- Argentina: Peoples and forests threatened by Canadian mining company

The city of Esquel is located in an enclave on the banks of the Esquel river, between hills with slopes forming an impressive amphitheatre, set off by the marginal forests of the sub-Antarctic forest region and in particular, the Valdiviana forest in the Province of Chubut, to the West of the Argentine Patagonia. Its 31,000 inhabitants live and enjoy surroundings that they describe as a city where nature surprises travellers at all seasons because of the landscapes of unusual beauty, thousand-year old trees, rivers and hundreds of pools and lakes protected by enigmatic forests. The city's inhabitants are proud to announce that they cultivate respect and care of nature. They belong to a region where "we who inhabit it, hope that our children and grandchildren can enjoy it."

This feeling does not seem to be of much importance to those promoting the installation of a mining plant using cyanide treatment for gold exploitation at only 5 kilometres up-river from this beautiful city. Unfortunately, this is only the first of many mining extraction projects that will affect the whole Patagonia Andean region and in general, all the Argentine and Chilean Andes Cordillera, thanks to the privileges granted to multinational companies with the Mining Integration Treaty, signed in December 1997.

Gold mining is one of the most destructive and contaminating activities. Works in Esquel in particular would be extremely depredating, as they would be done by dynamiting 42,000 tons of rock per day, of which 3,000 tons would be ground to dust and then treated with sodium cyanide dissolved in water. As a result, the consumption of water would immediately increase, with the potential depletion of rivers, lagoons and springs used in the fields and in the city.

It is expected that there would be sound-related problems due to the explosions and generation of dust, particularly during the summer, together with risks of accidents of all kinds during the transportation and use of these enormous quantities of cyanide, considered as one of the most potent poisons known, in addition to sulphuric acid and other lethal compounds. The inhabitants' quality of life would be enormously affected, as stated in a recent report prepared by the National Network of Ecologist Action, RENACE. The complete text of this report may be found in http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Argentina/esquel.html . Additionally, the tourist potential of this region, renowned internationally for its pristine nature, would be irreversibly affected.

Making use of the facilities and privileges granted by the government --such as total tax exoneration-- Meridian Gold, a multinational company with majority Canadian capital owner of 90% of the shares of the Argentine company, El Desquite S.A., would obtain profits in excess of 1,000 million dollars, "in exchange for some dozens of work-posts and practically non-existent royalties," the RENACE report also claims.

The company has spared no measures to convince the local population that there will be no contamination or toxic emissions, boasting about the myth of Canadian companies' environmental responsibility. However, it is well-known that it is only a myth, as "the worst social and ecological impacts of the past fifteen years can be ascribed to some of the country's [Canada] biggest enterprises, backed by their most respected private, financial, and governmental institutions", according to the WRM report on Canadian mining companies, available at http://www.wrm.org.uy/publications/mining.html

Both reports contain examples of the irresponsible action of the companies and of the resulting environmental disasters. However, the companies use all kinds of methods to prevent the population from reacting while they "empty the mountains": they take them to visit other countries, give talks to the community and threaten those who oppose them.

The same scheme has been repeated in Esquel. A group of neighbours recently travelled to Antafogasta in the North of Chile, as guests of the company, to visit a mining project carried out in the middle of the most arid desert in the world, that in no way can be compared to the neighbouring Los Alerces National Park, where forests of over 2000 years old of Fitzroya cuprossoides grow, a true natural shrine.

The Municipal Auditorium of Esquel was also the scene of a shameful conference --due to the accumulation of errors and inaccuracies-- given by a representative of Dupont, one of the companies that will possibly be selling the cyanide, while local representatives of the Mining Office distributed Dupont leaflets and the Director of Mining himself helped to project the slides.

To complete this picture, Dr. Silvia González, a teacher and research worker at the National University of Patagonia, received threats by telephone after having presented the city's schools with a scientific paper on the effects of cyanide.

In spite of all this, this community, like the communities of Tambogrande in Peru, Los Encuentros in Ecuador, Plananlto in Colombia, San Carlos in Costa Rica, are ready to defend their lands, their forests and their quality of life, and to demand the national authorities not to allow this plundering to take place.

Article based on information from: Silvana Buján, e-mail: ecosil@speedy.com.ar, Report prepared by RENACE, Red Nacional de Acción Ecologista, http://www.esquelonline.com/esquel.htm,
http://www.rebelion.org/ecologia/esquel071102.htm

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- Brazil: Research questions FSC certification of two plantations

A group of seven researchers assessed the certifications of the V&M Florestal Ltda. Company (Vallourec & Mannesman), which obtained FSC certification in 1999 for its whole area of 235,886 hectares, through the certification firm SGS. They also assessed those of Plantar Reflorestamentos S.A., which obtained SCS certification for an area of 13,287 hectares. With this certification, V&M Florestal became the company with the largest certified area in Brazil. Out of the total area, 128,326 hectares are planted with eucalyptus, while the remaining area of 107,560 hectares, are abandoned cultivation areas and "cerrado" areas, the region's typical bush-like vegetation (the cerrado is a tropical savannah in which herbaceous vegetation co-exists with over 420 species of scattered trees and bushes). Plantar has close on 280,000 hectares, which means that it only certified 4.8% of its land. Thus, we are dealing with two mega-companies in the eucalyptus plantation sector in Brazil, with a production aimed at making charcoal.

Almost all the eucalyptus planted by V&M Florestal is used to make steel tubes at V&M's factory in Brazil. Both companies have a single owner and nearly all the capital is Franco-German. In turn, Plantar S.A., a company with Brazilian capital, uses its eucalyptus for iron smelting, except in the area certified by FSC, where the wood is used for the barbecue. Plantar is also attempting to participate on the "carbon market" aiming at selling carbon credits from its plantations. Summing up, the main activities of the companies assessed are planting and harvesting of eucalyptus for charcoal production.

We have verified that the certifying companies SGS and SCS committed a series of irregularities during the certification process:

-They did not make an in-depth study of the context surrounding the companies planting eucalyptus and neglected a series of important social, economic and environmental aspects;

-They listened to only a few "stakeholders" and then only to the least critical ones. They did not listen to the most important "stakeholders" and therefore, did not obtain essential information on a series of serious problems involving the companies;

- It was not clear whether the conditions and recommendations in fact reverted the evident lack of compliance with certain FSC principles and/or criteria and whether an adequate follow-up regarding compliance with these conditions and recommendations is being carried out

- They did not disseminate the public certification summary for the knowledge of local and regional civil society and the public bodies. SGS did not even place a version of the public summary in Portuguese, the official language of Brazil, on internet.

The following are some of the companies' main breaches of FSC Principles and Criteria, as verified during the research:

- It was verified that neither the V&M Florestal Company, nor Plantar had made an Environmental Impact Assessment or Report (EIA/RIMA), a legal requirement in Brazil before carrying out any undertaking that may potentially cause environmental impacts. As verified, a deadlock exists between the technicians of the responsible state entity, the State Forest Institute, who demand the assessment, and V&M Florestal, that does not want such an assessment to be made.

- There are strong indications that a major part of the companies' land was what in Brazil is known as "devoluta" land, that is, common land and therefore, belonging to the State. Thus, the companies could not have purchased this land. Even so, when searching for land, the companies managed to rent these lands from the dictatorship government during the seventies, by means of contracts with the state agency Ruralminas for a 20-year period. Over the past years, these contracts have started to expire, threatening continuity of tenure.

- Conflicts exist over the land with local owners who have the companies' eucalyptus plantations on their property.

- Since September 2002, a Parliamentary Investigation Commission, installed in the Parliament of the State of Minas Gerais, has its sights on the companies V&M Florestal and Plantar S.A., to investigate the labour conditions of the workers in the extractive industry in Minas Gerais. In March 2002, the Regional Labour Commissariat brought action against both companies for not respecting Brazilian labour laws. Presently the Public Ministry of Labour is bringing them to trial through a Public Civil Action, on the charge of illegal practices of sub-contracting as well as of degrading and precarious work conditions.

- Most of the workers in the certified areas are sub-contracted, with fewer rights and benefits that the companies' permanent staff; it should be noted that the tasks they carry out are extremely heavy and dangerous. According to the Public Ministry of Labour, there is a "black list" in both the companies assessed, indicating that the companies persecute the workers and their leaders, violating ILO agreements 87 and 98.

- Eucalyptus plantations do not generate social, environmental or economic benefits for the neighbouring communities. The "cerrado" zones, which have always been used by the communities due to their extraordinary biodiversity, were fenced in by the company, preventing these lands from being used collectively by the local communities. The "cerrado" has always fulfilled all the conditions for sustainable use and management, generating employment and income.

- Cerrado deforestation and plantation of eucalyptus by the companies has caused rivers and water sources to dry up, the flora and fauna of the region to decrease, it has encouraged erosion and has poisoned workers, the fauna and existing water resources with agro-toxic products. The V&M Florestal Company continues to use the herbicide oxyfluorofen, defined as toxic and persistent by FSC itself in the year 2000, according to a follow-up report by SGS in 2001.

- Close on 25% of V&M Florestal's eucalyptus plantations are located in a region having an annual rainfall of some 1000 mm, an amount considered as unadvisable for this type of large scale plantation, as witnessed by the dried up rivers, streams and wetlands in the region.

- The companies have a management plan that is only implemented for the eucalyptus areas and not for the others. In the case of V&M Florestal, 46% of the certified area does not have an implemented management plan. Following certification, this company started to submit flora and fauna surveys and follow-up plans for these areas, objectifying a management plan that so far has not been implemented.

- The V&M Company of Brazil, which buys all its charcoal from V&M Florestal, continues buying charcoal from "cerrado wood", to supply its furnaces and without information on the chain of custody, that is to say, there is no guarantee that the certified charcoal really comes from certified Forestry Management Units.

The report concludes that FSC should divide its label into two new ones: one for the management of native forests and the other for plantation management. From these case studies, it is clear that Principles 1 to 9 were established for the management of native forests and that in their majority, are absolutely inadequate for monocultivation of tree plantations, whose specific characteristics are totally different from those of a native, diversified and heterogeneous forest. Furthermore, the transparency and credibility of FSC vis-à-vis consumers would be greatly enhanced if they were able to differentiate the origin of the product they are purchasing: from an "industrial" plantation made by a mega-company with exotic trees installed in the middle of the "cerrado", or by a cooperative of local communities, managing the cerrado and its native species, in a sustainable way.

In order to "construct" a new and credible certification scheme for plantations, specific principles and criteria need to be discussed based on a wide debate, necessarily involving local communities, to guarantee that future certified plantations offer social, cultural, environmental and economic benefits. This implies introducing a minimum biodiversity of species in each plantation, guaranteeing multiple use and benefit from forest products by the local communities, the ecological stability of the site and a better adaptation of the plantation to its environment.

Therefore FSC has two paths it can take: either it continues certifying millions of hectares of plantations, losing each time more credibility and damaging the local communities, or it reviews the certification of major plantations and takes a new orientation, respecting and desiring to benefit the local communities and their environment, in addition to enhancing its own credibility, and therefore, consumer's trust.

By: Marco Antônio Soares dos Santos André, Rosa Roldan, Fábio Martins Villas, Maria Diana de Oliveira, José Augusto de Castro Tosato, Winfried Overbeek, Marcelo Calazans, e-mail: fasees@terra.com.br

The above article summarises the main conclusions of the report on the certification of two plantations in Brazil, which will soon be available (in English and Portuguese) at: http://www.wrm.org.uy

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- Chile: Police at the service of a forestry company murder a young Mapuche

The Mapuche People in Chile have been struggling against national and transnational forestry companies and against the State to recover their lands for years now. The encroachment of monoculture tree plantations in the VIII, IX and X Regions, where the Mapuche population is over 337,000 inhabitants, has involved Mapuche territorial ethnocide. The scarcity of land and the cultural and environmental destruction in the ecosystem of communities neighbouring the plantations, has made many of them rise up in self-defence. However the economic power of the companies under the sponsorship and protection of the Chilean State, represses any Mapuche mobilisation either through the courts, the police or through action by third parties.

Many have fallen in the Mapuche struggle to recover their territories and a further victim has just died in the hands of the police at the service of forestry companies. On 7 November, in the grounds of the Fundo Santa Alicia, presently in the hands of the Forestal Mininco S.A. Company, in one of the Chilean police's most brutal and merciless raids, seventeen year old Edmundo Alex Lemún was seriously wounded by a bullet in the head, shot by the Chilean Carabineros corps. On 12 November, the youth died in hospital.

His "crime" consisted of participating in an action carried out by his community, in an attempt to recover the Fundo Santa Alicia, in the hands of the Mininco forestry company (belonging to one of the most powerful forestry groups in Chile). The death of Lemún --a victim of repression in the midst of the struggles for territorial rights-- is mourned by the whole Mapuche People and is generating extreme tension in the zone. We would like to convey our solidarity to the Mapuche People and to the family of Edmudo Alex at this difficult time and to support them in their hard struggle for their rights.

Article based on information from: MAPUEXRPRESS, http://www.mapuexpress.net ; e-mail: mapuche@mapuexpress.net ; Mapuche Documentation Centre, Ñuke Mapu, http://www.soc.uu.se/mapuche , e-mail: jorge.calbucura@soc.uu.se

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- Uruguay: What is FSC certifying?

In Uruguay, all forests are protected by law and their exploitation is forbidden unless expressly authorised by the bodies in charge of ensuring their protection. Therefore, certification in this country is totally unnecessary to ensure forest conservation. However, it is enough to enter the FSC web page's "certified forest list" to discover that there are 75,000 hectares of certified "forests" in this country. Of course, on looking into details, one learns that in all cases these are plantations and not forests.

Beyond our total discrepancy with the pretension of considering plantations as "forests," it is interesting to show some of the contradictions between certification of these plantations and FSC guidelines. These contradictions arise on reading the two first lines of the introduction to the FSC principles and criteria, where it is stated: "It is widely accepted that forest resources and associated lands should be managed to meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and future generations."

Given that FSC equates plantations with forests and that principle 10 (plantations) clearly establishes that "Plantations shall be planned and managed in accordance with Principles and Criteria 1 - 9, and Principle 10 and its Criteria," it becomes obvious that what is stated in the introduction is applicable to plantations.

The question is then: Do the plantations in Uruguay (and in particular certified ones) meet the "Social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and future generations"?

Although this article will address the issue of social and economic needs, it should be pointed out that large-scale monoculture plantations in Uruguay clearly impact on its ecology. In fact, in this country, plantations are mainly established in grassland ecosystems, resulting in their destruction and that of their associated fauna. Therefore, it is absurd to think that they can meet the "ecological needs" of the country. This process is comparable to those we all denounce in the tropics (substitution of forests by grasslands), but the reverse: the substitution of native grasslands by "forests."

This stated, we shall focus on the social and economic needs. The plan promoting afforestation launched in 1988 by the government, promised the generation of jobs and entry of currency because of the increase in exports of forest products. To achieve these objectives, the Uruguayan State made considerable investments, involving direct subsidies, tax exoneration, soft loans and investment in infrastructure. By the year 2000, the State had assigned US$69 million to the sector under the form of direct subsidies. The total of tax exonerations (on the area planted and goods imported) amounted to US$ 56 million, while soft loans were estimated at US$55 million. Finally, investment in infrastructure amounted to US$ 234 million. Summing up, Uruguayan society as a whole has contributed 414 million dollars to forestry development. What benefits has this society received?

Regarding job generation, the result is disastrous. Of all agricultural and stock-raising activities, extensive sheep and cattle raising has always been considered in Uruguay as the worst activities in terms of the amount of jobs generated per hectare. This is no longer so: afforestation has shown itself to be even more negative.

According to data from the 2000 agriculture and livestock census, the number of permanent workers per thousand afforested hectares is 4.49. Cattle-raising for meat generates 5.84 permanent jobs for the same area of land while sheep-raising provides 9.18 jobs. These, together with mechanised rice production (7.75) are the lowest figures. At the opposite extreme we find production for self-consumption (262 jobs per thousand hectares), poultry-raising (211), vine-growing (165), horticulture (133), and pig-raising (128) while in the middle come dairy cattle production (22), machinery services (20) and cereal or industrial crops (10).

Summing up, over a total of 660,000 hectares, afforestation has generated 2,962 permanent jobs. If we consider that plantations have displaced other agricultural and cattle-raising activities, and that all the other activities generate more jobs than afforestation, we reach the conclusion that this activity has led to a net loss of permanent jobs in the agricultural and stock-raising sector. In fact, in the hypothesis that the area under plantation continued to be occupied by cattle or sheep-raising, in the first case, jobs would have amounted to 3,854, while in the second, they would have amounted to 6,058. It is clear then that the remedy has been worse than the disease and that afforestation has contributed to rural migration. If we add to this the poor working conditions (low salaries, scant security, poor food and lodging, difficulties in organising as a trade union), informal jobs (implying no social security), and seasonal work, it is clear that afforestation in no way meets the social needs of the rural population.

In terms of economy, the situation is not much better. In fact, afforestation promised to increase entry of currency, but 80% of the exports in the forestry sector is composed of roundwood, while the remaining 20% is sawmill timber. That is to say, 80% of what is exported does not generate a single industrial job, while the other 20% consists of a minimum transformation of raw material that does not generate any important number of jobs either.

In turn, income from these exports does not imply any important entry of currency if compared with the area of land occupied by the sector. The forestry sector is annually exporting values of between 35 and 45 million dollars, placing it in one of the lowest positions within the export basket (annually totalling between 2,000 and 2,500 million dollars). If compared to rice, (a sector that also generates few jobs per hectare), we see that an average area sown of some 150,000 hectares (that is to say 4 times smaller than the area occupied by the forestry sector), generates some 200 million dollars from exports (that is to say, 5 times more than the amount obtained by the forestry sector). This means that afforestation does not achieve the objective set out in the introduction to FSC principles of "meeting the economic needs" of the country.

The questions asked by the Uruguayan environmental movement are: how is it possible for FSC to certify these plantations that do not fulfil any of the requisites they themselves have set out? How is it possible that the environmental and social NGOs participating in FSC allow this to happen? How is it possible that they do not realise that each certified plantation is weakening the campaigns we undertake to avoid our environment to continue being destroyed?

It is evident that something is wrong and we hope that the members of FSC will turn themselves to finding solutions, both for the good of the people and of the environment of countries such as Uruguay, and for ensuring the credibility of the certification system itself, that was created to ensure the protection of forests and not to give a coat of "green" paint to socially and environmentally unsustainable monoculture tree plantations.

By: Ricardo Carrere