- Bangladesh: Sunderban Biodiversity Conservation Project questioned

The SBCP Watch Group is an environmental group of four local NGOs --Actionaid Bangladesh, Rupantar, JJS and Lokaj-- established in 2000 with the purpose of monitoring the activities carried out by the so-called Sunderban Biodiversity Conservation Project (SBCP). This 77.5 million dollar project is funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Nordic Development Fund (see WRM Bulletin 44), allegedly to restore the original ecosystem of the largest single block of mangroves that exists in the world today (see WRM Bulletin 44).

The citizen's group believes that the project will lead to a negative outcome if it is not reviewed in earnest. The SBCP has failed to identify the root causes of poverty and destruction of the biodiversity of the Sunderban and has on the contrary blamed the common local people. Eradication of poverty of the people living in the "Impact Zone" or "Buffer Zone" adjacent to the forest is one of the components of the project. However, according to the citizen's group, the project has been designed mainly without consulting the people living there. It has not taken into account the industrial shrimp cultivation carried out in the area adjacent to the Sunderban, which the Watch Group labels as "a new curse for the people" inhabiting that area. Shrimp aquaculture has displaced traditional occupations of share-croppers, agricultural labourers, small and marginal farmers, fisherfolk and others who have been forced out by shrimp farmers on to the forest in search of an alternative source of livelihood, thus increasing pressure on the steadily depleting resources of the ecosystem.

In a survey conducted by NGOs, it has been found that shrimp fry collection is the only occupation that is carried on in the Sunderban throughout the year. As long as all sources of employment have become closed, large numbers of the affected people have been constrained to turn to collection of shrimp fry, crab and shell, in a way that even the same collectors find unsustainable. Local people believe that if the government prohibits shrimp aquaculture in the region, the poor and marginal farmers will be benefited and a lot of employment opportunities will be created in agriculture and related activities, producing crops and local varieties of fish to meet local requirements. Shrimp aquaculture has long been opposed by a movement of local people and has taken the toll of Koronamoyee Sardar, a symbol of the struggle for land rights and against shrimp farming among the landless people in Bangladesh (see WRM Bulletin 51).

According to the NGO survey, shrimp aquaculture is also responsible for many other impacts. As a result of decrease in the availability of rice straw for thatching, resulting from the decrease in agriculture, wild hay from the Sunderbans is being over-exploited. The increase in salinity of the region has killed off all vegetation, resulting in acute shortage of fuel wood, for which also pressure has increased on the resources of the Sunderbans. The reduction in the number of cattle has also reduced the availability of cow-dung which is used as an alternative to fire-wood.

The Watch Group has put forth a set of recommendations to the ADB for an immediate review of the activities and the design of the SBCP, based on some genuine concerns and principles and to make the review report public. It also said that the rights of the poor people to the common natural resources must be recognised; a ban should be imposed on the oil and gas exploration in the area of Block 5 and 7 (see WRM Bulletin 15 and 44). The group's suggestions also include responsive shrimp farming, instead of a commercial one; adoption and implementation of policies in relation to eco-friendly land use ownership and management and a broad participatory project monitoring process.

The protection and development of the Sunderban Reserve Forest will be possible only when the people are actively involved with the project from the very start and when the environment and the interests of the local population get priority over large-scale commercial ventures.

Article based on information from: "Citizen's Forum for Conserving the Biodiversity of the Sunderban Reserve Forest", http://www.cdp.20m.com/sundorbon.html ; Holiday Publication, http://www.weeklyholiday.net/060902/count.html

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- India: Rainwater harvesters and forest protectors of the Aravalli hills

During a recent visit to Rajasthan state in India, Patrick McCully from International Rivers Network, had the opportunity to see first hand just how profoundly the work of a local organization called "Tarun Bharat Sangh" (TBS) has improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. He was astounded to learn that this social and environmental transformation has been achieved at a tiny fraction of the economic --not to mention human and ecological-- cost of providing water services with big dams. Below some fragments of his experience:

"Generations before us never had the good fortune we have," Lachmabai, an elderly woman from Mandalwas village, told me as we sat on the edge of a large pond created by a newly built earth embankment. "Because of the water we are happy, our cattle are happy, and the wildlife is happy. Our crop yields have gone up, our forest is green, we have firewood, fodder for our cattle, and we have water in our wells."

The people of Mandalwas have built 45 water harvesting structures in the past 15 years, and more are planned. Whereas before farmers had only enough water for grains, now people can grow water-thirsty vegetables and cash crops. Villagers who were forced to survive on one meal a day now eat two to three times a day, and have a greater variety of more nutritious food. Women's chores of fetching water, firewood and fodder, and grazing and watering cattle have become much less time-consuming. The increased availability of fuelwood and tree leaves for fodder are key benefits of forest regeneration.

The water benefits I was witnessing came despite the region suffering one of its driest years in living memory, with some villages getting only a tenth of "normal" rainfall --and this on top of three previous years of drought. According to the Indian People's Union for Civil Liberties, drought contributed to at least 40 starvation deaths in southeast Rajasthan in November. Many people are reported to be surviving by eating grass. The contrast between TBS-improved areas and other regions of Rajasthan is to say the least striking.

Mandalwas is just one of more than 1,000 villages where Tarun Bharat Sangh ("Young India Association") is working. Since 1986, TBS has helped villagers build or restore nearly 10,000 water harvesting structures in Alwar and neighboring districts in the hardscrabble Aravalli hills of northeastern Rajasthan, a few hours south of Delhi. Many additional structures have been built by villagers without TBS involvement. Villagers have also dug more than 1,000 wells to take advantage of the resulting rise in groundwater levels.

While water harvesting is central to TBS's success, it is only part of the reason why the organization has had such far-reaching impacts. By bringing villagers together to solve their severe water problems, TBS has empowered them to take control of other aspects of their lives. The results are seen in village rules to protect forests, in villagers uniting to force the government to provide teachers for their schools and to resist officials' demands for bribes, and in the widespread uptake of organic farming and improvements in traditional and modern health care practices.

The water harvesting structures are mainly crescent-shaped earthen embankments (known as johads), or low, straight, concrete-and-rubble "check dams" built across seasonally flooded gullies (nalas). Johads have been built in Rajasthan for hundreds of years but many fell into disrepair during the 20th century due to the increasing role of the state in water management (and its fixation on large-scale projects) and the consequent weakening of village-level water management institutions and practices.

Monsoon rains fill ponds behind the structures. Only the largest structures hold water year round; most dry up six months or less after the monsoon. Their main purpose, however, is not to hold surface water but to recharge the groundwater beneath. Water stored in the ground does not evaporate or provide mosquito-breeding habitat, is protected from contamination by human and animal waste, and spreads out to recharge wells and provide moisture for vegetation over a wide area.

Several watercourses that had in recent decades held water only after monsoon storms now flow year-round due to the recharged groundwater (although parts of the rivers are drying up again due to severe, extended drought). Forests have regenerated because of the raised water table and because the need to protect forests is a key part of TBS's message. A recognition that good water management requires good land management is one reason for TBS's amazing success: among the benefits of regenerating forests on the rocky slopes of the Aravalli hills is that vegetation slows down run-off and reduces erosion, thus improving groundwater recharge and decreasing sedimentation of the villagers' ponds.

The beneficiary villagers contribute a quarter to a third of the cost of water harvesting structures in both cash and kind. In-kind contributions are normally in the form of free labor but they also can include construction materials and the value of land taken up by the structure and its pond. TBS contributes the remainder of the cost. All the labor on the water harvesting structures is provided by local villagers. Apart from their in-kind contribution, they are paid for this work, meaning that construction brings cash into the villages.

Alwar is home to one of India's best known wildlife reserves, the Sariska Tiger Sanctuary. TBS has built numerous structures in the "buffer zone" around the sanctuary as well as inside the reserve itself. At first, sanctuary officials were hostile to TBS. But now they encourage TBS's work, realizing that the group has not only provided water sources for wildlife and helped regenerate the forest, but has also persuaded villagers to stop poaching. Furthermore, after a hard-fought struggle, including a case in the Supreme Court, TBS forced the closure of stone quarries that were causing considerable environmental damage inside the park (including lowering the water table and so diminishing the benefits of water harvesting). Thanks to reduced poaching and increased prey animals, the number of Tigers has increased in recent years from 18 to around 25.

The most remarkable illustration of the Alwar villagers' enjoyment of the ecological benefits of water harvesting is the "People and Wildlife Sanctuary" created by the people of the twin villages of Bhaonta and Koylala.

The rules for the protected area are painted on the face of the stone-and-concrete buttress arch dam. Among the rules are "no hunting in this forest created by god," "without permission of the gram sabha (village council) and sarpanch (headman) no tree may be cut because there is god in trees," "do not allow cattle, goats or your camels to destroy the forest," and "every drop of water in the watershed of this village should be made available to the wildlife and cattle of the village."

I sat on top of this dam and listened to the elders talk excitedly about the animals they've seen in the sanctuary --including wild boar, hyena, monkeys, jackal, numerous types of deer and leopard. And although none of them have seen one, they told me with great pride that they'd found the tracks of a tiger beside the pond and that these had been officially noted by the state wildlife department. The villagers say that none of these animals were seen near the village before they started water harvesting and forest protection.

The people of Bhaonta have played a key role in an exciting local initiative in participatory river management. The Arvari River has become perennial in all but the driest years because of water harvesting. Villagers living in the Arvari watershed decided that they should draw up rules to ensure that the newly flowing river did not become over-exploited and to encourage forest protection. In 1999 representatives of village councils from 34 villages met and formally declared the creation of the Arvari Parliament.

Seventy-two villages now send representatives to the parliament. Besides dealing with forest and water use issues it has also forced the state government to rescind a license it had given to an outside contractor for fishing rights in the Arvari. While it has no legal authority, the parliament has the moral authority to be able to impose fines on rule-breakers and to resolve resource-use disputes between villages.

Despite only minimal government support --and often in the face of outright official hostility-- TBS's structures have provided irrigation water to an estimated 140,000 hectares. TBS calculates that around 700,000 people in Alwar and the neighboring districts benefit from improved access to water for household use, farm animals and crops. Each structure is small-scale, but the total benefits of TBS's work are most certainly large-scale.

Not a single family has been displaced to achieve these impressive benefits. Unlike big dams, the johads and check dams have not destroyed any rivers or submerged huge areas of forests and farmland: on the contrary, TBS's work has actually created rivers and forests.

TBS has contributed around 70 million rupees (US$1.4 million) in outside funding to the cost of the water harvesting structures. This works out to a cost of 500 rupees per hectare irrigated and 100 rupees (US$2!) per person supplied with drinking water. An admittedly back-of-the-envelope comparison of these costs with those of the notorious Sardar Sarovar dam project (SSP) in Gujarat state gives startling results. Taking a conservative estimate of the total cost of SSP of 300 billion rupees ($6bn) gives a per-person cost of 10,000 rupees for drinking water supplied --100 times more than in Alwar. The cost of supplying one hectare with irrigation water from SSP works out to be 170,000 rupees --340 times more than in Alwar.

Theoretically, if the budget for SSP was available to TBS-type water harvesters, they could provide drinking water to three billion people (half the world's population) while irrigating 600 million hectares (more than twice the world's irrigated area).

More than a billion people are estimated to lack decent access to drinking water. The World Bank and other dam builders and water privatizers use this shocking statistic to build up the case that $180 billion a year must be invested in the water sector and that multinational corporations are key in mobilizing this huge amount of money. But at Alwar costs, $180 billion would be enough to supply water to 15 times the world's current population. The needs of the one billion who lack water could be met for about the cost of a single major dam.

The draft of the new World Bank water resources strategy argues for new megaprojects by claiming that "easy and cheap" options have mainly been exploited. In reality, easy and cheap options such as rainwater harvesting have hardly even been looked at by the water Establishment.

Alwar is no utopia. It is a desperately poor region with deplorable government services and infrastructure, high levels of illiteracy and an appalling level of oppression for the majority of women. But if there is to be an answer to the acute water problems of India --and the world-- I am convinced it lies with the rainwater harvesters and forest protectors of the Aravalli hills."

By: Patrick McCully, International Rivers Network,"Harvesting Rain, Transforming Lives" . The complete article will be published in the January 2003 issue of the World Rivers Review.

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- Indonesia: WWF report links oil palm plantations to widespread deforestation

Indonesia ranks among one of the countries with the highest tropical forest loss rate in the world. Average annual deforestation recorded up to one million hectares in the 1980s, 1.7 million hectares in the first part of the 1990s, and between 2.0 and 2.4 million hectares at present according to statistics of the State Ministry of Environment.

As we have already exposed (see WRM Bulletin Nº 56), Northern-driven global policies imposed by multilateral agencies --International Monetary Fund and World Bank-- in the 80's, and the pressure of a large external debt burden, led to a drastic increase of natural resource exports, including palm oil which is obtained from oil palms cultivated in a system of large-scale monocrops. Oil palm became a lucrative crop for investors in Indonesia since labour and land costs are often low, credit is easily available and weather and soil conditions are favourable.

The world demand for palm oil is greedy. It is forecast to increase from its present 22.5 million tonnes a year to 40 million tonnes in 2020. India, China, the Netherlands and Germany are the main importers of crude palm oil, the primary product derived from the palm's fruit and used for a wide range of food and non-food products. The global trade chain counts on funds provided by foreign financial institutions from Europe, the US and eastern Asia. Sumatra, Kalimantan and West Papua are the main areas in Indonesia where big conglomerates such as the Salim Group, the Raja Garuda Mas Group and the Sinar Mas Group operate. They are the same conglomerates that control logging, wood-processing and pulp and paper industries.

All this business has been at the expense of former forest lands in Indonesia's lowlands and rural peoples' livelihoods. According to a recent WWF report on "Oil Palm Plantations and Deforestation in Indonesia", published in December 2002, "In Indonesia, nearly seven million hectares of forest had been approved for conversion to estate crop plantations by the end of 1997, and this land has almost certainly been cleared. But the area actually converted to oil palm plantations since 1985 is about 2.6 million hectares", destined for export to feed the palm oil industries. "One of the regulatory changes in the oil palm sector introduced in 1998 is that state forestry companies are allowed to use 30 per cent of their concession areas for estate crops such as oil palms". What is worrying is that they usually have concessions in permanent forest land.

The big oil palm companies have encroached on common lands without consulting or adequately compensating the many million people living in the forest or depending on it for their livelihoods. The issue of land rights has been at the core of conflict: "oil palm plantation development remains a major cause of conflict over land and resources. One of the social impacts of the expansion is the appropriation of large areas of land used by indigenous and peasant communities who, in most tropical countries, have not owned the land they traditionally occupy. In boom sectors where economic stakes are high, such as the oil palm sector, plantation companies may be awarded concessions or land titles to that land and receive government support to repress the opposition they may face from local communities", says the WWF report.

To complete the circle, large-scale oil palm plantations have been at the root of the forest fires that have been ravaging Indonesia since 1997. According to the report, "In September 2002, satellite information revealed that more than 75 percent of the hot spots recorded in West and Central Kalimantan during August occurred in oil palm plantations, timber plantations and forest concessions. This indicates that the pattern which became evident in previous years is repeating itself in 2002: logging and estate companies clear land by setting fire to natural forests on their concessions after removing valuable timber and leaving fire-prone debris."

A bilateral project between Indonesia and the European Union (the Forest Fire Prevention and Control Project), "concluded that the main permanent solution to Indonesia's fire problem lies in much improved local level land use planning and strengthened local management, the latter including fire prevention. The project found that village-level views on natural resource management vary from place to place but are generally in line with 'wise use'".

The above conclusion is not new and Indonesian organizations have for years been insisting on the need to ensure community control over forests as the means of achieving both forest conservation and local peoples' livelihoods. What is new is the official recognition that "village-level views on natural resource management are generally in line with 'wise use'". This is at least a step in the right direction. However, a number of questions need to be raised. Is the government willing to change course and strengthen local resource management at the expense of national and transnational corporations operating in the oil palm sector? Will the IMF and the World Bank support this approach which would in fact mean a halt to further oil palm --and palm oil exports-- expansion? Will forests and peoples' interests finally prevail over corporate profits and macroeconomic export-oriented policies?

Article based on information from "Oil Palm Plantations and Deforestation in Indonesia. What Role do Europe and Germany Play?", WWF, http://www.panda.org/downloads/forests/oilpalmindonesia.pdf

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- Indonesia: Report on paper industry's abuses on human rights

"Indonesian police and company security forces are responsible for persistent human rights abuses against indigenous communities involved in the massive pulp and paper industry in Sumatra", Human Rights Watch said in a new report released on January 7, 2003. Abuses include land seizures without compensation and brutal attacks on local demonstrators.

"Without Remedy: Human Rights Abuse and Indonesia's Pulp and Paper Industry", a 90-page report, extensively documents the underlying links between disregard for human rights and unsound forestry practices.

Indonesia's pulp and paper industry has rapidly expanded since the late 1980s to become one of the world's top ten producers. But the industry has accumulated debts of more than US$20 billion, and expanding demand consumes wide swathes of Sumatra's lowland tropical forests. This land is claimed by indigenous communities, who depend on them for rice farming and rubber tapping. The loss of access to forests, together with companies' hiring from outside the province, has been devastating to local livelihoods, leading to violent conflicts.

Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) is Indonesia's leading paper producer, and owner of one of the largest stand-alone pulp mills in the world, the Indah Kiat mill in Riau, Sumatra. The mill's primary fiber supplier, Arara Abadi, established its pulpwood plantation in the 1980s-90s, under then President Soeharto. Arara Abadi, backed by state security forces, routinely seized land for the plantations from indigenous communities without due process and with little or no compensation.

Since the fall of Soeharto in May 1998, local residents have attempted to press their claims, but have met with unresponsive law enforcement. With no remedy for their grievances, communities have increasingly turned to vigilantism. Arara Abadi has responded with violence and arrests.

In its new report, Human Rights Watch details three cases in 2001 in which local villagers in Mandiangin, Betung, and Angkasa/ Belam Merah, frustrated by unresolved disputes with Arara Abadi, set up blockades or began logging plantation trees. Hundreds of club-wielding company militia attacked residents, seriously injuring nine and detaining sixty-three. Indonesian police, who trained the civilian militias and also were present during the attacks, were complicit in all three cases. Incidents of ongoing violence against villagers refusing to give up their land to APP suppliers continued to be reported in Riau last year.

Out of hundreds of assailants, Human Rights Watch is aware of only two who were brought to trial, and those two, convicted of assault and battery, were released after thirty days' time served. Human Rights Watch does not condone illegal actions by protesting villagers, and recognizes the company's need to protect personnel and property. But the use of excessive force by company-funded militia cannot be justified, and impunity for those responsible for the beatings is directly fuelling the cycle of vigilante justice. Further abuses are likely to continue under current conditions of impunity, financial pressure, and lack of internal corporate guidelines for security, Human Rights Watch warned.

The majority of police and military spending (70 percent) comes from off-budget business ventures, many of which are in the forestry sector. These business ties set up an economic conflict of interest in law enforcement. In addition, Arara Abadi's security personnel have no guidelines for the use of force and are not held accountable for violations of the rights of local people.

Excerpts from "Indonesia: Paper Industry Threatens Human Rights" press release, Human Rights Watch, sent by by Liz Weiss, e-mail: WEISSE@HRW.ORG . Full release available at http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/01/indo010703.htm , and full report at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/indon0103/

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- Vietnam: Construction of Kontum pulp and paper mill suspended

On 24 October 2002, provincial authorities announced the suspension of construction of the new 130,000 tons a year pulp and paper mill at Dac To in Kontum province, in Vietnam's Central Highlands. The state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported that construction was stopped because of "a failure to draw up a credible master plan".

Six months earlier, during a two-day trip to Kontum, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Cong Tan had demanded that the Vietnam Paper Company, Vinapimex, must publish a plan indicating where the raw materials were to come from to feed the mill.

Vinapimex had planned the Kontum mill on the assumption that more than 20,000 hectares of plantation were available to feed the mill, and that more land could be planted. However, three years later, less than 15,000 hectares of plantations existed and some of this area encroached on people's land and homes. After construction was stopped, Kontum's provincial authorities told VNA that expanding the area of tree plantations to provide more material was simply not feasible.

Jaakko Poyry, the world's biggest forestry and engineering consulting firm, was the project consultant for the proposed mill. In 1998, Poyry produced a feasibility study for Vinapimex on the mill, and prepared the bidding documents for tender in May 2002. The total cost of the mill was estimated at US$240 million, including US$163 million worth of equipment from Western Europe.

The suspension of construction at the Kontum mill is only one of the problems facing the state-run Vinapimex, Vietnam's largest paper producer. Vietnam has the capacity to produce 360,000 tons of paper a year or approximately 70 per cent of the paper consumed in the country each year. However, in August 2002, VNA reported that Vinapimex's warehouses were at bursting point, with 28,500 tons of stockpiled paper, including 16,000 tons from the previous year. The company accused foreign exporters of dumping cheap paper in Vietnam, but the reality is that imported paper is both cheaper and better quality. In 2002, Vietnam imported 52,000 tons of pulp and 290,000 tons of paper.

In an attempt to compete with the imports, Vinapimex reduced paper prices twice during 2002. Meanwhile, paper production costs increased in October when the government hiked the price of electricity. Vinapimex has asked the government for a reduction in electricity charges to pre-October 2002 levels and is looking to the government for other subsidies, through preferential credit loans and a reduction in value added tax.

The outlook is not good for Vinapimex. This year, under the ASEAN Free Trade Area rules, Vietnam has to reduce tariffs on imports of paper from 50 per cent down to 20 per cent.

In 2000, Dang Van Chu, Vietnam's Minister of Industry told the trade magazine Pulp and Paper International that Vietnam had a clear strategy for the pulp and paper industry for the next decade. "Within 10 years, we want our industry to meet 80-90 per cent of domestic demand, with an average growth rate of 10.4 per cent per year," he said. He added that the country also hopes to increase trade on the international market.

Only two years later, the plans are in tatters. In July 2002, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung instructed the Ministry of Industry to adjust its development plan for the paper industry up to 2010. Dung requested that all proposed new paper mill must take into account plans for raw material supply.

Meanwhile, Vinapimex continues with its expansion plans. A 250,000 tons a year pulp mill is planned at Phu Tho, with the aim of supplying Vietnam's largest pulp and paper mill at Bai Bang.

In October 2002, the government approved Vinapimex's plans for a US$104 million pulp and paper mill in Thanh Hoa province. The mill is to have a capacity of 50,000 tons of pulp and 60,000 tons of paper a year.

In Lam Dong province, Vinapimex plans a US$250 million pulp mill, with a capacity between 200,000 and 400,000 tons a year. The Lam Dong People's Committee Deputy Chairman, Hoang Si Son, told the Vietnam Economic Times, "Vinapimex has planted an area of 10,000 hectares to add to the existing 30,000 hectares; we plan to increase the forest cover to 135,000 hectares."

Apparently, Vinapimex sees building more pulp and paper mills as the only way it can survive as an organisation. Of course the company can simply build more and bigger warehouses for the massive stockpiles of loss-making paper that it produces. Then it can turn to the government and international aid agencies for the subsidies it needs to ensure its bureaucratic survival. The impacts on Vietnam's rural communities, their forests and their livelihoods will not be so easily resolved.

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