange after oil, and like many neighbouring countries the Gabonese government as well as international financial institutions regard the exploitation of timber as central to macro-economic development thus leading to a rapid increase in logging.

Forestry legislation in force goes in support of commercial logging, for example increasing considerably the area of concessions: from 10% of the forest land in 1957 to some 59 % in 1999. It has also promoted the dominance of overseas capital in the forestry sector.

In the coastal logging zone which is reserved for Gabonese nationals, logging is commonly sub-contracted to foreign logging companies, a practice known as "fermage", which fosters rent-seeking and involves a loss of tax revenue because the transfer of logging rights is poorly regulated. Permit owners receive large rents without feeling responsible for investing in their concessions; logging companies have no interest in doing so either.

Logging in Gabon is selective but not sustainable. It has been argued that, as only a small number of Okoumé trees are removed, they would easily regenerate. But recent studies indicate that creaming off the best trees results in lower quality timber.

Logging not also contributes to increase commercial bushmeat hunting leading to wildlife decimation, but also causes soil erosion, in particular on slopes, and pollution through the chemicals used to treat the wood.

Although a new forestry law has been drafted to be approved this year --under pressure from the IMF and World Bank-- it promotes further industrialisation of the forests and does little to address the dominance of foreign capital in the industry or to mitigate poverty.

Once again, "development" schemes generally fostered from outside and replicated along southern countries rich in natural resources, bring money to national and international elites but not for the people.

Article based on information from: "Sold down the river", Forests Monitor, March 2001

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- Kenya: Is the government serious about forest biodiversity conservation?

During the meeting of the Subsidiary Body (SBSTTA) of the Convention of Biological Diversity held in Montreal, Canada from November 12 to 16, NGOs raised the issue of the contradiction between the Kenyan Government's commitments and actions regarding forest biodiversity conservation.

The fact is that while government delegates were meeting in Montreal to take action to ensure biodiversity conservation, the government of Kenya's recent announcement of its intention to excise over 67,000 hectares of forests showed a clear lack of commitment in that respect. This decision would have severe implications, particularly given the country's critically low forest cover (less than 2% of Kenya's total land area). If implemented, the announced excisions would affect the two largest of the five main water catchment areas of the country: Mount Kenya and the Mau Forests.

In particular, the large proposed excision in the Mau Forest would have complex and grave social and environmental consequences. The government proposes to excise 35,301 hectares of Eastern Mau Forest (54% of the forest reserve); 22,797 hectares of South-western Mau (27% of the forest reserve); and 1,036 hectares of Western Mau forest (only 4.5%, but all forest).

The government is not even taking into account that these forests are not empty. The Ogiek, an indigenous hunting and honey-gathering people have lived in the Mau forest for hundreds of years. They have all along sought the recognition of this area as their ancestral land. After years of dispute, authorities have refused to recognize this heritage as Ogiek land and instead ordered the Ogiek to leave the forest. The Ogiek have a right to live in their ancestral home but the government wants to give the land to private individuals rather than conserve it for the benefit of the Ogiek and the entire nation.

These Forest excisions in Kenya will lead to a significant loss of the nation’s biodiversity. The South Nandi Forest Reserve shelters a globally-threatened species, a small bird called Turner’s Eremomela. Any further excision of South Nandi forest, however small, will further endanger this bird.

The excision of Eastern Mau Forest will have a devastating impact on the world’s largest concentration of flamingoes in Lake Nakuru, which is protected under international law (Ramsar Convention). The Government's plan is to excise almost the entire catchment area of Lake Nakuru, which will lead to major changes in quantity and quality of the water feeding the lake. Lake Nakuru’s value as one of Kenya’s most popular parks, may disappear with the flamingoes.

Furthermore, the excisions of the Mau Forest will significantly reduce the ability of the forest ecosystem to cope with natural disasters, in particular drought, hence leading to more severe impacts. Drought has affected Kenya since historical times. The latest drought, experienced in 2000, had unprecedented impact on the people of Kenya and the nation’s economy, including water and electricity rationing, since 70% of the electricity is produced by hydro-power plants. Several assessment studies have shown that the severity of this impact was associated with past and current destruction of Kenyan forests.

In Mount Kenya, excision of the Sagana II section of the Hombe area will cut off a critical and already-fenced "corridor" used by elephants to migrate from the northern to the southern part of Mount Kenya through the Thigu forest, leading directly to human-wildlife conflict. The repercussions of excising Mt. Kenya forest will also be felt as far as on the mangrove ecosystems of the East-African coast. For instance, the current deforestation in this forest leads to a higher siltation in the Tana River and reduced output in the five hydro-power stations.

The situation described above is by no means an exception. Many other governments that have signed and ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity (as Kenya has) continue destroying those same forests they have committed themselves to protect. The question therefore needs to be posed; are the Kenyan and many other governments serious about forest biodiversity conservation?

Article based on information from: http://www.mountkenyatrust.com/other_pages/kfwgconcerns.htm

For more information on this issue contact the Kenya Forests Working Group, Michael Gachanja e-mail: mgachanja@eawildlife.org

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ASIA

- India: Mining ancestral lands for corporate profits

Norsk Hydro, a Norwegian corporation with investments in light metals, oil, petrochemicals and agriculture, along with Canadian transnational Alcan and India's Hindalco plans to mine bauxite on sacred tribal lands in Eastern Indian state of Orissa. The project would also process one million tonnes a year of bauxite through a joint venture with the company Utkal Alumina Industries Ltd (UAIL).

The Baphlimali Hills, where Hydro plans to mine bauxite, is the source of 350 perennial streams, including the tributaries that feed the Indravati River. To the Adivasis of the region, Baphlimali is a sacred life-giver. Though the region’s forest cover has been depleted over the years, there is still enough left to sustain the region’s 70-odd villages. Kutrumali, a huge mountain the companies plan to mine, has forests covering around 10-15 per cent of the plateau top. Whatever little is left of the forest resource, after having been plundered by the state government’s commercial activities, is crucial for the tribals’ food security during the dry months. Utkal's plans to mine 200 million tonnes of bauxite from the Baphlimali plateau would destroy this watershed. Estimates of the people negatively affected by the Utkal project range from 750 (Hydro's estimate), to 3,500 (Utkal's estimate) to 60,000 (Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation estimate).

The $1 billion project has led to confrontation between the tribal villagers who stand to lose their lands and forests, and the company and its supporters, including the State Government of Orissa and the police. Last year, on December 16, protests from some 4,000 people from 15 villages in the area took a toll of three men shot dead and nine others seriously injured by armed police. Norsk Hydro's initial reaction was to temporarily curtail project activities pending a lower level of tension in the project area. But that decision comes several years and three lives too late. The company had fuelled tensions which have been high ever since 1993, when the predominantly tribal population of this region first heard of Utkal's plans to mine bauxite.

Utkal has downplayed the importance of the ecosystem it plans to dig up, and has misrepresented sludge deposition rates in its application for environmental clearance. Critics accuse Utkal of presenting misleading data about the region's economy and ecological status. According to the NGO Norwatch, the deforestation caused by the mines and smelter will be aggravated because of the hilly terrain, resulting in more frequent flash floods, landslides, and nutrient enrichment of water bodies. Simultaneously, forest loss would also mean the loss of habitat for the region's wildlife including bears, jackals, wolves, sambars (a deer-like animal), spotted deer, leopard cats and the occasional tiger.

Corporate interests have the government’s support to carry out their plans-for-profit. They encroach upon peoples' livelihoods and the environment without even knowing what they are destroying: "I showed four leaves from the jungle to the forest ranger and asked him to identify the trees. He could not. If you do not know, then how is the forest yours?" (Faguaram Gond, Dhamtari district, Chhatisgarh)

Article based on information from: Nityanand Jayaraman; "Norsk Hydro: Global Compact Violator", in Corporate Watch: http://www.igc.org/trac/un/updates/2001/norskhydro.html ; India Together: http://www.indiatogether.org/campaigns/schedule5/voices.htm ; Indax Web Services: http://www.indax.com/orissa.html ; Down to Earth, Vol 7, No 22 April 15, 1999, http://www.oneworld.org/cse/html/dte/dte990415/dte_srep.htm

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- Indonesia: Togean people defend their forests, lands, and ocean

On September 15, more than 500 people from several neighbouring communities set fire to logging equipment owned by the timber company Argo Nusa, a subsidiary of the timber conglomerate Jayanti Group, owned by Bob Hasan, one of Soeharto’s cronies currently facing corruption charges.

These ethnic Togeans from Bungayo (a series of villages on the island of Talatakoh) descended on the logging camp, demanding the company stop operations and leave the island immediately. Enraged over the exploitation of their lands, they burned two logging trucks and a bulldozer. Community members later assembled outside local parliament, demanding an explanation for the government’s misappropriation of their traditional lands and forests. The local authorities arrested six youth. Failing to receive an answer, the villagers converged on the police station, prepared to force the release of the arrested youth. Following the company’s departure from the Island on September 17, police freed the six in custody; however, the affected communities are still awaiting compensation.

On September 18, the Alliance of Indigenous Togean Peoples and the Togean Women’s Solidarity held demonstrations in the Kayome Forest, in the island of Batudako. For generations the Bobongko people have relied on the forest, taking only what they needed for food and housing. They are opposed to any project that would create plantations or otherwise destroy the forest of which they are a part.

In 1998, a letter from the Governor of Central Sulawesi gave permission to Cahaya Flora Perkasa Kencana (CFPK), a logging syndicate from Kalimantan, to operate in the island. Failing to consult with village elders, the company manipulated an "approval" to its activity. The policy of the district and provincial governments and the Forestry Department, together with the destructive nature of large-scale forestry companies, is depriving the Bobongko of their traditional lands.

To lobby for reparations and stop the destruction of their forest, the people of Batudako have been forced to resort to desperate measures. On September 18, a large group gathered at the logging camp and seized two bulldozers, a large generator and a television set.

People from nearby islands have also come to the Kayome forest, and solidarity among the indigenous community to drive corporations from their homes has increased. Several hundred people, representing four different ethnic groups (the Bobongko, Togean, Saluan and Bajau Indigenous people) and Solidaritas Perempuan Togean got together at Kayome.

The rights of the Togean People are rapidly being undermined by the actions of investors and large companies operating on the Islands. The threat of exploitation from international companies is very real. Two large pearl harvesting industries, Tamatsu and Cahaya Cemerlang, based in Japan and Australia respectively, have set up operations in the Islands and foreign tour operators have claimed large tracts of the coastal area. These cases of foreign exploitation are adding fuel to the battle to reestablish some form of local self-determination over the resources. An increasing number of people are realizing that this is just another form of colonialism, as the one imposed by the Dutch more than half a century ago.

There is a strong resolve to act and a conference scheduled for November will attempt to address issues surrounding Togean Indigenous Peoples. The Congress will bring together the four ethnic groups in the archipelago, looking at ways of effecting their access and rights to the ocean and land based resources. It is hoped that this will again put increased pressure on political elements and force out those who would otherwise exploit their land.

By: Agus Faisal, e-mail: agus_marxist@yahoo.com

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- Good news from Indonesia on oil palm!!!

The development of the oil palm industry in Indonesia is associated with murder, human rights violations, destruction of local communities and local cultures, and forest loss. Many local communities and NGOs have been struggling against this destructive industrial model for years, both at the local and at the international level. This struggle has recently resulted in a very important success which needs to be shared with all those involved in similar struggles.

In Indonesia, the development of the oil palm sector began in the 1970s. Between 1995 and 1999, the Indonesian government approved domestic and foreign investment projects, which triggered foreign bank loans to this sector. Foreign lenders included --among others-- Dutch banks ABN AMRO, Rabobank and Fortis, which thus became involved in financing oil palm plantation companies responsible for the destruction of tropical rainforest and the livelihoods of local communities dependent on those forests.

During 1997/98, 10 million hectares of forest lands were burned in Indonesia. The haze that covered the region for several months affected the health of some 70 million people in Southeast Asia. Rather than calling for greater fire fighting capacity in Indonesia, environmental NGOs sought a fundamental solution to combat the fires and went after the financial backers of the oil palm industry in Indonesia, the sector that was widely held accountable for causing the forest fires.

As a result of this joint campaign by Sawit Watch, Friends of the Earth/Netherlands and Greenpeace/Netherlands, three of the major Dutch banks (ABN AMRO, Rabobank and Fortis) have decided to stop financing or substantially restrict the financing of the development of oil palm plantations which purposely destroy tropical rainforests.

The NGOs demanded that the banks adopt a sustainability criteria for investments in the oil palm sector. The three banks declared that they subscribed to the investment criteria as put forward by the NGOs. Oil palm companies submitting investment proposals to these banks now need to adhere to the following basic requirements:

- No deforestation

- No forest burning

- Act within the legal framework

- Respect the right and wishes of the local communities.

Sawit Watch, the Indonesian NGO network that is campaigning against large scale expansion of oil palm plantations, has called upon all banks in the world, including Indonesian banks, to follow the steps taken by these Dutch banks. We sincerely hope that positive action in this respect is implemented, not only in Indonesia, but also in the rest of the countries where industrial scale oil palm plantations are being promoted.

For further information about oil palm plantations around the world please visit: http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations/palm.html

Article based on information from: Focus on Finance News, e-mail: wakker@aidenvironment.org

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- Laos: Freedom of information, industrial tree plantations and the ADB

Few large-scale industrial tree plantations have so far successfully been developed in Laos. However, companies and aid agencies are keen to promote them through changing Lao forest policy and through subsidies. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is leading the push for plantations in Laos, particularly through its US$11.2 million "Industrial Tree Plantation Project" (see WRM Bulletin 43).

In 1999, the ADB funded a study carried out by Fortech, an Australian forestry consulting firm. The study is entitled "Current Constraints Affecting State and Private Investments in Industrial Tree Plantations in the Lao PDR".

The Executive Summary of the report claims that plantation development in Laos "provides opportunities to generate economic growth and development" and argues that "at least one large scale plantation project" should be approved by the end of January 1999. The alternative, according to the consultants, is that "international investors will decide not to proceed in Lao PDR".

The report recommends that the Lao government should carry out several measures to support the plantation industry in Laos. These include (among others): rewriting the Plantation Regulations under the Forestry Law; appointing a "plantation investment coordinator"; preparing guidelines for plantation assessment proposals and a step-by-step guide for investors; collecting and publishing market information on domestic and international forest product markets; and building new roads in "key plantation development regions".

Fortech's recommendations, if carried out, would amount to important changes in Laos --changes to forestry laws and changes to people's local environments. Commons, swiddens, grazing land and community forests would be converted to monoculture plantations. However, the Fortech report is not available to the public. When I wrote to the ADB requesting the report, I received the following reply from Snimer Sahni, project officer at the ADB:

"The document you have requested is an official document. Nevertheless, we had sent you a copy of the executive summary. Since you still wanted the full document, we had sought the concurrence of the Lao PDR Government to release this to you. We have not so far received a response from them."

In response to further questions about why the Bank refuses to issue the report, Ms Sahni replied, "I am not clear why you are specifically focusing on the Fortech report prepared almost three years ago". She recommended that I contact "other stakeholders" and the Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in order to gain "a more complete picture".

The ADB's policy on Confidentiality and Disclosure of Information took effect on 1 January 1995. According to the Bank's web-site, this policy was "prompted by the realization that the Bank should provide the greatest possible degree of transparency and accountability". The Bank claims that the policy "emphasizes a presumption in favor of disclosure where disclosure would not materially harm the interests of the Bank, its members, borrowers, and private sector clients."

The Bank's objectives for the policy include: encouraging debate; ensuring local participation in decision making; broadening understanding of the Bank's role; facilitating coordination "with others interested in the common goal of development of the region"; and increasing the Bank's accountability.

Of course there have been other developments since 1999 in the development of industrial tree plantations in Laos. However, through withholding this report, the ADB is preventing an open and informed discussion in Laos about such plantations.

Clearly, when it comes to industrial-scale plantations, the ADB is not interested in achieving any of its stated aims regarding local participation in decision making or in encouraging debate. The ADB appears to have reached the conclusion that large-scale industrial plantations should be promoted in Laos and simply does not care about any discussion of the impacts of this decision.

By: Chris Lang, e-mail: http://chrislang.org

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- Malaysia: New law will make community mapping illegal

Community map making has been an increasingly important tool for the indigenous communities in Sarawak. For people struggling to prove their land rights, the making of a map has been a necessary step in getting the boundaries of their lands recognised. In Sarawak, numerous NGOs have assisted communities in making maps of their village boundaries, which have then been used as evidence in court cases, as a resource management tool, and for many other purposes.

Earlier this year, the community mapping work and land rights case won by a community called Rumah Nor was a huge success for the recognition of Native Customary Rights lands, and maps made by NGOs and the people of Rumah Nor were vital evidence in that victory.

Now, all of this work is threatened by the Land Surveyors Bill 2001. The new bill, introduced in the Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) (former General Council) on October 31, will have a devastating impact on the ability of native people to defend their Native Customary Rights (NCR). According to the bill, any map that shows "the delimitation of the boundaries of any land, including State land and any land lawfully held under native customary rights" can be done only by a licensed surveyor.

For years, community activists have made dozens of maps in Sarawak showing community boundaries, using mapping teams well trained in GPS (global positioning systems) and GIS (geographic information systems) technology. Now, if any such mapper "certifies as to the accuracy of any cadastral land survey or signs or initials any survey plan", they "shall be guilty of an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding fifty thousand Ringgit or to imprisonment not exceeding three years or to both for each offence".

Unfortunately, these mappers working with communities cannot simply become licensed surveyors. Under this new law, the Board of Land Surveyors has complete power to decide who is certified and who is not. Community mappers do not possess the necessary professional degrees that will be recognised by the Board of Surveyors. Even those with all the necessary university degrees and experience can be turned away without explanation by the Board. They can furthermore revoke anyone's license at any time. It appears the board will be controlled by the Department of Land and Survey so there is little opportunity to influence the board's composition.

Clearly these provisions are a reaction to the Rumah Nor legal victory, and are an attempt to defeat the right of indigenous people to prove their community boundaries. Numerous recent cases show that the Sarawak courts are willing to legally recognise maps made by communities and NGOs. But this law would usurp the functions of the judiciary by not allowing the courts to make a decision over the admissibility of mapping or survey evidence conducted by community efforts.

The Department of Land and Survey has mapped only a very small percent of NCR boundaries until now, and if they start on a major effort to do so, it will take decades to complete. The government also knows that most communities cannot afford to pay a licensed surveyor to map their boundaries, if in fact surveyors will be willing to risk taking on such jobs at all in the wake of this ruling. Community mappers have played a vital role neglected by government surveyors. Without any map to indicate the extent of their lands, communities will be increasingly powerless to oppose the claims of logging, oil palm and other companies on their lands.

Around the world, indigenous land rights are increasingly recognised. Even in Sarawak the courts have been increasingly progressive on these issues. Only the Sarawak State Government is moving in the opposite direction. Under the guise of a procedural surveying law, the government is adopting a very regressive policy to suit their own vested interests, and denying indigenous people their rightful claims. If approved, this law will be another negative step in the treatment of indigenous peoples by the Sarawak State Government.

Article based on information from: Jok Jau Evong, Sahabat Alam Malaysia, e-mail: borneo@earthisland.org ; http://www.earthisland.org/borneo

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- Vietnam: Shrimps, Mangroves and the World Bank (2)

Christopher Gibbs of the World Bank office in Hanoi, requested that WRM publish his response to article on Vietnam in WRM Bulletin 51. Mr Gibbs' letter is reproduced in full below, followed by Chris Lang's reply.

November 16, 2001

Dear WRM,

In WRM Bulletin #51, you published an article Vietnam: Shrimps, Mangroves and the World Bank by Chris Lang. This article was written and published without consulting the World Bank and, disappointingly, is inaccurate and makes a number of wrong assertions. In the interests of accuracy and your readers I would request that you publish on your website this response.

1. The World Bank's position on aquaculture in Vietnam

The World Bank's position throughout its dialog with the Government of Vietnam on aquaculture has been and continues to be consistent and clear, and is summarized in its 1998 rural development strategy report for Vietnam: Advancing Rural Development, which states:

"Without more careful site assessment and better practices, investments in aquaculture will be excessively risky. Shrimp, crab, prawn and fish farming, although risky can be highly profitable, and Vietnam has a high potential for aquaculture if solutions can be found for persistent disease and pollution problems. Further promotion of aquaculture must be preceded by enhanced knowledge of land use zoning and aquaculture practices. Otherwise, mangrove forests, wetlands and estuarine areas will be put at further risk, and poor households practicing intensive aquaculture will continue to gamble on risky investments."

2. The Vietnam Coastal Wetlands Protection and Development Project (CWPDP)

CWPDP is specifically designed to counteract mangrove destruction along 470 km of coastline in southern Vietnam. However, in the project area, it is the very poorest people who live among the mangroves and make a living by cutting them for firewood and charcoal who pose the threat to mangroves, the stability of the shoreline and the breeding grounds of fish. At the edge of the sea, poverty is the primary cause of coastal mangrove degradation and the project is responding directly to the development needs of the poor and environmental damage they do. CWPDP responds by supporting both mangrove replanting and providing - inland, but close to the original settlements - new economic activities for the poor. That is why some resettlement is necessary.

3. Resettlement

Resettlement is always best avoided and difficult to do well. For these reasons, theWorld Bank has its safeguard policy on resettlement (Operational Policy 4.30) and why resettlement in CWPDP has been carefully planned and is well supported. The only people being resettled in CWPDP (some 2,150 people, not more than 2,000 families as mentioned in Chris Lang's article) are those from the government-defined full protection zone (FPZ), a narrow strip dedicated to mangroves at the very edge of the sea.

Those being resettled are the people who have depended on cutting mangroves for a livelihood. Others, in the FPZ who depend on fishing, or live in areas where land is accumulating or are farming sandy soils, may stay. The households being resettled are among Vietnam's very poorest people who subsist by exploiting mangroves, and that is why they are being helped to start a new life where there are alternative economic opportunities to cutting mangroves.

Resettlement is always tricky, but CWPDP offers substantial support to those being resettled - land-for-land compensation, housing, transport, subsistence, training, vocational training - plus substantial support to the receiving communities. More than US$15.9 million is allocated for resettlement of FPZ occupants, including $8.5 million in credit through the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, US$1.63 million for improved facilities in the receiving communities and an additional $672,000 for ethnic minorities. This is a carefully planned and generously financed program that we expect to work well.

4. World Bank support for aquaculture in Vietnam

The World Bank does not support brackish-water shrimp aquaculture in Vietnam. However, the World Bank does support the extension of rice-fish and rice-freshwater shrimp farming in some areas of the Mekong Delta to help mitigate the impacts of flood control in seasonally flooded areas. But freshwater prawn farming is less susceptible to the diseases of brackish water shrimp farming and can help to control insect pests of rice and lower the use of pesticides which has reached hazardous levels in many rice growing areas.

Thank you.

Christopher Gibbs,
Rural Sector Coordinator,
The World Bank Office in Hanoi,
Vietnam

Chris Lang's reply:

Christopher Gibbs' response to my article, disappointingly, is inaccurate and makes a number of wrong assertions. Gibbs states: "This article was written and published without consulting the World Bank". On 23 October 2001, I wrote to John Carstensen at the Danish Environmental Assistance Programme in Hanoi (which is also supporting the project), asking a series of questions about the Coastal Wetlands Protection and Development Project. I copied the e-mail to Ronald Zweig, the World Bank task manager for the project. Carstensen replied saying that the Bank should reply to my questions. I still haven't received a reply from Zweig.

In fact, I first contacted the World Bank in Hanoi about this project in June 1995 when I spoke to Choeng-Hoy Chung, who was then the World Bank representative in Vietnam. On 12 September 1995, I wrote to him with several questions about the project. Two months later I sent him and others at the Bank a copy of a report I'd written, "The World Bank in Vietnam", which included a critique of the Bank's mangrove project. I never received a reply either to my letter or to the report.

According to Gibbs, the Bank's position on aquaculture is "consistent and clear". Yet, the statement that Gibbs quotes simply recommends sorting out the disease and pollution associated with shrimp farming and learning a bit about land use zoning and aquaculture practices. Then, Vietnam's "high potential for aquaculture" can be realised, "further promotion of aquaculture" can continue and presumably Charoen Pokphand can get on with selling shrimps to Europe.

Gibbs' letter makes no mention of companies such as Charoen Pokphand, who are the ultimate beneficiaries of the destruction of mangroves for the expansion of industrial shrimp farming.

In a similar vein to Ronald Zweig's comment quoted in my article, Gibbs puts the blame for mangrove loss on poor villagers. He says, "in the project area, it is the very poorest people who live among the mangroves and make a living by cutting them for firewood and charcoal who pose the threat to mangroves". Here, Gibbs is contradicting his own organisation's studies of the project area. The Bank's Resettlement Action Plan states: "The degradation of the mangrove forests can not solely be attributed to the families living in the FPZ [full protection zone]. Greatest harm to the forests has been caused by defoliation, indiscriminate cutting of timber by Forest Enterprises, illegal cutting by itinerant gangs from outside the region and, more recently, deforestation to enable the GOV [government of Vietnam] promoted shrimp production."

Gibbs and Zweig are not alone at the World Bank in blaming villagers for forest destruction. Before Choeng-Hoy Chung moved to Hanoi he was based at the World Bank in Bangkok. In an interview in 1994 with journalist Nantiya Tangwisutijit, he explained that a successful forest management programme required three things: "First you need the 'daab', the sword, second you need the 'khanom', what westerners call a carrot, and third you need the 'long thot', the stick."

The figure of "more than two thousand families" to be evicted comes from the World Bank's project information document and the Resettlement Action Plan available on the World Bank web-site. One of my questions in my 23 October e-mail to John Carstensen specifically asks how many people were to be resettled. The occupations of people to be resettled listed in my article came from the Resettlement Action Plan.

Gibbs points out that, "The World Bank does not support brackish-water shrimp aquaculture in Vietnam." My article does not say that the Bank directly supports shrimp farming in Vietnam. However, each time the World Bank lends money to Vietnam, the country's debt increases. The government has little choice other than to promote cash crops such as shrimps to earn the foreign exchange needed to repay its debts. The World Bank is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

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CENTRAL AMERICA

- Costa Rica: Opposition to hydroelectric dam

Some years ago, geologists from the Aluminium Company of America (ALCOA) found that important bauxite deposits were present in the subsoil of the El General Valley in Costa Rica. In 1970, the country’s Legislative Assembly passed law No. 4562, relative to an industrial contract whereby ALCOA has (or had, we still do not know), the right to exploit, for 25 years and with a possible 15 year extension, a volume of up to 120 million tons of bauxite and the obligation to install an aluminium refinery in the same Canton.

Aluminium foundries require a great quantity of low-cost electric energy. The project was feasible provided a hydroelectric dam were to be built on the Rio Grande de Terraba. For this purpose the river would be dammed to form an artificial lake over an area of 250 square kilometres at its highest level.

This "Boruca" dam triggered off a series of movements of Costa Rican citizens against what they considered to be the violation of and putting at serious risk enormous extensions of the national territory.

On a national level, several protests were made that obliged ALCOA to desist in their project. But the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) has refurbished the objectives of the hydroelectric mega-project. Yesterday, it was to provide electricity to Costa Rica and some Central American countries, today it is to supply for Mexican and some South American needs. In the event that it were to be implemented, it would be the largest hydroelectric project in Central America, with a production capacity of 1,500 megawatts, more than all the hydroelectric projects in Costa Rica together (see WRM bulletin No. 46 of May 2001).

The mega-project --requiring a multimillionaire investment of 3 billion dollars financed by Canadian capital-- involves the flooding of 25,000 hectares of land belonging to the indigenous territories of Boruca, Cabagra, Rey Curré, Salitre, Térraba and Ujarrás among others. As a result, thousands of members of these communities would have to be moved to other parts of the country, adding to the long list of peoples displaced by hydroelectric projects throughout the world. Seven indigenous reserves would also be affected, covering 20% of the total area of the basin, in addition to archaeological deposits and important pre-Columbian settlements.

The Boruca Project will accelerate deterioration of soils, vegetation and the hydraulic regime, due to the promotion it will give to the building of highways and roads on lands that are not apt for agriculture in general and due to the displacement of the population in the reservoir depression, the stimulation of migration towards the zone, speculation over private land and national reserves and destructive exploitation of forests by logging companies.

For almost 30 years, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) has had a camp within the lands of the Brunca indigenous people, in what is presently the indigenous territory of Rey Curré. Over all this time, the Brunca have been mere witnesses of the movements in this place, but now they are talking. And they say that ICE acts in bad faith when it states that they agree to abandon their lands. And that it certainly must have used the attendance sheets that they signed in good faith at the meetings they were invited to by representatives of the institution, to prove that there was majority agreement by the indigenous peoples to leave these lands.

The Brunca say "Did the emissaries of power think that the ‘docile Indians’ would be willing to leave the bones of our ancestors, our plantations and our humble homes? They underestimated us because they did not know us (and they still do not know us) because the god that inspires them has made them overbearing. The spirit of all our ancestors, the mountains and the river, the air and the landscape have no price. They have not realised yet that there are things that money and manipulation cannot buy. But they live and breathe for the god of money, they cannot understand. That is why they treat us this way."

And for this reason, the Brunca defend their right to "not answer what they want to hear..."

Article based on information from: Centro para el Desarrollo Indígena (CEDIN), http://www.cedin.iwarp.com/ ; Asociación de Desarrollo Integral del Territorio Indígena de Rey Curré, adireycurre@yahoo.com

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NORTH AMERICA

- Mexico: Finnish environmentalists concerned by Finnish forestry plan

Digna Ochoa, the lawyer defending Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera recently liberated (see article in this section), untiring defender of peasant rights, has been murdered. At 37, she had spent over 10 years defending the rights of the communities from an unjust system privatising local forest resources in favour of major national and foreign companies. Her murder is a symbol, both of the dignity of the Mexican people, and of the unworthiness of those holding power.

It is in this context of permanent harassing, where there are no guarantees of personal safety for those opposing the companies’ economic interests, where the rights to land and survival of the most vulnerable communities are constantly being violated, that the Strategic Forestry Plan (SFP), prepared by the Finnish firm of consultants, Indufor, is to be carried out.

Finnish environmental groups (WWF/Finland, Coalition for Environment and Development, FOE/Finland) alarmed by the news received through our bulletins (48 and 49), where we explained the opposition of Mexican social and forest groups to the plan prepared by the Finnish consulting firm, requested an interview with the Mexican delegate from the National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR) during his visit to Finland last October.

Informed about this meeting and at the request of the Finnish environmental organisations, we contacted Mexican groups, who formulated crucial questions to be asked to the Mexican authorities on issues that do not seem to have been foreseen in the plan and in particular about the impact on the local population of the policies proposed.

The complete minutes that the organisations participating in the meeting made available to us can be found on our web page at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Mexico/acta.html

Summing up, the participating organisations expressed their concern over the way the Mexican government is applying the SFP, and on how issues such as democracy, human rights, community lands and environmental protection are being considered.

In spite of the fact that the Director General of CONAFOR, Carlos Gonzalez Vicente attempted to brush off the matter, simply stating that the process was democratic and open, the Executive Director, Alberto Cardenas and Pedro Ernesto del Castillo Cueva, Coordinator for Regional Managers, gave details: a meeting of 20 governors was held, there were state councils, there is much information on Internet, one thousand CDs were distributed to obtain comments on the plan, fora were organised with announcements published in the newspapers, there were state councils with participation of deputies, senators and representatives of various sectors of society.

The Finnish organisations stated that they found the openness and effectiveness of the above-mentioned consultation processes questionable, as 80% of the Mexican forests belong to poor social groups, with scant formal education, lacking easy access to the information media used by SFP (for example, computers, newspapers....). Furthermore, most of these people might find it very difficult to take part in the public meetings due to lack of money to travel or lack of information about them. Due to these factors, the Finnish groups suggested that there was not certainty as to the process having really listened to the opinion of the most affected groups.

There were many issues on which the CONAFOR representatives made affirmations of doubtful credibility, in particular regarding participation, cooperation, work with underprivileged groups, the benefits the Mexicans will obtain from said plan, among others. It is particularly revealing in this respect to mention what the official delegates stated regarding the basic issue of land. According to Cardenas, there is no need for concern, Mexican laws are very clear. He mentioned article 27 of the Constitution and stated that this article prohibits the sale of community lands. The environmentalists reacted very rapidly, denying such a statement, as the changes introduced into article 27 have meant that community/ejido lands are now a property that may be sold.

Beyond the credibility or lack of credibility of the statements made at the meeting, are various aspects that warrant highlighting. In the first place, the monitoring by Finnish organisations of companies based in their own country, attempting to avoid that their actions result in social and environmental prejudice to third party countries. Secondly, the pressure implied, both for Finnish companies and for the Mexican government, by the knowledge that they are exposed to criticism at national and international level. Thirdly, the work carried out by Finnish and Mexican organisations joining to strengthen the struggle at local level through networking, reaching higher levels of pressure. All this means that the work is an inspiration to continue strengthening links among those who support a socially and environmentally sustainable world.

Article based on information from: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2001/oct01/011020/043n2cap.html ; http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/mexico/guerrero/mil/jornada101399.html ; Information sent by: Karoliina Auvinen, karoliina.auvinen@wwf.fi, Outi Hakkarainen, outi.hakkarainen@helsinki.fi and Thomas Wallgren, thomas.wallgren@helsinki.fi

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- Mexico: Montiel and Cabrera are finally free!

It is with great pleasure that we received news on Thursday 8 November that a few hours previously, Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, the environmentalist peasants, unjustly imprisoned in Guerrero since May 1999, had been liberated. President Fox has not recognised their innocence, but under the pressure of the unanimous claim of Mexican and international society, he has pardoned them for humanitarian reasons.

Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrara have been carrying out a campaign since 1990 against indiscriminate logging of forests in the State of Guerrero. Following the signature of an abusive agreement for forestry exploitation in 1995 between the then governor of Guerrero and the Mexican branch of the North American company Boise Cascade, the communities, permanently under attack, became even more mobilised. They unsuccessfully demanded that the commitments taken on by the company to support the local communities be honoured and they endeavoured to avoid the ecocide that was being committed with the consent of the authorities.

What they received instead was the visit of 30 soldiers, who entered the village shooting and who arrested Rodolfo and Teodoro, they obliged them to pose with arms and sacks of marihuana, they were tortured for several days and, under the threat to kill them, they were obliged to sign false declarations. They were judged for crimes against health and illegally carrying arms and confined in the prison of Iguala for two and a half years.

During those years in prison they received acknowledgement of their efforts and sacrifice from thousands of people and hundreds of environmental and human rights organisations all over the world, that were demanding their freedom. Last year the Goldman Prize was given to Rodolfo Montiel for his extraordinary commitment to the environment.

However the government continued to ignore demands for justice. The lack of recognition of the serious violations suffered by the communities in the hands of the army and the thugs paid by logging companies, have favoured other regrettable events, such as the recent murder of the lawyer, Digna Ochoa or the murder of three people, a baby, a woman and an old man, recently denounced in Guerrero.

Montiel and Cabrera’s commitment with the forests is still in force, as can be seen from their recent statements: "We have always said our struggle had a beginning and the end will be death, because there is no way we will ever retreat. We are going to continue with the new struggle, knocking on doors, promoting reforestation and demanding that the government supports the communities. We will continue our struggle in favour of human rights and of the forests. One day we want our communities to be able to live better, to eat, to be clothed and to have work."

Article based on information from: Press Bulletin of 8/11/01 of the "Miguel Agustín Pro Juarez" Centre for Human Rights, AC; Envíos 832, 834, 836, 842 from AIPIN, Prensa India.

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SOUTH AMERICA

- Argentina: Environmental pressure defeats "carbon sink" project

In February last year, "Río Foyel S.A." a company set up in March 1999 and recent owner of a 7,800 hectare plot located in the zone of El Foyel, in the southern province of Rio Negro, submitted a project for the logging of four thousand hectares of ñire native forest and then reforestation of the zone with exotic Oregon and Radiata pine and the "sustainable" management of over 1,800 hectares of native species (see WRM Bulletin 38, September 2000).

The ñire is a native species, essential in the conservation of the biodiversity of the Cordillera forests, even the most degraded ones, and the plot in question borders with the Nahuel Huapi National Park, near the tourist city of Bariloche.

According to the project’s Master Plan, "the ultimate objective would be in the short and medium term to increase the global capacity for trapping atmospheric carbon dioxide, with the consequent mitigation of the "greenhouse effect" on a world level. The long term objective is the production of high quality wood at prices that are competitive on internal and external markets."

This is the "carbon sink" business, promoted by the new Clean Development Mechanism established by the Kyoto Protocol (Convention on Climatic Change). Wood companies have found in carbon sinks an ideal tool with which to widen their areas of exploitation and economically improve their business with the sale of carbon bonds.

However, although the El Foyel project had the endorsement of the provincial government, it found major resistance. Both the Andean Forestry Service and the National Park Administration’s technical delegation pointed out the possibility that large scale deforestation would cause prejudice to other associated native species and the high "invasiveness" of one of the species used in the plantation, the Oregon pine, would displace other native species. The National Park technicians also referred to "possible modifications in the hydrological regime of the basins" shared with the National Park.

For its part, in October 2000, the "Limay Community" lodged an application for legal protection against the forestry mega-project. A positive sentence was issued by the court, stopping the logging that the company had already started (see WRM Bulletin 39, October 2000). It also considered that, according to the provisions of the provincial law, a project of this nature required "calling a prior hearing with the participation of all sectors interested in the preservation of environmental values."

Finally, on 23 October, a public hearing was held in which the president of the company stated his annoyance at the extensive public exposure they were being subject to because of the claims made by different environmental bodies. A few days later and unexpectedly, before the sentence which everybody thought would be favourable to the company’s project was issued, the president sent a letter to the Director of the Rio Negro Forestry Office, stating that "we have decided to withdraw the Master Plan for Forestry Production and Planning project," alleging a climate of hostility.

This is no doubt good news, showing that it is possible to halt destructive projects, even if they are masking as "ecological." However, it is also true that some local people, with hopes fed by promises advertised by the project, do not see this news as positive, and in this respect it should be understood that the region of El Foyel is a region that has been relegated and that its inhabitants saw in this project a possibility for obtaining jobs, that are presently non-existent. These same people are now blaming the environmentalists for having closed up this opportunity, and it is therefore essential to show that responsibility for unemployment falls entirely on the State and that if, instead of subsidising tree plantations, it would use this money for other socially and environmentally beneficial projects, the story would be different.

Article based on information from: Daniel Barrios, "Proyecto de forestación en El Foyel: riesgos ambientales, http://www.aventurarse.com/red/relatos/barrios3.html ; Centro de Documentación Mapuche, "Vecinos de El Foyel polemizan con ecologistas", http://linux.soc.uu.se/mapuche/news01/rionegro001112.html ; Greenpeace Argentina, http://www.greenpeace.es/atmosfera/la-haya/haya8.htm ; "Bajo la excusa de proteger el clima, proyecto forestal quiere destruir bosque patagónico", http://www.biodiversidadla.org/noticias83.htm ; Río Negro Online, "Un fallo alienta a opositores al proyecto de El Foyel", http://www.xs4all.nl/~rehue/press/pre1947.html

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- Brazil: Eucalyptus plantations banned in Espirito Santo!

What has recently happened in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo is a great motivation for people struggling throughout the world to halt the further spread of monoculture tree plantations. The news is that the State Parliament finally passed a law --after lifting the Governor's veto by 20 votes in 25-- which bans eucalyptus plantations in the state until an agroecological mapping --which will determine where eucalyptus can and cannot be planted-- is carried out. To our knowledge, this is the first case where a law is passed to stop this type of damaging plantations and therefore sets an extremely important precedent on the matter, which can be used by people being impacted by plantations in other countries.

Within such context, it is incredible to note that the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) has chosen to ignore that reality in issue 3 (2001) of its newsletter. Instead of informing about the situation and to reach conclusions about what went wrong with Aracruz's plantations, the ITTO uses its newsletter to tell its readers an amazing fairy tale with a happy ending.

Obviously based on information received from Aracruz (Mr Luiz Fernando Brandao, the company's communication manager is mentioned as a source for further information), the ITTO article ("compiled by the ITTO Secretariat") does not even mention the above law and describes an idyllic and totally untrue picture of the situation, concluding that, despite some troubles (with local indigenous peoples), "Aracruz has a hard-won reputation as a progressive company with good environmental practices." Additionally --according to the ITTO-- Aracruz's example "shows the importance of stakeholder participation, or 'buy-in', given the long-term nature of plantation forestry" and that "an harmonious social setting is crucial."

May we then ask: why did the State Parliament pass a law --and later lifted the veto imposed on it by the Governor-- banning further eucalyptus plantations in the state? If the "social setting" was so "harmonious", if the company's "environmental practices" were so good, if "stakeholder participation" was so successful, then why did that law receive so much support from parliamentarians, trade unionists, local farmers, Afrobrazilian communities, indigenous peoples, landless peasants, environmentalists and fishing communities among others?

The answer is quite simple: because the serious social and environmental impacts of Aracruz's plantation and pulp production activities forced all those people to do something about it, which they successfully did! Giant Aracruz has received a major blow and the situation has positively changed for local people. The expansion of the Green Desert --as plantations are called in Espirito Santo-- has been stopped and now a new battle starts to ensure that the agroecological mapping is carried out in a participatory and open manner, starting at the local level. But whatever the outcome, the people of Espirito Santo have already achieved a huge victory that will certainly motivate other people, within and outside Brazil, fighting their own battles against similar damaging plantations.

Article based on information from: Marcelo Calazans, FASE, 27/09/01, e-mail: mcalazan@zaz.com.br ; ITTO Newsletter, 11 (3) 2001 http://www.itto.or.jp/newsletter/v11n3/index.html

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- Colombia: The hard life of oil palm plantation workers

For some time now we have been addressing the issue of oil palm plantations. But it was in our June 2001 special bulletin --entirely devoted to the subject-- and in the book "The Bitter Fruit of Oil Palm: dispossession and deforestation", that we entered more specifically into the derivations that this large-scale monoculture has on the situation of the workers.

Thus, continuing along these lines, it is now the turn of the workers from the trade union of the Empresa de Plantaciones Unipalma de los Llanos S.A., to talk. This company has oil palm plantations in the regions of the Meta and Cundinamarca llanos, in Colombia.

Oil palm was introduced into the country in 1932, but its commercial development started at the end of the fifties, reaching 130,000 hectares in 1995, basically in the north, central and eastern zones. Presently, in the framework of the Colombia Plan, the intention is to substitute the so-called illegal plantations by oil palm plantations and there are plans to introduce it all over the country, reaching 300 thousand new hectares (see WRM bulletin 47). However, for the local population the remedy may be worse than the disease and the case of Unipalma de los Llanos is an example in this respect.

In fact 12 years ago, the Unipalma de los Llanos trade union had 400 members but presently there are only 132, out of a total of 150 direct workers. This change is the result of a new modality promoted to displace direct workers. The company promotes associated worker cooperatives, a figure that can be used to sub-contract companies providing services and thus evade responsibilities and the payment of social security. There are some 300 indirect workers working for these sub-contracting companies.

The Cundinamarca plantation is an hour and a half away from the village. The company takes the workers there on Monday mornings and returns them on Friday afternoons, and during the week they stay at lodgings on the plantation.

Some of them tell how the work is done: "On Mondays you reach the plantation at 6.30 a.m. settle into the lodgings and the day starts at 7:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. with an hour for lunch. From Tuesday to Friday the day starts at 6:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. with an hour for lunch. The work is hard and risky. The palm tree has many thorns and the bunch weighing 50 kilos, at 12 metres up the palm, falls at a tremendous speed and is dangerous. To cut it an aluminium rod like an antenna is used, and it has a knife on the end called a "Malay". If you want to knock down the bunch you must first knock down the leaves on which it is resting. The leaves are enormous, they measure about six metres and, oh brother, how they weigh! This work is done by a harvester and there are many people who get hit by the leaves or by the bunch.

The thorns are a problem: "They are everywhere! You get pricked every day and it is a problem for those who are cutting. Often you are walking among the lots, you slip, fall on a leaf and prick yourself. Listen... that really hurts!"

The high level of application of agro-toxic products --the most usual one being the herbicide Roundup-- causes much intoxication. However the trade union has managed to get them to make Colinesteraza examinations, showing the connection between the application of this poison and health problems. In these cases the company usually ends up by recommending the worker to be transferred to another sector, putting another worker in his place and thus generalising the problem.

All the workers agree that the company does not provide them with protective equipment and in the event that someone does request it, they have a numerous "reserve army" generated by the high rate of unemployment as an element of pressure.

Furthermore, the salaries they pay are very meagre as the low Malaysian production costs are used as a reference for the oil palm. This is its "comparative advantage."

One of the workers concluded: "There are companies that attempt to link the family to the work, it is like entering a slave system and total exploitation. I would tell the workers of other countries that the oil palm generates subjugation and not simple employment."

Article based on information from: Gerardo Iglesias, Rel-UITA, SIREL, Agricultura, No. 20, noviembre 2001, e-mail: uita@rel-uita.org, www.rel-uita.org

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- Chile: Tree plantations and pulp production generate poverty and destitution

Throughout the world, tree plantations and the installation of pulp mills are promoted by governments using, among others, the argument that these activities generate employment. However the true situation shows how false this argument is.

Recently we have received a report on research carried out by the economist Consuelo Espinosa, a research worker at the TERRAM Foundation in Chile. The title of this work is "Evaluation of the impacts of pulp production." We believe it of interest to share some of the conclusions she arrived at in this study. We will refer to some social impacts in the plantation and pulp sector in Chile, mentioned in the study, but we recommend reading the complete version, available in Spanish on our web site at the following address: http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Chile/eia.pdf

The study provides information making it possible to conclude that the installation of pulp mills in the country has not contributed to lessen poverty nor to improving the standards of living in those regions, or even in the communes where they are settled. Therefore the growth of this industry in the country is not inserted in the principles of sustainable development.

Although tree plantation employment in the VII, VIII, IX and X regions is more important than in other regions in the country, it does not mean that the forestry industry has generated an increased number of jobs. Specifically in the pulp industry, continuous capitalisation is to be noted, that is to say, an increasing substitution of the labour factor by capital. This implies that for each additional unit of manufactured product, increasingly less human resources are being used. That is to say, the industry generates fewer and fewer jobs.

Furthermore, the study mentions that, on analysing poverty levels in the plantation regions, specifically where the pulp mills are established and where the greatest extensions of plantations exist, it may be seen that these regions have the highest poverty indexes in the country.

Again, on analysing poverty levels on communal level, it may be observed that in those places where pulp mills are located and for which information is available, the poverty rate (poor and destitute people), between 1994 and 1998, increased on an average by over 29%.

The highest growth in this respect has been observed in the Commune of Constitución, where the poverty rate increased 20 points, from 29.6% to 49.9%. In the Commune of Nacimiento, it increased a little over 26% with the poverty level reaching 43.9% of the population. In both communes, the poverty rate is twice the national rate.

It is important to note that in the two communes mentioned above (Constitución and Nacimiento) large pulp mills are established, such as Celulosa Arauco and Constitución S.A. in the Commune of Constitución, belonging to the Angelini group, and in the Commune of Nacimiento, the CMPC consortium, belonging to the Matte Group.

This enables us to see that the operation of pulp mills has not contributed to improve the socio-economic level of the communes where they are installed. Worse still, it has not contributed to minimise the existing levels of poverty in the various zones.

Chile has approximately 2 million hectares of tree plantations and is shown to the world as the "forestry model" to be followed. In the light of the above-mentioned data, it is clear that that forestry model does not solve existing problems but makes them worse. Both the Chilean government and the many others that continue to promote this activity should know that they cannot continue lying to people about the so-called "benefits" of this forestry model which, although generating enormous wealth for some major economic groups, only generates greater poverty and destitution for local populations.

Article based on information from: "Evaluación de los Impactos de la producción de celulosa", Publicaciones TERRAM por Consuelo Espinosa, e-mail: cespinosa@terram.cl

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GENERAL

- The ITTO raves about plantations

The International Tropical Timber Organization has dedicated an entire issue of its Newsletter (Vol. 11 No 3, 2001) to tree plantations. Unfortunately, the ITTO has chosen to publicize their allegedly positive impacts, while basically ignoring the numerous struggles against them resulting from the broad range of negative social and environmental impacts they entail.

The opening paragraph of the first article sets the scenario: "The way some people talk, tree plantations are the answer to more than a few global problems. They reduce deforestation, restore degraded land, fight climate change, improve local livelihoods, return good profits, create employment and bolster national economies."

One could assume that the second paragraph would put some question marks on those assertions or provide some evidence to support them. Regretfully, this is not the case. It is therefore necessary to bring in some reality to that scenario.

Do plantations reduce deforestation? The history of large scale plantations in the tropics proves the contrary. Plantations are either a direct cause of deforestation or an indirect cause or both. We all know (and the ITTO knows) that the famous fires in Indonesia were started by plantation companies and that forest areas in numerous countries have been cleared to give way to plantations We all know (and the ITTO knows), that many thousands of people throughout the tropics have been displaced to give way to plantations and that, as a consequence, these people have had to clear new forest areas to provide for their livelihoods.

Do plantations restore degraded land? Commercial plantations are never implemented in truly degraded lands, for the simple reason that trees don't grow fast enough in that type of land and that they are more prone to sanitary problems. These plantations require good quality soils and increased mechanization also implies the need for land which allows the use of machinery --the same type of land used in agriculture. They are therefore implemented either in good quality soils or in areas "declared" as degraded (usually meaning deforested or containing secondary forest), but which are not considered to be degraded by the local communities that are using them.

Do plantations fight climate change? The fact that plantations have been included in the Clean Development Mechanism cannot be considered as scientific evidence about this alleged role. On the contrary, there is a growing body of scientific evidence suggesting that they may even become sources of CO2 instead of acting as sinks. Additionally, deforestation directly or indirectly linked to plantations may prove to generate more CO2 than the amount allegedly captured by plantations.

Do large scale plantations improve local livelihoods? All the available evidence proves exactly the contrary and the ITTO should know that in the "normal" situation local people end up in a much worse situation than before the plantations were implemented. Their resulting opposition is confronted with repression and people are killed, injured, imprisoned and are finally evicted from their land.

Do plantations return good profits? This is the only absolutely true statement in the paragraph, but it lacks mention of who obtains those good profits: plantation companies, the pulp industry, consultants, banks, machinery producers. Not local people. Additionally, it does not mention that the reason for returning good profits is that in all cases plantations are directly or indirectly subsidized. In many cases plantation companies receive direct subsidies, tax breaks or soft loans. In other cases, subsidies take the form of cheap land, free research, road building, port facilities. And in many cases they are subsidized through the use of the police or the army to protect corporate interest against local peoples' resistance.

Do plantations create employment and bolster national economies? Large scale tree plantations are almost certainly the worst available option for generating employment in the tropics and the situation is increasingly worse due to the adoption of modern machinery that displaces workers, particularly in harvesting operations. To make matters worse, subcontracting is now widespread and subcontactors compete among themselves through lowering labour conditions (low salaries, inexistence of health security and social benefits, low quality housing and food, etc.). From a national economy viewpoint, plantations generate some hard currency through exports, but international prices of both logs and pulp are subject to severe drops, tendency which can be expected to grow as more plantations reach their harvesting time.

In sum, the whole issue of the ITTO newsletter is misleading and does not incorporate the differing viewpoints of the many people that are suffering from plantations or the many studies which have recorded the social and environmental impacts of this type of plantations. And even more misleading is the paragraph which states: "What is more certain is that if environmentalists get their way, one day all the world's wood will come from plantations. 'Plant up the millions of hectares of degraded land and leave the natural forest alone,' they say." Who are "they", may we ask, because it's certainly not the view of the hundreds of organizations the WRM works with, who are actively opposing this plantation model.

Article based on information from: Plantations on the march, ITTO Newsletter 11 (3) 2001 http://www.itto.or.jp/newsletter/v11n3/index.html#01

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- The Treetanic Award winners

The 7^th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Climate Change was held in Morocco from October 29 to November 9, 2001. On October 31, forest activists from the Global Forest Coalition and announced in a side event three nominations for the "Treetanic Award".

The "Treetanic Award" is handed over during the climate negotiations to the companies implementing the worst carbon sink projects, such as the monoculture tree plantations which are currently being implemented to avoid reduction of CO2 emissions.

While handing over the award, the group of forest activists expressed their fears that the decisions on Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry that were adopted at the resumed 6^th Conference of the Parties of the Climate Change Convention last July will lead to the development of large-scale monoculture tree plantations. These plantations are highly detrimental from a biodiversity perspective and they often lead to the displacement of Indigenous Peoples, to deforestation, land degradation and other social conflicts. They also distract attention from the long-term solution to climate change: a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

The three companies awarded the "Treetanic Award" were:

1. The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and Australian North Forest Products company (recently taken over by Guns Ltd.), for their plantation investments in the Australian State of Tasmania. North Forest Products has a long history of replacing Australia’s native forest and rainforest with softwood and hardwood plantations. TEPCO’s A$ 10 million investment in North Forest Products will expand the current Tasmanian Tamar Tree Farm program by 3000 hectares of monoculture eucalyptus plantation.

2. The French company Peugeot and the French Forestry Department for their "Marathon Vert" reforestation project in the Brazilian State of Matto Grosso. On the basis of technical advice by the French Forestry Department, the area --which is located in the middle of the rainforest, was first treated with the dangerous pesticide Roundup, which led to the death of many turtles and other forest animals. The project is a typical example of a greenwash initiative by a major polluting company that could have contributed much more to mitigating climate change if it had brought advanced technology instead of trees to the developing countries.

3. Coillte, the State-owned Irish Forestry Company, for its plans to afforest peatland, a highly precious ecosystem from a biodiversity perspective. Peatland afforestation is known to lead to carbon emissions because the drainage of peatland exposes soil carbon to oxidation. However the Irish government has stated that it is not concerned about these effects, as they would only affect their carbon balance if the clearance takes place between 2008 – 2012.

In order to avoid taking action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, companies are beginning to cover large areas of the planet with millions of hectares of environmentally destructive large scale monoculture tree plantations. Do they still not know the difference between a Sink and a Tree? Do they not know the social and environmental impacts of plantations? Just in case they don't, the aim of this award is to help to teach them the difference.

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- Declaration by the Indigenous representatives attending COP 7 in Morocco

Representatives of the Indigenous Peoples present at the 7^th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held in Morocco in November this year, issued a declaration demanding recognition of their rights and warning on the danger of the so-called "carbon sinks." The following paragraphs are part of this declaration, available in Spanish on our web page (http://www.wrm.org.uy/actores/CCC/IPMarrakesh.html).

We, the Indigenous Peoples, represent approximately 350 million people all over the world. For our Indigenous Peoples, living in the most fragile and vulnerable ecosystems of the world, Mother Earth is sacred and should be honoured, protected and loved. This special relationship enables us to conserve biological diversity for the life of present and future generations. Our territories and the natural and spiritual resources they contain, are the basis of our physical and cultural existence; it is on our territories that we establish our sacred relationship with Mother Earth."

"In spite of being the guardians of Mother Earth, in practice we are denied our right to recover, manage and develop our territories and our natural resources. Our right to conserve, recreate, project and transmit our entire cultural heritage to future generations is also prevented, limited and/or restricted, constituting a serious violation of our right to exist as peoples.

"The inclusion of sinks in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a dangerous tool for the expropriation of our lands and territories, culminating in a new form of colonialism. No development mechanism can be clean, from our point of view, if it does not guarantee the rights of the Indigenous Peoples, including the indigenous and local communities' right to prior and informed free consent and to respect for our cultures, practices, science and knowledge."

The representatives of the Indigenous Peoples ended their declaration stating that "in order to remedy this situation, we need an adequate forum and statute in the UNFCCC organisational chart. Considering what is set out here and what we have set out and proposed at previous COPs, on behalf of our peoples and communities, we request COP 7:

a) To recognise the particularities and specificity of the Indigenous Peoples regarding climate change and to give the Indigenous Peoples a special statute;

b) To set up an open, inter-sessional ad-hoc Working Group on Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities and climate change, with the objective of studying and proposing timely, effective, and suitable solutions to respond to the urgent situations caused by climate change, affecting and facing the Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. Such a working group would provide an adequate space for the necessary full and effective participation of the Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in UNFCCC discussions, debates and programmes; it would also be a suitable forum to channel contributions by our peoples and communities for the mitigation of the effects of climate change and to exchange points of view and experience with the Parties to the Convention.

c) To decide to include, in the UNFCCC report for the Conference on Environment and Development (Rio + 10) requested by the United Nations General Assembly (Decision A/55/199), the situation of the Indigenous Peoples as a priority criteria for the assessment of the achievements of sustainable development, taking due account of Agenda 21 and specifically, Chapters 26 and 20 on the participation of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities respectively.

d) To decide to include on the agendas of COPs and meetings of the subsidiary bodies, an item on Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities and Climate Change."

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