• Argentina: A great small victory against a Canadian mining company
• Bolivia: Community-based forest management in the history of the indigenous peoples
• Brazil: Stora Enso and Aracruz plan the world's biggest pulp mill
• Brazil: Old hydroelectric dam project again threatens Amazon peoples

- Argentina: A great small victory against a Canadian mining company

The inhabitants of Esquel, a small Argentine town in the Province of Chubut, have been undertaking an important struggle in defence of their forests and their environment. An increasing number of the city's inhabitants, together with inhabitants of the Andean region and regional and national organisations are opposing an open cast mine project and the installation of a cyanide processing plant for gold mining, to be located at eight kilometres from this town, which is surrounded by lakes and millenary larch trees.

Unfortunately it seems that this is only the first of many other gold mining projects which will affect the whole Andes Cordillera area of Argentina and Chile, because of the privileges granted to multi-national companies through international "agreements" signed by governments willing to hand over the countries' wealth to the highest bidder.

In spite of the fact that the neighbours of Esquel are suffering all types of threats, they have not lacked strength and imagination to face the Canadian transnational company, Meridian Gold and its subsidiary company, El Desquite, the beneficiaries of this project. Demonstrations, ceremonies, marches, meetings, talks, declarations and even rock concerts have been organised over the past months against gold mining in the region. Various web pages have been created to disseminate information on the subject and to seek international support for the campaign. They have also resorted to the scant legal instruments available to those affected in these cases. During the month of December, the city neighbours submitted an Action for Environmental Protection, used to protect all the rights and guarantees set out in the Constitution and in particular "the right of all inhabitants to defend their environment."

On 19 February, the good news was received. The Civil court judge, Dr. Claudio Alejandro Petris had ordered the urgent halt of all Mineria El Desquite's on-going works and activities in the Cordón Esquel, and prohibited the initiation of new works until all the precautions foreseen under Provincial Law 4023 on Environmental Impact and in its regulating decree had been complied with.

"Now the heart of the matter must be resolved, basically consisting of declaring all the works carried out to be illegal, ordering the total recovery of the altered environment and the application of a fine to the individuals and/or companies responsible for this action for an amount of up to 5% of the total of the Project. Although this will be a very hard legal battle, I believe this to be a very positive sign," commented a neighbour.

This resolution sets a very important precedent regarding the application of provincial laws, such as law 4032 on Environmental Impact, which requires in all cases the holding of public audiences, while the mining code that the companies had managed to change in their favour, does not have this requirement. So far, environmental impact assessments were just mere bureaucratic formalities, bearing the stamp "approved" right from the start. Furthermore, it is important, given that this resolution potentially affects any other mining project, at least in the Province of Chubut.

It is for this reason that the population of Esquel consider that the legal decision is a "small" but at the same time, a great victory. For them it is clear that company power, both economic and political, is very often able to win battles in courts of law, achieving verdicts in their favour that are hardly related to justice. For this reason, the struggle at Esquel continues, encouraged by the recent legal decision.

Article based on information sent by: Gustavo Macayo, e-mail: libmacayo@ciudad.com.ar . For more information on the subject, see http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Argentina/esquel.html; http://www.sospatagonia.netfirms.com/; http://www.contralamina.freeservers.com;
http://www.esquelonline.com; http://www.geocities.com/proyectolemu/011115a.htm

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- Bolivia: Community-based forest management in the history of the indigenous peoples

In a document prepared in the framework of FOMABO (Forestry Management in the Tropical Lands of Bolivia) --a project arising from an agreement between the KVL University of Denmark and UAGRM-UMSS Universities of Bolivia, with the support of DANIDA-- the main characteristics of community-based forest management related with the multiples uses given to forests by the indigenous peoples have been identified. In native understanding, the forest is the "big house" of the indigenous being "for indigenous peoples, the forest is what a supermarket is for non-indigenous peoples," where they are supplied with all the necessary goods and food and where the different labour and socio-cultural relations are concentrated. In the indigenous cosmovision, the territory is the necessary space to enable reproductive and productive relations to take place with nature, with both these relations making possible the appropriate use of the natural resources existing in forest territories. These characteristics enable us to define community-based forest management as the multiple uses and management of forest resources by indigenous peoples.

Before the arrival along the Rio de la Plata of Europeans to the lowlands of Bolivia in 1535, the indigenous peoples comprised different ethnic communities, with a common denominator based on the dominant relationship nature-human beings, in which human beings benefited from the reproductive cycles of nature, through gathering wild species, fishing and hunting. This system continued throughout time and presently forms part of the systems for management and traditional use of space and natural resources in their respective territories, and is part of the characterization of social identity as indigenous peoples, adopting, assimilating and merging other knowledge from different cultures, while maintaining their own values.

The present indigenous social identity is a result of a whole set of encounters and miss-encounters with other different social sectors and the syncretisation of foreign values: religiousness, organisation systems (captaincies, chapters, agrarian zones) communal labour systems such as "minga" (meeting of friends or neighbours to carry out some job together, with no other remuneration than a meal when the job is finished), which later became part of traditional use and management: gathering, hunting, fishing and the many uses of the forest. These aspects are collected together in the present cosmovision, presented as the restructuring of their ancestral territories and the interpellation to the State and to Society for development with their own identity, based on occupying national and local spaces of power.

It may be concluded that at the level of communities inhabiting forest areas, practice, production and use of forest products on a village level are usually set in complex social systems regulating resource management, where many of the factors affecting our capacity to intervene with forest solutions do not have a forest nature. These are mainly human factors, related with how people organise land use and the use of other resources. Therefore, they require specific approaches for each situation and cannot be approached with success by means of general solutions or approaches aimed at one element of the situation on its own.

For this reason, initial analyses regarding the nature of the population's dependency on trees and their products have been incorrect or incomplete in some aspects and therefore, the solutions identified have not been appropriate. This happens in particular with solutions to the decreasing availability of firewood and with attempts to intervene in ways that are contradictory to the social and institutional framework existing in the communities. Even those projects that have attempted to identify the local needs, expectations and possibilities, in practice have based themselves more on the opinion of planners and other external agents than on those of the local population. Very frequently, the dialogue to obtain local participation has started after the project design has been finished and established.

Community-based forest development has suffered from considerable confusion and lack of clarity as to its nature and purpose. On some occasions, the use of this generic term seems to have hidden the great diversity of objectives established for community-based forest development. Often, the design and execution of projects has been hindered by a lack of clarity regarding which of the objectives is being sought or had priority. Although some of these multiple objectives may be compatible and even strengthen each other mutually, others may be contradictory. It is improbable that the plantation of trees to achieve ecological objectives such as soil protection will be able to produce sufficient marketable goods to be economically attractive to farmers. Similarly, it is unlikely that the plantation of trees to generate income will benefit those who have little or no land. Furthermore, it is improbable that projects originally conceived to achieve a production objective will also be able to serve in achieving a social objective added later on, such as benefiting the poor, unless they are duly restructured.

Community-based forest management is not a discipline or a separate programme, but rather a dimension of silviculture, agriculture, rural energy and other components of rural development. Although other experiences have contemplated community-based forest management as part of the activities of "rural" populations, they have always assigned it a secondary priority, seen as tree plantations and not as a main activity for use and multiple management of forest resources, as now proposed. Finally, the institutionalisation of community-based forest management as multiple uses and functions of the forest is the institutionalisation and recognition of Amazon indigenous peoples practices.

Extracted and adapted from: "Entendiendo la historia de los pueblos indígenas para promover la forestería comunitaria como una alternativa de desarrollo socio-económico local en las TCO's", José Martínez Montano, e-mail: jomartinez@scbbs-bo.com , Proyecto FOMABO (the full document is available in Spanish at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Bolivia/TCO.doc)

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- Brazil: Stora Enso and Aracruz plan the world's biggest pulp mill

In a few weeks' time, shareholders in Veracel will decide whether to build a massive pulp mill in the Brazilian state of Bahia. Veracel's CEO, Erton Sanchez, described the project: "This will be the largest single line production mill in the world with a capacity to produce 900,000 tons a year. Fully bleached Elemental Chlorine Free pulp will be produced targeting the top end segment of the pulp market. Total investment will be around US$930 million."

Veracel is a joint venture between the Swedish-Finnish giant Stora Enso and Brazilian-Norwegian Aracruz. Aracruz is the world's largest producer of bleached eucalyptus pulp and controls 170,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations in Bahia and Espirito Santo. To make way for the vast Aracruz plantations, Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous peoples, afro-brazilian 'quilombolas' communities and other local communities have lost their forests and their lands.

Jukka Harmala, Stora Enso's CEO says that his vision for the company is "to be the leading forest products company in the world". Harmala told Pulp and Paper International in June 2001 "Our priority in Latin America is to find good fiber sources." In 1999, Bjorn Hagglund, deputy CEO of Stora Enso, explained to the Financial Times that the company's strategy was to increase its pulp operations in Brazil to secure raw material for its paper mills in China and Thailand.

A decision on whether to proceed with the pulp mill was to have been made at the end of 2002. "This project has been so complicated, and it's a big one. It's been postponed until March or April, mainly because of the economics and so forth," explained Timo Heikka of Strategy and Investments at Stora Enso.

Veracel has already planted 63,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations on the 147,000 hectares of land that the company owns in Bahia. Another 6,000 hectares is to be planted. Regardless of whether the proposed pulp mill goes ahead, Aracruz will buy 3.5 million cubic metres of timber from Veracel's plantations between 2002 and 2004.

Stora Enso's Timo Heikka visited the project area in September last year. He said, "When it comes to the biodiversity and social issues it seems to be one of the best alternatives all in all in the Southern hemisphere." Veracel's Sanchez claims that 78,000 hectares will be set aside for "preservation and recuperation" of the mata atlantica forest. He also mentioned that Veracel owns the Veracruz Station, a 6,000 hectare forest reserve which is recognised by UNESCO as a world heritage site.

Sanchez did not mention that when Veracel arrived in Bahia in 1991, the company planned to convert 80 per cent of its land into eucalyptus plantations. It was only through the intervention of Brazilian NGOs and the union of forestry workers, that the Brazilian environment agency insisted that 6,000 hectares of forest be set aside as a protected area. Neither did Sanchez mention that Veracel has cleared forest to set up its plantations only a few kilometres from the Veracruz Station (see WRM Bulletin 39).

In October 2001, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the financing institution of the European Union, announced that it had approved a US$30 million loan to Veracel for its plantations in Bahia. EIB's Senior Information Officer, Yvonne Berghorst said, "Reforestation with eucalyptus has a beneficial long term influence on the soil by reducing erosion, increasing the infiltration and storage of water and improving the chemical and physical properties and fertility of the soil."

Berghorst's optimism is in stark contrast to the reality faced by communities in Espirito Santo who are forced to live with Aracruz's plantations. In May 2002, in a letter to state-officials of Espirito Santo, local communities, trade unions and NGOs described how streams had dried out since Aracruz started to plant. The letter continued, "For the local communities and the environment in general, sustainability of eucalyptus plantations is very much questioned, as it is a monoculture of trees with an extremely short cycle, demanding large amounts of chemical fertilisers and agro-toxics."

Stora Enso, EIB, Aracruz and Veracel's representatives did not answer questions about how many people have been moved off the land to make way for Veracel's plantations. Erton Sanchez, Veracel's CEO, commented "The occupation index is extremely low since the population lives on land that isn't the property of the company." He added that the land to be planted has been "previously degraded by former landowners."

José Augusto Tosato from CEPEDES, a local NGO, challenges the company's argument that the land was degraded. Tosato points out that Veracel established its plantations on previously productive grassland and smallholders' properties.

Stora Enso's Environment and Social Responsibility Policy states, "Stora Enso considers an open discussion and interaction with all stakeholders, both governmental and non-governmental, as fundamental." In the case of Veracel, an open discussion is not possible, as environmental impact assessments for the plantations and the pulp mill are not available for general public scrutiny.

In response to a request for the EIA, EIB's Yvonne Berghorst said, "The EIA is a public document that can be obtained from the competent authorities of the state of Bahia, or from Veracel Cellulose S.A."

When asked for the EIA, Erton Sanchez, Veracel's CEO, replied, "The documentation is comprised of 14 volumes with around 2,800 pages. It exists only in printed form therefore it is not feasible to send an electronic copy. Nevertheless these documents are available for consulting at CRA (Environmental Resource Center), a Bahia state governmental agency based in Salvador."

If Veracel's project documents are not freely available, an open discussion is not possible. Any shareholder decision must be postponed to allow civil society in Brazil, Norway, Sweden and Finland the chance to contribute to an open discussion on Veracel.

By: Chris Lang, e-mail: chrislang@t-online.de

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- Brazil: Old hydroelectric dam project again threatens Amazon peoples

Presented as a "clean" source of energy that does not contaminate the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, as in the case of oil or natural gas, obtaining hydroelectric energy by building dams continues to advance along the Xingu river, the last of the great Amazon rivers in good state of conservation.

However, it is estimated that nearly all the Amazon forest will be destroyed during the first half of this century if the present trends are increased with the implementation of major infrastructure works in the region and that carbon release resulting from burning down the forest would be the equivalent to nearly 50 times the present annual release of greenhouse gases in the United States. In spite of this, the energy consultant, Joaquim Francisco de Carvalho, argues in favour of the construction of the Xingu hydroelectric plant, all to satisfy future Brazilian demand for electricity, an unsustainable demand that comes hand in hand with "development."

Today, over 45,000 large dams, with walls of over 15 metres high, obstruct the rivers of the world and their dams flood thousands of hectares of forest --particularly in tropical zones-- leaving them to slow decomposition (and therefore to the release of enormous volumes of methane gas, one of the main greenhouse gases). Reservoirs have also been the indirect cause of deforestation in other places (with the consequent release of carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas), because farmers displaced by the dams have had to cut down forests in other zones to install their crops and build their homes (see WRM Bulletin 42).

Plans for the construction of the Kararaô hydroelectric dam, rebaptised Belo Monte, on the Xingu River, generated a major controversy during the eighties. Although the area of the artificial lake necessary for the dam to operate was reduced, destruction associated with the dam is only a part of that caused by the works in general. Dams require the building of highways that enable "development agents" to have access to previously remote regions. Thus uncontrollable environmental degradation processes are triggered off --the dam not only floods agricultural lands but also causes drastic changes in the environment, and even the gradual disappearance of flora and fauna-- which in turn causes severe effects on the population, not only on the local population that depends on such resources, but also on the population of the whole river basin that has been dammed.

An example of this is the highway from Xinguara, in the zone of influence of the Belem-Brasilia highway, going through the forest towards the west and ending up in Sao Felix, on the banks of the Xingu River. The road, opened up in the eighties by the Andrade Gutiérrez building company, created a zone for a great concentration of loggers and illegal logging, that has now extended beyond the left bank of the river.

The forests of the Xingu river valley are particularly vulnerable to large forest fires. This is because the river crosses a zone of low rainfall, receiving nearly 2000 mm of rain a year, concentrated in a single and well-defined humid season. During the dry season (from April to September), the total absence of rain for long periods is usual. As a major part of the rainfall on the Amazon comes from forest transpiration, while deforestation advances on the region, droughts become more intense, increasing the risk of further forest fires and deforestation rates, in a positive feedback cycle. Thus, the Xingu hydroelectric plants, which during the dry season (when the flow of the rivers in the region is greatly reduced) would be already working well below the level of their capacity would, ironically, become unviable due to the deforestation and desertification processes associated with their very construction.

The present ecological integrity of the Xingu and the fact that so far no hydroelectric plant has been built along its course, is not the result of the action of "environmental NGOs" but of peoples' genuine struggles. The preservation of this river is explained by the abundance of indigenous peoples with war-faring traditions, for whom ecological preservation is necessary for their survival. In 1989, when the construction of the Kararaô hydroelectric plant was planned, the project was halted by pressure of the indigenous peoples, who demonstrated in Altamira, shaking their knives at the Electronorte company technicians and going to the World Bank, getting them to suspend their funding. Today, in addition to the indigenous peoples, small rural farmers are also protesting against the construction at Kararaô.

Just as with the use of fossil fuels, which if continued to be used at the present rate will cause environmental catastrophes that can place at risk the very survival of the human race, the construction of dams could also have the same effect. The problem is complex and its solution demands an in-depth revision of consumer values and models, urgently and drastically reducing the Brazilian demand for electricity.

Article based on information from: "A hidrelétrica de Kararaô e os movimentos populares", Rodolfo Salm, e-mail: rodolfosalm@alternex.com.br , Proyecto Pinkaiti, sent by the author.

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