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Issue Number 56 - March 2002
Focused on: Forest Biodiversity

• Will the Convention on Biological Diversity take on the challenge?

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The Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity will soon meet in The Hague and we have therefore decided to focus this WRM bulletin on forest biodiversity, which is the main theme to be addressed by that meeting. We have tried to reflect the major problems being faced by forests and forest peoples with respect to biodiversity loss, while at the same time highlighting some of the main actors responsible for forest destruction and degradation. The aim is to generate more public awareness in order to generate pressure on governments to make them fulfil the obligations stemming from a legally-binding instrument such as this Convention.
 

The Sixth Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will take place in April in The Hague. Much is expected from this conference regarding forests, because this is the main thematic issue which will be addressed by the meeting. Additionally, the basis for negotiation is the draft programme of work elaborated last November by the CBD's scientific body (SBSTTA), which we welcomed (see WRM bulletin 52) as pointing at the right direction, including local peoples' rights, participation, equitable sharing of benefits, sustainable use, capacity-building and many other relevant issues.

Having said that, it is equally important to analyse the global context in which this conference is taking place, in order to understand the difficulties surrounding action to address the current drama being faced by forests and forest peoples.

The first issue that needs to be highlighted is that most of the underlying causes leading to forest destruction are actually being promoted by other intergovernmental processes and bodies such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. In spite of scientific evidence proving the direct link between increasing consumption and international trade with forest destruction, those institutions insist in promoting further international commerce. In spite of ample evidence linking structural adjustment programmes with deforestation, the IMF and World Bank continue imposing the same recipe to the forest-rich countries of the South. Regardless of knowing that road-opening is the first step in forest degradation and destruction, the World Bank and regional "development" banks (IDB, AfDB, ADB) continue providing loans for further road building in forest areas.

The second issue that needs to be highlighted is that there is more than ample knowledge about the direct causes of forest loss and degradation. Everyone knows that logging, mining, oil and gas exploitation, hydroelectric dams, timber, pulpwood and oil palm plantations, shrimp farming, large-scale export-oriented agriculture and cattle raising, are destroying forests. In spite of that, the prevailing economic model is forcing forest-rich/monetary-poor southern countries to open up their economies for transnational corporations' investments in precisely those activities. The result is more forest loss and degradation.

Additionally, forests are facing another and even more dangerous threat: climate change. Even if tomorrow all governments were to agree that no more trees will be cut, forests might equally disappear or drastically change unless something is done to halt and reverse global warming. This issue is as well known as the above mentioned underlying and direct causes of deforestation. However, the relevant body created to address it (the Convention on Climate Change) has clearly shown the unwillingness of the major northern polluters (headed by the US) to commit themselves to real and substantive cuts in fossil fuel emissions. Even worse, the "solution" agreed upon is to plant millions of hectares of tree monocultures in the south to act as carbon garbage dumps (euphemistically called "carbon sinks") in the south, thus further contributing to biodiversity loss.

To make matters worse, the biotechnology industry has already entered the tree arena and is manipulating genes to make trees grow faster, to make them resistant to herbicides, to decrease the lignin content in wood in order to increase the pulp industry's profitability. Although clearly posing a major threat to forest biodiversity, biotechnology is still on the loose (see article in the "general" section of the bulletin).

Finally, it is also necessary to highlight the dismal failure of the United Nations Forum on Forests (see article in the "general" section of the bulletin) to ensure implementation of the proposals for action agreed upon by the Intergovernmental Panel and Forum on Forests (IPF and IFF) to address the forest crisis.

That is the broader scenario in which the CBD processes is taking place. Those --and not lack of knowledge-- are the difficulties. The challenge for the CBD is to show leadership in making governments --north and south-- corporations, international and multilateral bodies and processes and other relevant actors to reverse the current pattern of social and environmental destruction in the forests.

If government delegates at the CBD are willing to take on that challenge and to come up with a credible plan of action to protect forest biodiversity, they can certainly count on us, NGOs and indigenous peoples organizations, to provide our support to its implementation.

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AFRICA

When described by European officials, the world seems to be divided in two different sets of governments. "Their" world appears to have taken on board environmental --and even social-- concerns, while "corrupt" Southern governments continue destroying the environment. Such simplistic picture does not take into account that the causes of environmental destruction in the South are very frequently rooted in the North. The following example helps to better understand the issue.

According to a Friends of the Earth-France report, the Cameroon Ministry of Forests and Environment, has recently published the names of forestry corporations guilty of infractions in 2001 against Cameroonian forestry regulations. Among the primary portion of these corporations are French forestry conglomerates that have been repeatedly condemned for their illegal dealings.

Three cases concern the Doumé Affiliated Forestry Company (SFID) of the French Rougier Group. The SFID was condemned for exporting assamela timber, protected under Cameroonian forestry rules, having neither requested nor obtained a permit to do so, as well as for the falsification of documentation of the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora treaty (CITES). As a result, a two-million CFA-Franc fine (amounting to merely 3049 Euros) has been levied. Evidently, little resulted from this first condemnation, and thus a new case was brought against the company addressing the same infraction with the same financial penalty, 2,000,000 CFA Francs. The SFID was condemned in a third case in 2001 for having exceeded their export quotas by 33% (an excess corresponding to a volume of 17,653 m3 of wood).

The French group Bolloré has been also found guilty of being involved in illegal activities. The SIBAF affiliate of the Bolloré conglomerate was fined four million CFA Francs (6098 Euros) and had its rights to export assamela wood suspended for also having falsified CITES declarations. The SIBAF had already received a fine in 2000 to the tune of 9147 Euros for faulty materialization of cutting boundaries. Another Bolloré affiliate, the Campo Forestry Company (HFC) was condemned for exceeding allowed cutting boundaries and hacking directly into protected areas. The amount of the penalty in this case has not yet been decided.

Incredibly enough, while the SIBAF and HFC conglomerates are regularly fined for their infractions against Cameroonian forestry legislation, they have enjoyed financial support from the French Development Agency to carry out "sustainable forest management plans" since 2001. Only the French financial support given to these corporations seems, in certain monetary provisions, to motivate these companies to develop forest management plans. As the Cameroonian law mentions that companies have to develop a management plan, Friends of the Earth-France holds that such costs must be entirely assumed by corporations. The French aid, in the Congo Basin forest sector, must be reoriented such that it will no longer serve French commercial interests, but rather real economic benefit for local populations while protecting dense humid tropical forest ecosystems and their extraordinarily rich biodiversity.

Article based on information from: Friends of the Earth-France, Press Release: "French government suppors French companies involved in illegal logging in Cameroon", 28/2/02, sent by Frederic Castell. E-mail: foret@amisdelaterre.org

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- Nigeria: Godforsaken by oil

The Niger Delta is one of the world’s largest wetlands, and the largest in Africa: it encompasses over 20,000 square kilometers. It is a vast floodplain built up by the accumulation of centuries of silt washed down the Niger and Benue Rivers, composed of four main ecological zones --coastal barrier islands, mangroves, fresh water swamp forests, and lowland rainforests-- whose boundaries vary according to the patterns of seasonal flooding.

The mangrove forest of Nigeria is the third largest in the world and the largest in Africa; over 60 percent of this mangrove, or 6,000 square kilometers, is found in the Niger Delta. The freshwater swamp forests of the delta reach 11,700 square kilometers and are the most extensive in west and central Africa. The Niger Delta region has the high biodiversity characteristic of extensive swamp and forest areas, with many unique species of plants and animals. It also contains 60 - 80 per cent of all Nigerian plant and animal species. The Niger Delta alone has 134 fresh water and brackish water fish species as compared with 192 for the entire continent of Europe

All that is being destroyed, within the framework of widespread human rights violations, by oil transnationals such as Shell, Agip, Mobil, Texaco and Chevron. As Nnimmo Bassey from Oilwatch says: "The story of oil and gas in Africa is the story of rogue exploitation, despoliation and bizarre brigandage. It is a story of pollution, displacement and pillage. It is a montage of burnt rivers, burnt forests and maimed lives. An oil well is a death sentence if it is located in your backyard."

Perhaps the best description of the essence of oil exploitation is the one overheard by Nnimmo while standing at the Johannesburg International Airport behind two US oil industry workers based in Nigeria. "Just imagine," one said, "how crude oil is always found in Godforsaken places." "No," the partner replied, "it is crude oil exploitation that makes those places Godforsaken." Amen.

To the government and oil TNCs, the Niger Delta's biodiversity and peoples mean nothing. What matters is only the oil hidden underneath. Nature and people are simply obstacles to be removed. The Niger Delta produces 3.2 per cent of the world's oil requirements. Oil exports make up over 90 per cent of Nigeria's export income, bringing the government a daily revenue of $20 million.

But in spite of the brutality of the TNC-government alliance, people continue resisting the destruction of their environment and livelihoods. Such resistance is fraught with danger. Ken Saro-Wiwa, a leader of the Movement of the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), struggling against the destruction of Ogoniland by oil companies, was "legally" assassinated --by hanging-- in November 1995, but his message is as strong as ever. Ken described the environment in Ogoni as having been "completely devastated by three decades of reckless oil exploitation or ecological warfare by Shell.... An ecological war is highly lethal, the more so as it is unconventional. It is omnicidal in effect. Human life, flora, fauna, the air, fall at its feet, and finally, the land itself dies."

It would perhaps be a good idea to ask the "distinguished delegates" of the countries where the relevant TNCs are based, as well as to the "distinguished delegates" of Nigeria present at the upcoming Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity: is this what you mean by biodiversity conservation?

Article based on information from: Bassey, Nnimmo, "Oil and Gas in Africa", FoE Nigeria, November 2001. Nick Ashton-Jones with Susi Arnott and Oronto Douglas, "The Human Ecosystems of the Niger Delta - An ERA Handbook". Nigeria, ERA, 1999, http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/nigeria/Nigew991-05.htm . Mudiaga Ofuoku, "Review of latest ERA handbook: The Human Ecosystems of the Niger Delta.",  http://www.essentialaction.org/shell/era/eraReview.html

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Wally Menne, a member of the South African Timberwatch Coalition, sent the following message to Magnus Grylle of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO):

"The information given [by the FAO] in respect of the total area covered by forest in South Africa is misleading as there are probably more than 3 million hectares of alien monoculture industrial timber plantations and thickets included in your total of 8.9 million ha. In fact, a more accurate figure for actual forest would be 4.5 million ha. Industrial timber plantations are a temporary crop with rotations of 7-20 years and an average of about 10. They destroy indigenous culture and biodiversity, displace communities, and irreversibly degrade the land. It is dishonest to pretend that they are forests."

"Thank you for your input. We are of course much aware of the plantations in South Africa. For the global accounting, we include them in the term "Forest" which has, given the context, a precise definition. See: http://www.fao.org/forestry/fo/fra/index.jsp and  http://www.fao.org/forestry/fo/fra/defin.jsp?lang_id=1&parent=978  

This definition does not take into account the quality (which can be perceived very differently depending on the point of view). It is simply a gross value for "areas with trees", if using a very loose explanation. This gross value can be used as is, for instance for carbon balance calculations, or be broken down for more specialised analysis. Themes for these more specialized analyses can be "naturalness", "wood supply capacity", or any other. For each purpose, the overall Forest could be broken down into more precise categories. What to call the categories is up to the analyst.

I hope this clarifies our position. Forest plantations are areas with trees, and therefore a (kind of) forest.

Best regards, Magnus Grylle "

It seems that according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), even when every last patch of forest has been destroyed, there will be nothing to worry about, as long as there were timber plantations to take their place.

It does not even appear to matter that the areas previously covered by forest are left to degrade into wastelands of alien weeds. It also does not matter that vast areas of land that were formerly grasslands, wetlands, pastures and food farms are converted into industrial timber plantations.

After all, what is important is that there should be sufficient trees on the earth, to be able to show the plebs and the politicians that nothing has changed; that there are still the same areas of ‘forest’ -- ‘Deforestation’ has slowed right down (don’t tell people that there is very little left to de-forest). "In fact, in many parts of the world there is an increase in forest cover!"

In South Africa there is a growing uneasiness with the simplistic view of forests taken by the FAO. Our forests are amongst the most complex and diverse in the world --this in spite of their historical abuse at the hands of human settlers. The forests that have survived are those in more remote areas, where human pressure has been in balance with their capacity to regenerate. But this is changing fast as local population pressure combined with demand for resources from first world nations starts to mount.

Paradoxically, the timber plantations that were expected to be the saviour of South Africa’s forests (by providing alternative sources of timber to local consumers and taking pressure off indigenous species) have become the greatest threat to biodiversity in this country. This is not to say that timber plantations do not play an important role in the local economy. There is legitimate cause for the cultivation of exotic tree species in South Africa, and it can be argued that they have played a role in preventing the further exploitation of our forest resources. This is all very well in the context of meeting local demand for timber products, but what has happened is that production has expanded to a level far above local demand. Recent figures show that exports of timber plantation products (mostly raw logs, chips and pulp) are now more or less on a par with local consumption (mostly end products such as construction timber, furniture, paper and board).

The ways in which plantations have contributed to the degeneration of the natural environment are many and complex. Some negative impacts on biodiversity are only felt much later, and then quite far away from the event that caused the impact. So-called downstream impacts are usually ignored when assessing environmental costs, yet they can accumulatively cause major devastation in natural ecosystems.

The Dukuduku Forest, which is part of the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park World Heritage Site, is a case in point. An estimated 30,000 people settled in the forest between 1990 and 2000, at the same time as timber companies were aggressively expanding their interests in the area. Not only were they buying up farms that previously engaged in varied agricultural activities, and combining them into large timber estates, but there was a concerted drive to establish ‘woodlots’ in communally owned tribal lands nearby. Both of these ways of increasing the supplies of timber for their hungry pulp and paper mills, led to the displacement of thousands of farm workers and rural poor.

To make matters worse, the timber companies embarked on ‘rationalisation’ programmes that resulted in the retrenchment of thousands of plantation workers. In a single day, SAPPI retrenched more than 600 workers at their Kwa-mbonambi operation. Permanent workers were replaced with contractors, who could employ people on a temporary basis without having to provide normal employment benefits. Many illegal immigrants from countries such as Mozambique were attracted to this kind of employment, as it was possible to get money to take back to their families without questions being asked. A combination of all of the above actions created a situation where poor contract workers (paid about 1 US dollar a day), were left with little choice but to make their homes inside the forest, and to supplement their meagre income by cutting down or burning the forest to open up areas where they could grow food or Cannabis.

The more easily measured direct impacts of timber plantations are also often disregarded, especially in the case of community land, where the companies are effectively obtaining the free use of land, without any of the responsibilities associated with ownership. Loss of grassland and wetland vegetation to plantations leads to the loss of grazing for cattle and sheep. Associated with this loss is the negative effect of fast growing plantations on the water table. Sources of water such as streams, springs and seasonal pans often disappear after plantations are established. Not only does this affect people and their livestock, but it also has serious implications for the natural species diversity of the area.

As wetland areas dry out, wetland species become locally extinct. There are many areas that have not been thoroughly surveyed, yet are being transformed before this can happen. It is quite possible that species that have not been recorded are being lost without our knowledge.

Displacement of people from their land creates a situation where alternatives must be found. In the same period that plantations have spread through rural areas, there has been a marked increase in the number of people leaving their rural homes to try to find work in the cities, and living wherever they can find vacant land to erect a temporary home. For many who were not prepared to give up their traditional lifestyle, it has meant having to take their livestock into areas where they can browse rather than graze, and this usually means sensitive riparian zones along rivers and streams. To get to water to drink, cattle open up paths on steep banks, which in turn lead to soil erosion problems.

The indirect effects of plantations on nearby natural areas has never been properly researched and quantified. Perhaps the FAO will consider providing the funds to do this research .

Direct impacts of timber plantations on biodiversity could fill several volumes, but available space and time mean that only the major ones can be included here.

The most obvious and possibly the worst effect of plantations has been their tendency to spread beyond the area where they were originally planted, or to re-appear in areas where plantations were discontinued. The invasive tendency of exotic tree plantation species has had devastating effects on vast areas of this country. The worst is the Australian Black Wattle (Acacia mearnsii), but Eucalyptus species and hybrids have also made a major contribution to the problem. Although there are government-coordinated programs to eradicate alien trees, especially in sensitive catchments, the damage to biodiversity has already been done. Herbicide sprays and other applications form a substantial part of the process used, and it is not properly understood what the effects of the use of these chemicals will be on native species. It has been reported that these efforts have failed in some areas due to poor methods or management as well as inadequate follow-up.

Emerging from the above is a picture of timber plantations causing both direct and indirect damage to the natural environment. By extension, this damage must extend to a substantial loss of biodiversity.

Managed plantations in this country cover an area greater than 1,7 million ha. And most of these have been established on species diverse grasslands and wetlands. It has been estimated that land that has been invaded by alien tree species, or left unmanaged after being used for plantations, amounts to more than 1,5 million ha, mainly in grassland areas, but also significantly in wetlands and riverine areas.

Is it right to call these artificial impositions on the landscape ‘forests’? No matter what arguments are presented by the FAO, it is clearly a problem to make the inference that tree plantations are a "kind of forest". By the same token it could be claimed that locusts are a ‘kind of bird’ or that cornfields are a ‘kind of Prairie’. Clearly this is ludicrous to say the least, so why is the FAO determined to obfuscate the true nature of timber plantations?

The most obvious reason is political. Southern nations are supposedly independent, and have sovereignty over their people and resources. Or do they?

Coupled with the neo-colonialist farce is the perceived need to maintain ‘standards’ in the first world. It makes so much sense when you can call timber products from industrial plantations ‘products of sustainably managed forests’!

Thank you very much, developed nations of the North --you can keep your euphemisms and your plantations. We want our grasslands and our forests.

By: Wally Menne, e-mail: plantnet@iafrica.com

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A country with profuse forests --open hardwood woodlands being the dominant type though there are also closed forests and mangroves--, Tanzania has 33.5 million hectares of forest cover richly endowed with biodiversity, which account for one-third of the total land area.

However, this biodiversity is being threatened by several direct and underlying processes which have implied the clearing of forest land at a rate of 400,000 hectares per year during the past two decades. One of those damaging processes relates to forest conversion to commercial agriculture and mining, which in turn have to do with export-oriented policies widely applied at the national and global levels.

During the last years, the government of Tanzania has given high priority to the development of agricultural production aimed at export markets. Caught in the ups and downs of market prices established by powerful economic groups, the falling price of Tanzania’s main exports, plus the growing cost of imported products, led the country to suffer the trite fate of other Southern countries. In 1986, Tanzania signed a structural adjustment agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and continued signing IMF loan agreements for the following 15 years, thus increasing its burdensome debt. In the late 1990’s, annual debt servicing averaged US$ 438 million --amounting to 37% of total export revenues.

The IMF loans associated Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) requires the implementation of a number of policies such as support to large-scale export-oriented agriculture --e.g. the elimination of a tax on agricultural exports-- and mining for gemstones and other precious minerals by domestic and foreign companies.

Between 1980 and 1993, 25% of the nation’s forests were lost. Logging, deforestation and mining have been some of the major causes, but almost half of forest loss was due to cultivation of export crops. In the district of Simanjiro, for instance, over 50,000 hectares of land were cleared to give way to the production of beans. Eighty large-scale commercial farms, ranging from 90 to 13,000 hectares, produce those crops, mainly exported to The Netherlands, and have resulted in the displacement of the local Maasai inhabitants.

Meanwhile, agriculture for domestic consumption remains low and the predominant productive model has implied the displacement of thousands of local inhabitants, land-tenure problems, more poverty. Also, as mining companies have acquired large concessions, local pastoralists and farmers have lost access to land and water rights, and forests have been plundered to supply fuel related to the mines. In this way, forests are lost as both resources for local peoples' livelihoods and as habitat for wildlife.

Almost 10 years have passed since the Convention on Biological Diversity was launched. In these 10 years, SAPs have continued imposing their policies in Tanzania, reinforcing the world labour division: commodities produced by impoverished and biodiversity-rich Southern countries to feed money-rich consumerist Northern markets. Everybody knows --at least at the decision-making level-- which are the causes of biodiversity loss. The IMF and the World Bank know. The Tanzanian government knows. Transnational corporations know. The governments of consumer countries know. However, destructive trends have not only not diminished but, on the contrary, have increased.

This scenario clearly shows that Southern countries like Tanzania, which rank on the weakest side of the "international order", are pushed to follow policies imposed by multilateral institutions and their leading Northern countries. Those policies are inherently unsustainable since they imply at all levels the destruction or degradation of the countries' biodiversity. Political will within Southern country governments to conserve biodiversity is thus a necessary yet insufficient prerequisite for biodiversity conservation, because many of the underlying causes lie outside the country's borders. That is precisely one of the main issues that need to be addressed by the Convention on Biological Diversity. Will delegates have the necessary political courage to address it at the upcoming April meeting in The Hague?

Article based on information from: Jason Tockman, "Tanzania: IMF, forest conversion to agriculture and mining".

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ASIA

Imagine the following situation: a company gives money to an environmental organisation. The company plans an enormous, massively environmentally damaging project in the tropics but agrees to provide funding to protect a nearby area of forest. Rather than opposing the project, the environmental organisation conducts studies on managing the protected area and recommends that the project goes ahead.

Unfortunately, this imaginary scenario is not imaginary at all. The company is Electricite de France (EDF), one of the world's largest electricity utilities. The environmental organisation is the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and the massively environmentally damaging project is the proposed Nam Theun 2 hydropower project in Laos. In February, the Thai government signed a "preliminary power purchase agreement" to buy power from the 1,000 MW hydropower dam once it is built.

According to IUCN's web-site, EDF was, until recently, one of IUCN's "Partners in Conservation". Sebastian Winkler, IUCN's Donor and Multilateral Policy Relations Officer, explained that "Most of the corporate sponsors listed on our website have provided funds to IUCN for the celebration of our 50th Anniversary (1998)." "We were exploring an avenue of entering into dialogue with EDF," Winkler added. He also pointed out that "IUCN is part of the E7 Group which includes the largest energy corporations." EDF is also a member of the E7 Group - a group formed in 1992 which consists of electricity companies from the G7 countries.

As well as having built 58 nuclear power stations in France and currently exporting nuclear technology to Eastern Europe, EDF is attempting to export another out-dated, expensive, socially and environmentally destructive technology to Laos. EDF owns 35% of the Nam Theun 2 Electricity Corporation (NTEC), the developers behind the US$1.5 billion Nam Theun 2 dam proposed for the Theun river, a tributary of the Mekong river. The other members of the consortium are the Lao government (25%), Italian-Thai Development (15%) and Electricity Generating Plc, part of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (25%).

If built, the Nam Theun 2 dam would flood 450 square kilometres of the Nakai Plateau and displace 5,000 people, belonging to 28 distinct ethnic groups, from their homes. To make way for the reservoir, forests on the plateau and in surrounding areas have already been clearcut. Water from the reservoir would be diverted via a powerhouse into the Xe Bang Fai, another Mekong tributary. Independent research shows that at least 120,000 people living along the Xe Bang Fai would face serious losses and threats to their livelihood due to damage to fisheries and flooding of riverbank gardens as a result of the project. The project developers have not studied the impacts of the project on the Xe Bang Fai.

The project developer, NTEC, claims that it will give the Lao government US$1 million a year for 30 years to protect the water catchment area, including the Nakai-Nam Theun Conservation Area. IUCN argues that the dam project is the only way of funding the conservation area. IUCN has produced several studies of the proposed conservation area, including an Environmental and Social Management Plan for the Nakai-Nam Theun Catchment and Corridor Areas. IUCN is also advising the Lao government on the project.

IUCN became further entangled in the proposed dam project in 1997, when the World Bank (which, it seems, is never far away when it comes to dam-disasters in the making) appointed the then-Director General of IUCN, David McDowell, to its International Advisory Group. The Bank set up the International Advisory Group to "provide independent evaluation of the World Bank Group's handling of environmental and social issues" on the Nam Theun 2 project. However, in addition to evaluating the Bank's role in the project, the International Advisory Group soon became a strong advocate of the project.

McDowell wrote in a 1997 letter to Patrick McCully of the International Rivers Network, "on balance the social and environmental benefits of the proposals outweigh the negative aspects. . . . the Group's view was that the globally important biodiversity hotspot which is the Nam Theun watershed will be more surely protected if the dam is built in association with the Bank then by unregulated, unmonitored private sector consortium." As Patrick McCully pointed out in his reply, there is no private sector consortium waiting in the wings to fund the project. Without the World Bank's "partial risk guarantee" commercial funders simply will not run the risk of investing in the project. Jack Cizain, who was then president of EDF International, told the Bangkok Post in 1997 that without the Bank guarantee it would be difficult for NTEC to continue with the project.

According to NTEC, "Nam Theun 2 is being used by the IAG [International Advisory Group] and WB [World Bank] as a prototype for similar advice on other major infrastructure projects". If that is the case, the World Bank would do well to check beforehand whether its "independent advisors" work for organisations that accept money from the project developers. A further check could perhaps involve investigating whether the advisor's organisations stand to gain (through future contracts funded by the project developers) if the project goes ahead.

Meanwhile, IUCN urgently needs to question whether it can afford to continue to accept funding from companies involved in such environmentally destructive projects as the Nam Theun 2 dam. Particularly when IUCN's "dialogue" with the company appears to involve supporting the company's project.

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

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The Penang Inshore Fishermen Welfare Association (PIFWA) has recently held a workshop on the importance of mangroves. Fisherfolk had there the opportunity to highlight what they already knew: that mangrove forest is an inherent part of their livelihood since it is closely related to fish catch. Without mangroves there will be no fish in the sea since they play a vital role as intermediaries between marine and terrestrial ecosystems.

This rich ecosystem is home to several aquatic species --all kinds of fish, snails, cockles, shrimps and crabs--, reptiles like snake and monitor lizards, migratory and local birds, insects and mammals such as monkeys, wild boars and otters. There, the tide allows the formation of mudflats where trees grow, with a complex system of roots that shoot out of the mud and become a haven for many aquatic species which find there shelter to breed and feed their offspring.

But mangroves serve other functions: their strong roots hold firmly the soil and protect inland from soil erosion, storm and flooding. Also mangrove wood can be used for construction, to build jetties, houses, fences and pole markers. It can be used for fuel and even the process of burning it to turn it into charcoal is beneficial: the smoke is channelled into a funnel where condensation turns it back into water. This water has many useful properties, one of them is medicinal for cough and skin disease. Even the bark of the tree has a certain quality that strengthens clothes and nets if put to boil in water, something that fisherfolk take profit of. With proper technology, the bark serves also as anti-rust and protective paint for boats and jetties.

As a source of food, mangrove fruits are edible and mangrove leaves are a good food for goats and sheep, while the honey from bees which have built their hives in a mangrove forest is said to be more potent because such bees tend to be bigger and wilder. Roots are appropriate to make handles, axes and knives.

However, all these qualities of such a complex and prodigal ecosystem are being destroyed. In the island of Penang, there remain only 900 hectares of mangroves, only half of them considered forest reserve. Destruction since 1966 amounts to 130 hectares of mangroves per year. Unfortunately, this process is happening worldwide, and is related to shrimp farming carried out by big corporations (see WRM Bulletin 51).

In Balik Pulau, Penang, what used to be an exuberant stretch of mangrove forest has been invaded with hundreds of hectares of shrimp ponds in Kuala Sungai Pinang and Pulau Betong. The same happens in Sungai Chenaam and Batu Kawan, in Seberang Perai Selatan. Inshore fisherfolk from Batun Kawan remember that not long ago they did not need to fish deep into the sea because they found in the mangrove forest the catch for the day and more. Now the place is covered with roads and buildings, and the Jejawi River is polluted since aquaculture requires a high use of chemical inputs. Fisherfolk reported that areas where mangrove forests have been felled, register a gradual decline in fish catch over the years.

When a mangrove is destroyed, gone is with it the whole living system which it contains and irretrievably lost are the long term and long reach benefits it yields. Business for profit (for just a few) irresponsibly plunders local peoples' resources and destroys biodiversity ... the same biodiversity that the Malaysian government has committed itself to protect. If international agreements are to make any sense, then the government should support the fisherfolk --eager to conserve biological diversity-- against the shrimp farming industry --only eager to make profits. Will it?

Article based on information from "Workshop on the importance of mangroves", The Late Friday News, 95^th Edition, 17/3/02 E mail: mangroveap@olympus.net

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A research undertaken by the NGO Friends without Borders shows that refugee communities living along Thailand’s border areas and displaced by war and civil strife from neighbour countries, are being unfairly accused of forest destruction in Thailand.

Since 1984, mass exodus of Karen, Karenni, Mon and Shan ethnic peoples fleeing from war and human rights violations by the military dictatorship in Burma, have settled in Thai border areas, totalling 10 border camps with some 115,000 refugees in the year 2000. Additionally, some 100,000 Shan people, who have not been granted refugee status, are living and working as migrant labourers. Most refugee camps are located in national forest reserves, which provide food and shelter to the communities.

This has led to accusations that refugee camps are to blame of forest destruction in Thailand. However, the study shows that as the refugees are indigenous people, they maintain customary sustainable forest management practices that prevent them from collecting forest resources beyond the carrying capacity of the forest. They have been able to self regulate their collection practices in an efficient and sustainable way, employing selective cutting methods --rather than clear-cutting-- such as leaving red bamboo shoots that taste bitter in every cluster and not digging young bamboo shoots that are underground. They know cutting bamboo shoots potentially degrades forests more than cutting stalks because more shoots can be carried from the forest in a single trip than stalks. The camps surveyed are also trying to reduce firewood consumption in several ways, like promoting fuel efficiency with clay stoves. Collection of dead branches and dry wood from the forest areas for firewood also serves as a method of fire prevention.

In areas surrounding the refugee camps surveyed, commercial agriculture is being practised under the predominant scheme of intensive cultivation characterised by the use of imported, genetically modified seeds, chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and the exploitation of refugee labour. In the areas surveyed, low-lying hills have been completely cleared of forest in the past ten years, to give way to fruit plantations. In those cases, commercial agriculture --and not refugee people-- has been the main cause of deforestation.

Large scale forestry production --with additional finance from the pulp and paper industry-- has fuelled both illegal logging and commercial reforestation promoted by the government. Refugee involvement in logging has not only been found to be insignificant, but also the high profile of refugee camps has protected surrounding forests from illegal logging. Thai village people and refugees are concerned about the impact of reforestation programmes on biodiversity, soils, water resources and customary land tenure --commercial timber would attract competition against their fragile land tenure rights and fallow fields may be claimed to plant trees. The official promotion of alien species to replace native trees has added to the disruption of the forest balance.

The research concludes that refugee protection is not causing environmental degradation beyond the carrying capacity of the forests in Thailand. When degradation occurs, it is linked to commercial agriculture and commercial forestry production --not implemented by refugees-- or to forms of subsistence agriculture induced by state restrictions on customary land tenure and traditional farming practices. In nearly all of the refugee populations surveyed, village people have established community forests to manage the conservation and use of public and private lands sustainably. In spite of the high density refugee populations, the forest collection practices of refugee peoples are still sustainable and biological diversity is not threatened.

Significantly, although refugee people and local people have not been the main agents of forest degradation, these groups are suffering the most from the social and political consequences of forest destruction, which have resulted in official forest policies that place restrictions on the communities' use of forest areas --such as rotational cultivation and collection of non-timber forest products-- thus threatening their livelihoods, food security and housing requirements.

When it comes to biodiversity, whenever it is disrupted sooner or later people will be affected. Sooner for the poor, indeed. In this case, refugees and local communities in Thailand know it well.

Article based on information from "Taking Shelter Under Trees: Displaced Peoples and Forest Conservation", by Friends Without Borders, Watershed, People’s Forum on Ecology, Vol. 7, No. 2, November 2001-February 2002

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- Indonesia: Oil palm plantations at the heart of biodiversity destruction

Indonesia has 10% of the world’s remaining tropical forests which are home to over 20,000 plant species --accounting for 10% of the planet’s total--, 12% of the world's mammal species and 17% of bird species, many of which are unique. The magnitude of this lush biodiversity can be pictured by the data that 25 acres of Borneo's rainforest were found to contain 700 tree species, equal to the total number of species for the whole of North America..

However, complying with the policies globally imposed by Northern powers on Southern biodiversity-rich countries through recipes pushed by multilateral agencies --International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB)--, in the 80’s, Indonesia increased trade liberalisation which contributed to drastically increase natural resource exports, among which cash crops such as palm oil. The country soon became the world’s second largest producer of palm oil.

Oil palm is cultivated in a system of large-scale monocrops, which as such require large quantities of chemical inputs --fertilisers and pesticides-- leading to a loss of soil and water biodiversity. Furthermore, the quest for more land for plantations implies forest felling and loss of habitat. Oil palm plantations have also been to blame for the severe forest fires that in 1997 ravaged the country, since fires are used as a method to clear land for plantations: of the 176 concession holders accused by the government of starting fires in October 1997, 133 were plantations. Currently, oil palm plantations cover some 2,4 million hectares of land and some 6,8 million hectares more have been released for future plantations under a five-year plan, meaning that between 750,000 and one million hectares of forest will be "converted" (destroyed) every year.

This process has become not only a source of environmental degradation but also social conflict within a framework of human rights violations. Customary rights and local traditions have been overriden by state ownership enforced by new legislation which denies the existence of forest dwellers, namely indigenous peoples and local communities.

Major markets for the growing palm oil industry are Europe for industrial use, and India, Pakistan and China for edible use, with USA demand rising rapidly. Transnational companies including Unilever, Procter&Gamble, Henkel, Cognis and Cargill --some of them involved in both production and trade-- are the engine drivers of this business, promoted by the action of the IMF and the World Bank, encouraging foreign investment and further privatisation of the sector. Other beneficiaries are Western financial institutions and private banks; foreign investors from Malaysia, British Virgin Islands, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore; and the Indonesian oil palm industry with close links with the Soeharto family.

Gone are the forests, and with them gone are the colours of the flowers, and the songs of the birds, and the sounds of the animals that they host, and the clear water of their rivers, and the food they provide, and the free spirit of their peoples... Gone is life. Will the Indonesian authorities continue substituting biodiverse forests with oil palm monocrops for the exclusive benefit of a few national and transnational corporations?

Article based on information from "The Bitter Fruit of Oil Palm. Dispossession and Deforestation", http://www.wrm.org.uy/ ; "The Politics of Extinction. Palm Oil", Environmental Investigation Agency, http://www.eia-nternational.org/Campaigns/Forests/Indonesia/PolExtinction/palm.html ; "A Framework for Assessing the Relationship between Trade Liberalization and Biodiversity Conservation", Tom Conway, International Institute for Sustainable Development, for UNEP, 1998, http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pdf/tradelib_biodiv.pdf

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CENTRAL AMERICA

The inhabitants of the northern zone of Costa Rica, gathered together in the Northern Front for Opposition to Mining (Frente Norte de Oposición a la Minería) are opposed to the Crucitas Mining project for open-cast gold mining and have organised a march in San Carlos, under the slogan of "Yes to life, No to Mining." They demand the suspension of mining projects and promotion of a sustainable, eco-touristic and agro-industrial development for the frontier communities that so far have been neglected.

The Crucitas Mining Project has its background in the initial request for an exploration permit submitted on 30 August, 1991 by Maurice Eugene Coates, a Canadian geologist, representing the Vientos de Abangares S.A. company. In 1995, it was certified that the entire stock of this company belonged to the Placer Dome society of Costa Rica, whose chairman at the time was William Earl Threlked, an American geologist, and the treasurer was Robert Pease, a geologist of Canadian origin. In turn, the entire stock of Placer Dome Costa Rica, S.A. belonged to Placer Dome Latin America Ltd, with William Earl Threlked (U.S. national) and Robert Bruce Pease (Canadian national) holding power of attorney. In 1998, Placer Dome Latin America launched a process for the sale of its project in Costa Rica, through the sale of Placer Dome, Costa Rica shares. This operation was concluded in 1999 in favour of the Canadian company Lyon Lake Mines Ltd. that changed its firm’s name to Industrias Infinito Sociedad Anónoma (IISA).

On 13 March, IISA submitted the Environmental Impact Assessment for this Crucitas Mining Project to the National Environmental Technical Secretariat (SETENA). The fact that this study was submitted to SETENA --in the framework of communal and national opposition and the opposition of the two candidates presently contending the presidency of the country-- was understood as a manoeuvre to advance the process as much as possible, as the company is aware that opposition is total and that the project is only supported by the present government. As proof of this, it is to be noted that the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE) granted the exploitation concession on 17 December 2001, through Resolution # R-578-2001-MINAE, in a completely undercover manner.

The mining rights in the area --covering 305.9 hectares-- are valid for a period of 10 years as from 16 January 2002 and the technology used will be open-cast mining with cyanide leaching, presently prohibited in many parts of the world due to the wide-spread contamination it involves. Furthermore, the degradation that this activity will cause to the local environment --particularly due to the use of cyanide-- also requires the logging of a wide forest area.

Aware of the ecological and social damage that this activity will cause in the region, the community authorities have declared that "it is not possible to allow the destruction of our flora and fauna in exchange for a pittance that, at the end of the day, will be all that is left to our country."

In the framework of investment-benefit indexes, total opening up of the market, unrestricted sale of natural resources, privatisation and foreignisation of companies, there is little room left for environmental and social considerations. But the Costa Rican people who suffer from these policies, know that in defending their nature they are defending their lives. And they are doing just that.

Article based on information from OILWATCH – Costa Rica, e-mail: oilwatch@racsa.co.cr ; "Proyecto Minero Crucitas".

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SOUTH AMERICA

It is sad to see that, while the governments of the world --including the Brazilian government-- are preparing to participate in the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, some representatives of the people of the State of Espiritu Santo, whose very threatened biodiversity is among the richest in the world, do not show the least concern over the matter.

On 6th March, the Federal Senator of Espiritu Santo, Gerson Camata, at a speech given at the Federal Senate, stated that "the eucalyptus consumes the same amount or less water than the typical Atlantic forest ecosystem (the "Mata Atlantica") and, in the same way as this forest, protects and retains water resources coming from rainfall." The Senator shows that he does not really know the situation in his State, where innumerable streams and even rivers have dried up as a consequence of wide-scale monoculture eucalyptus tree plantations. It would seem that with this kind of statement, also defended by other Senators in the State and by the companies planting monoculture tree plantations such as Aracruz Cellulose, Senator Camata wants to promote the substitution of one of the few remaining areas of original Mata Atlantica (reduced to barely 8% of the area of the State), by monoculture eucalyptus tree plantations. He does not recognise the Mata Atlantica’s social, ecological, economic and environmental functions, already well-know in spite of their complexity. These, and other equally absurd statements by the Senator have outraged all the organisations involved in the Alert against the Green Desert Movement.The brilliant letter sent in reply by the Movement can be accessed (in English) at the following address: http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/56/Brazil2.html . 

It is also available in Portuguese at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/boletin/56/Brasil2.html.

The Senator’s discourse is a result of "offensive" action undertaken by the Aracruz Cellulose company over the past two weeks, when representatives of the company met with Federal Deputies and Senators from Espirito Santo together with high-level Federal Government representatives, including the Vice-President of the Republic, Marco Maciel. The objectives of this action by the company are two-fold: on the one hand they want the Federal sphere to put pressure on the State Deputies from Espirito Santo to avoid the establishment of a Parliamentary Investigation Commission (CPI), to look into the numerous illegal actions and violations of territorial, economic, social, environmental and cultural rights, committed by the Aracruz Cellulose company against the local population. On the other hand, Aracruz’ action is aimed at seeking support for a Direct Unconstitutionality Procedure to be brought before the Supreme Federal Court, seeking to annul State Law 6.780/01, which prohibits plantation of eucalyptus for cellulose in the State until an agro-ecological map has been drawn up to define in which sites eucalyptus can be planted and in which sites, not.

Aracruz wants to appeal to the most important Court in the country because so far its pressure on the Commission co-ordinating the agro-ecological mapping has not had any effect. The representatives of the State government on this Commission defended the view that there was no need for an agro-ecological map, given the existence of a Study made in 1992, on "Aptitude for Forestry of the Lands in Espirito Santo." This study makes out that 34.68% of the State territory (some 1.7 million hectares), is exclusively or preferentially apt for sylviculture. It is important to note that it just happens to be the Aracruz Celulose company itself that co-ordinated this study. It is also equally important to note that, for the authors of the study, "forest" is a synonym of "sylviculture," and that in Espirito Santo, sylviculture is understood as the plantation of eucalyptus. Finally, it should also be stressed that, according to the conclusions of the Study, it was recommended to increase 9 times the present area of those same eucalyptus that have already caused and are still causing, serious social, environmental, economic and cultural impacts on the local communities. It is therefore not surprising that civil society representatives threatened to leave the commission and denounce its members and the Government if this study was adopted as the basis for the agro-ecological mapping.

The Alert against the Green Desert Movement firmly supports a serious, broad-based and participatory agro-ecological mapping and in this respect, has demanded that the State Commission co-ordinating the work, carry out at least 16 regional public audiences throughout the State of Espirito Santo. This proposal was accepted by the other members of the Commission. Three audiences have already been held, with considerable participation and in which a very clear conclusion has been reached: the population does not want Aracruz to continue buying land to plant eucalyptus. In some regions, such as Sao Mateus --a municipality that today has 50,000 hectares planted with eucalyptus-- the suggestion was made that Aracruz should be obliged to pull up the eucalyptus illegally planted in areas of sources and springs, on the borders of lakes and on stream and river banks. These places are those that urgently need a regeneration of the Mata Atlantica to restore and preserve water and biodiversity resources for future generations.

From the above the contradiction seems clear that, while the population shows concern and is mobilising itself to protect the State’s biodiversity --an international commitment taken on by the Government-- some of its elected Deputies and Senators --as in the case of Senator Gerson Camata-- seem to be exclusively concerned by guaranteeing the welfare of the same company that greatly contributed to the destruction of the Mata Atlantica to plant eucalyptus. It is clear that if the company’s desire to increasingly widen its monoculture tree plantations comes into being, the future of the population of Espirito Santo will be running a greater risk, while its biodiversity will continue to disappear. It is also equally clear and notable that, if it were not for the successful struggle taken up by wide, organised sectors of the population, the fertile lands of the State would continue to be covered --at the expense of the people and of biodiversity-- by unending and orderly lines of eucalyptus, which have been called by the local people "the green desert."

Article based on information from: Movimento Alerta contra o Deserto Verde no Espírito Santo e Extremo Sul da Bahía. Vitória, Brazil, 12/03/2002, e-mail: fasees@terra.com.br

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The Mapuche Coordination of Arauco-Malleco Communities in Conflict denounced that the large scale fires that burnt down some 53,000 hectares of native forests in the south of Chile last February, creating what was defined as an "environmental tragedy," were caused intentionally by the sectors and bodies linked to the major forestry companies.

For some years now, this corparate sector has been receiving state support in Chile. In 1977, the Military Junta, headed by the dictator General Augusto Pinochet, promulgated a decree which subsidised monoculture pine and eucalyptus tree plantations. What had been presented as a project for the benefit of medium-sized farmers --who reconverted their agricultural lands into forestry-- in the end mainly benefited the major forestry companies, who took over approximately 95% of these lands. This formed the material basis of production that they presently hold. They are now attempting to expand their investments and increase the present 2.5 million hectares they own, to 6 million hectares.

In addition to the active opposition of the Mapuche people, this plan also faces the "problem" that a major part of the area to be planted is covered by forests and that the country has a legal and institutional framework which is supposed to protect native forests. Then how can these forests be substituted "legally" by pine-tree and eucalyptus plantations? The reply to such a dilemma has not been long in coming.

As if by accident, serious fires broke out in the region in February. They devastated and affected reserve zones, destroying araucaria forests and other native species such as oak, tepa, coigüe and raulí. It is for this reason that the Mapuche Coordination considers that with the fires, the companies have achieved the concretion of their strategy for accumulation and growth, for which land and forests are no more than the fixed assets of production. Their claim is also based on the reports on the fires produced by the responsible state technical bodies, but which have not been made public.

The Coordination considers that the next step in the strategy for the expansion of forestry companies is to try and involve Chilean farmers resident in these zones in the indiscriminate exploitation of the remains of the forests damaged by the fires and in the sale of the wood, thus clearing the land for future tree plantations.

The burning down of Chilean forests has no doubt implied a serious loss of biodiversity. But in the event that the forecasts made by the Mapuche Coordination are fulfilled, biodiversity will loose out twice over. The "green invasion," the great tidal wave of eucalyptus or pine trees, all the same, lined up over kilometres and kilometres, with a ground almost totally bare of other species of flora and fauna, advancing and covering on its way hills and mountains, sucking up the water from streams and wells, in a landscape that is repeated in so many other countries, will be another stab at Chilean biological diversity.

The country still maintains the experience and ancestral memory of other ways of relating to the earth and to its products. The Mapuche have integrated respect and love of Mother Earth and the diversity of life of the various species that live in the native forests into their cosmo-vision. When the centre of the universe is not to profit at other people’s expense, nor the excluding human being, it is possible to consider the creation of more just and supportive structures, in a reconstruction of a social, economic and cultural nature, based on diversity.

At a time when the commitments for the conservation of forests taken on by the countries within the Convention on Biological Diversity are being put on the agenda once again, Chilean representatives have an excellent opportunity to recover this current, that holds an enormous mass of knowledge acquired over thousands of years and that in its time, knew how to maintain the balance between human beings and nature.

Article based on information from "Los grandes incendios del sur de Chile tienen su origen en la demanda incontrolada de las empresas forestales", Equipo Nizkor, sent by Elsbeth Vocat, e-mail: evocat@nextron.ch

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Within the rationale for privatisation in Ecuador, the Ministry of the Environment is intending to delegate its functions and responsibilities to a private law body, CORFORE (Corporación de Promoción y Desarrollo Ferestal del Ecuador – Ecuadorian Corporation for Forestry Promotion and Development).

The Board of Directors of CORFORE would comprise representatives from the following institutions: Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Agriculture, CORPEI (Corporation for export and investment promotion), AIMA (Association of Timber Industrialists), CONIFOR (National College of Foresters), Federation of Chambers of Agriculture and CODEMPE (Council for the Development of the Peoples of Ecuador).

Among its tasks CORFORE would be responsible for the establishment of development policies and strategies and promoting productive forestry management programmes and projects; determining the zones for permanent forest use and forest lands; promoting a system of forest land titling; developing carbon sequestration programmes and environmental forestry services and even defining the criteria and values for granting incentives to manage native forests, promoting voluntary certification.

The justification for the creation of CORFORE states that Ecuador possesses "availability of native forests." Are they referring to the remaining 4% of forests on the Ecuadorian Coast or perhaps to those registered as State Forest Heritage, or to the indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian territories or to the Protected Areas? This new step towards privatisation --where now forestry interests would have a legal power of decision they were so far lacking-- means the loss of the enormous biodiversity existing in the various forest ecosystems in the country and the promotion of substitution of forests by tree plantations.

The accelerated process of deforestation the country is suffering --calculated at around 300.000 hectares a year-- one of the highest in Latin America, will be made worse due to the fact that the main cause of this dramatic situation, the timber industry, will be issuing policies from CORFORE in conformity with its economic interests.

The Corporation will obtain its income from the exploitation of timber (stumpage), through funds-in-trust (US$ 600,000 for the sale of Cotopaxi tree plantations) funds from public and private donations, allocations from the State’s general budget, foreign debt exchange, environmental services, etc.

Furthermore, this industrial sector will have access to economic resources coming from the concept of carbon sequestering through the Kyoto Protocol’s so-called "Clean Development Mechanism." This mechanism is under questioning because, instead of contributing to the reduction of carbon emissions by the industrialised countries, this responsibility is delegated to the countries of the South through monoculture tree plantations that will supposedly act as "sinks" for carbon emissions from the countries of the North.

Through CORFORE an attempt is also being made to determine land use, in accordance with the interests of industry, with the consequent loss of the right to use the land by the local populations and to the detriment of Ecuador’s Forest Heritage and forests in general.

The project is being dealt with secretly, there is no transparency and the idea is to impose it on the country in the same way as for the privatisation of the State’s strategic resources.

As if this were not enough, at this time the National Congress has before it a proposal for the establishment of another private law body, CORPROBIO (Corporación para la Promoción de la Biodiversidad – Corporation for the Promotion of Biodiversity). Its main objective is to place biodiversity on the international market. In the words of the Ministry of the Environment itself, the entity will seek to "generate synergy between the State, society and the private sector, to boost and promote bio-trade through the generation of sustainable impact investments, that will enable Ecuador and its biodiversity resources to be positioned with comparative advantages on a global level."

Whatever the meaning of this statement is (what does sustainable impact investments mean?), what is certain is that the proposal was prepared by the Ministry of the Environment, behind the back of civil society and the local governments. It is very probable that the proposal will be presented with pomp at the forthcoming Conference of the Parties to the Biodiversity Convention, as a step forward. For Ecuadorian ecologists, to place the country’s rich biodiversity in the hands of those who are destroying it is, without any doubt, a major step backwards.

By Ivonne Ramos, Campaña de Bosques, Acción Ecológica.
E-mail: cbosques@accionecologica.org

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Within the ecological region of the Andean Belt, the Vilcabamba Cordillera in Peru is the only part where the original habitat has not been degraded. Together with the Urubamba Valley, they constitute a region where so far biodiversity has been conserved in an almost pristine state. Furthermore, it is a zone that fulfils important ecological processes --for the water system and climate change, among others-- essential both to the region and to the world in general. The zone is inhabited by numerous indigenous groups, some of them in a situation of initial contact and in voluntary isolation.

But this enormous natural wealth is being threatened by the Camisea Gas Project, carried out by the Pluspetrol-Hunt-SK group, a consortium involving capital from Argentina, the United States and Korea. The background to the project goes back to 1981, when Shell started prospecting in the zone, leading to the identification of gas deposits in Camisea, although it subsequently abandoned the project. In 1999, a call for bids was made for the exploitation of the deposits, and was awarded to the Pluspetrol-Hunt-SK group mentioned above, while transportation and distribution correspond to the Transportadora de Gas del Perú (TGP). The first phase alone of the project will demand an investment of 400 million dollars.

This mega project will require the construction of infrastructure and a number of facilities for exploitation, transport, processing, distribution and marketing of this hydrocarbon, with the opening up of trenches 1.5 metres wide, explosions over an area of 800 km2, heliports and various camp sites that will cover 8.5 hectares, 6.400 unloading zones covering 23 hectares, 4 platforms and between 12 and 21 extraction pits, a network of pipelines, 2 pumping stations in the forest, in addition to the processing plant, landing strip, storage and camp sites, over an area of 72 hectares and involving between 500 and 1,000 workers. The addition of all these impacts will result in the destruction and degradation of large forest areas, including the disappearance of numerous species of fauna and flora. As a result, the local populations are seriously concerned.

For this reason, the Group of Interest comprising the indigenous organisations Machiguenga Council of the Urubamba River (COMARU) and the Inter-ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Forest (AIDESEP), with the participation of the Centre for the Development of Amazonian Indigenous Peoples (CEDIA) and the international organisations, Amazon Watch, Amazon Alliance and Oxfam America, have promoted an independent revision of the Environmental Impact Assessment for the Carisea Gas Project in Peru.

The coordinator of the technical team and international specialist, Patricia Caffrey, presented the preliminary observations of the study at a press conference, noting that the project does not respect even the World Bank regulations or those of international best practice, that do not allow the degradation and conversion of tropical primary forests and require that the projects not only do not involve prejudice to the indigenous communities and people, but that they benefit them.

The Camisea project is far from complying with this requirement. Ms. Caffrey was working in the field, meeting with the heads of the indigenous communities involved and has reported that the consultation processes have been deficient, that the "negotiation" process carried out is unfair, that the proposals for compensation are inadequate and that very probably the indigenous communities will be worse off as a consequence of the project. She also noted that it is almost impossible for any measures to be taken to mitigate the impacts of the mega project, that will degrade and convert primary tropical forests, alter the excellent conservation and pristine state these essential habitats have so far maintained, causing a major loss of biodiversity and causing prejudice to vital ecological processes.

Furthermore, the investigation has revealed that the consortium’s environmental impact assessments did not consider induced impacts and there are no detailed plans to mitigate important impacts such as control of access and way in which social development and conservation will be affected.

The route followed by the gas pipe-line will cover 700 km, from the forest to the sea, along a path 25 metres wide that will cross the Machiguenga Megantori Sanctuary and the Pavliv Nikitine Reserve (Vilcabamba Cordillera). Strong pressure has already been observed on the part of the companies to make the Machiguenga communities in the Urubamba consent to granting Right of Way, accepting payments for the right-of-way and compensations, without having adequate time, information or advice in order to grant this consent.

The Peruvian government has approved the project and has even announced that the Franco-Belgium company, Tractebel (a part of TGP) is interested in participating at the stage of gas distribution in Lima, at a time when the bases for the privatisation of the four regional electricity companies are being established.

In the meanwhile, at international fora, the government talks of its commitment towards biodiversity conservation....But the path of a "development" of which even the content of the word has been usurped, goes another way and many governments follow it --those from the North with their power, those from the South with their weakness-- as well as transnational corporations with the endorsement of international banks and multilateral organisations. In defence of biological diversity and of life, it would seem that the only voices that remain are the suffocated voices of the indigenous peoples, their traditional knowledge, their ancestral community practices that, together with some social groups and NGOs are the light along the way. Let us hope that this light shines at the next conference of the parties to the Biodiversity Convention and that the Peruvian authorities learn how to listen to the voice of their people.

Article based on information from: "Proyecto Camisea no cumple standares del Banco Mundial", February 2002, Servicio de Información Indígena (SERVINDI), e-mail: servindi@hotmail.com

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The word "modern" is usually understood as meaning progress. In forestry, it clearly means the opposite, particularly --though by no means only-- with respect to biodiversity. Modern industrial forestry aims at the production of ever increasing volumes of wood per hectare, regardless of its impacts on people, soils, water and biological diversity.

The initial stages of industrial forestry are now perceived as primitive by modern foresters, because only few hectares of trees of a single genus (frequently several species of eucalyptus in the same plot) were planted in holes dug in the soil. They grew fast, though not fast enough to feed the ever-growing appetite of the pulp and timber industry.

Consequently, scientists and technocrats came to the rescue and provided the industry with further ideas. Ploughing and fertilising, herbicide and pesticide spraying were applied to increase wood yields which were still not high enough to satisfy industry. So-called "plus" trees (fast-growing, straight trunks, few and thin branches), were selected for seed production to produce new generations of even faster growing and more adequate trees to feed sawmills and pulpmills with homogeneous raw material. The following steps were the incorporation of hybridisation and cloning, which increased wood production, now tailored more closely to the needs of industry (e.g. low lignin content to meet the pulp industry's economic interest of high cellulose content).

The above "innovations" --which were in fact only following on the steps of the Green Revolution in agriculture-- led to the establishment of millions of hectares of very fast-growing plantations, which produce wood-yields unimaginable two decades ago. Establishment foresters portray such "progress" as a success story. It has resulted however, in serious social and environmental impacts. The fact that local people --who have to endure their consequences-- describe them as "dead forests", "green cancer", "green desert", "planted soldiers" (green, in rows and advancing ominously), "selfish trees", etc. indicate the extent of those impacts.

In spite of the above, for the anti-social and anti-environmental mindframe behind this forestry model, genetic manipulation is the ultimate paradigm: imagine thousands, millions, billions of trees, all with the same chosen genotype, growing in straight lines at amazing rates and producing millions of tonnes of wood! But for people and the environment, biotechnology would be the ultimate disaster multiplying the present impact of tree plantations, which already make them socially and environmentally unsustainable, many times.

From a biodiversity perspective, genetically modified tree plantations pose serious threats and "nowhere are the contradictions of the GM 'fix' clearer than in the controversy over how to prevent genetic modifications from spreading from industrial to neighbouring ecosystems."

The authors of the above quote (Sampson and Lohmann) stress that "the need to prevent GM trees and their genes from invading native ecosystems is clear. Low-lignin trees have the potential to disrupt the forest composting cycle responsible for unique soil structures and nutrient cycling systems. An influx of low-lignin trees vulnerable to damage from insects and other herbivores, moreover, could result in pest population explosions. Insect-resistant GM trees have the potential to disrupt insect population dynamics and also are likely to enjoy an invasive advantage over forest tree species. More generally, invasions of GM trees could threaten the diversity of the forest gene pool from which trees are selected for conventional breeding --a reservoir already reduced by selective logging practices. Because trees are even more genetically compatible with their wild relatives than highly-bred agricultural crops, GM "escapes" are especially worrisome in forestry." (the full version of this study is available at http://www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/trees.html )

The authors' concluding remarks underscore the specific concerns that forestry biotechnology raise: "In these respects, the issues raised by GM trees are similar to those raised by GM crops. Yet in many ways, genetic modification in forestry is an even more serious issue than genetic engineering in agriculture. Trees' long lives and largely undomesticated status, their poorly understood biology and lifecycles, the complexity and fragility of forest ecosystems, and corporate and state control over enormous areas of forest land on which GM trees could be planted combine to create risks which are unique. The biosafety and social implications of the application of genetic engineering to forestry are grave enough to warrant an immediate halt to releases of GM trees."

Article based on information from: Sampson, Viola and Lohmann, Larry, "Genetic Dialectic: The Biological Politics of Genetically Modified Trees". The Cornerhouse, Briefings 21, 2000

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At the end of UNFF1 (first session of United Nations Forum on Forests) in June 2001, NGOs and Indigenous Peoples Organizations (IPOs) decided that the real test for the UNFF would be in 2002 when the new Forum would address substantive issues instead of process and operational questions. The time came and UNFF2 was held. However, after two weeks of listening to rhetorical statements by governmental delegates and the usual deadlocks over trade and a Forest Convention, civil society organisations and indigenous peoples are totally disillusioned and have little or no expectations that the Forum will move beyond the stagnated and polarised dialogue that hindered the end of the previous Intergovernmental Forum on Forests' process.

NGOs and IPOs were also extremely disappointed by the 'Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue' held parallel to the meeting. Prior to UNFF 2, NGOs had volunteered to promote a genuinely participatory process and requested co-Chairing by a 'Major Group' representative to ensure that issues raised by NGOs and IPOs would be brought to the plenary. The suggestion was rebuffed and the stodgy meeting that ensued stimulated little real debate. The resulting Chairman's report omitted any mention of the main concerns NGOs and IPOs had raised, just as they had feared. The commitments to Major Group participation made at Rio have proven worthless.

At the end of this session, the UNFF has failed to produce anything new or concrete and its only output --the ministerial message to the World Summit on Sustainable Development-- is weak. NGOs and IPOs are of the view that the ministerial declaration is simply "not worthy of a world summit." Furthermore, it was the negotiation of that message that bogged down the whole meeting with governments haggling over and watering down its contents right up until the day before the Ministerial session. Regrettably, the lowest common demoninator ruled the day and the statement contains nothing of substance and simply reiterates government commitments made ten years ago at Rio. The statement does not even mention the urgent need to tackle the underlying causes of deforesation and forest degradation!

Moreover, the message contains worrying elements that may mean bad news for forest peoples. The need to increase "enforcement" of forest and protected areas laws is stressed without any cautionary note --despite repeated concerns raised that often laws deny the rights of local people and that consequently such statements must be qualified to ensure that laws are consistent with the respect of local peoples' human rights.

Some of the discussions were bizarre. At one stage, New Zealand claimed that felling natural forest to establish plantations could not be construed as "deforestation" or "forest conversion" and that the assertion in the Secretary General's paper, which reports that half of all plantations have been established at the expense of natural forests, was not objective! Thankfully, the intervention was roundly rejected by the chair and by most delegates (NGOs were on the verge of walking out until they were sure this ridiculous and outrageous intervention had been rebuffed). In the end, the final text does at least stress that plantations should not be established at the expense of forests and biodiversity and that forest restoration must take account of land tenure and resource rights. Those are about the only positive points in the whole set of documents!

NGOs and IPOs all agree that the second session has been a dismal failure because the discussion has lacked focus and delegates have slipped back into the old vices of negotiating text --instead of making commitments to practical action-orientated steps to promote implementation of international agreements on forests and forest peoples.

NGOs and IPOs are so disappointed with UNFF 2 that they face a dilemma about further engagement with this backward looking Forum. All NGOs will be returning and consulting with their constituencies about strategy and the cost/benefits of spending further time and money on the UNFF. If some do decide to continue participating, it is certain this will be on the strict understanding that things must radically change.

It is time for the UNFF to wake up and move with the times if it is to at least have any credibility. This Forum must realize that its mandate is to make things happen to protect the Earth's vanishing forests. If this does not happen, then it will be the UNFF that will vanish into oblivion.

Article based on information from: Preliminary Report by the Forest Peoples Programme on UNFF 2, New York, 15 March 2002. E-mail: info@fppwrm.gn.apc.org

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