LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS

- Bolivia: Protected areas at the disposal of oil companies

In some cases following a very dubious public participation process and in others, causing strong reaction, the Protected Areas Bill was submitted to consultation. In general, there is rejection of the Bill’s attempt to legalize entry of oil and mining companies into protected areas such as the Pilon Lajas Biosphere Reserve and Indigenous Territory, and the Amboro and Madidi Parks. Peasant organizations in Cochabamba stated that if protected areas are for the oil or logging companies, they prefer them not to exist.

Oil companies turn to the highest government levels to obtain the approval of seismic exploration projects, the laying of pipelines and oil exploitation within protected areas and indigenous territories, endeavouring to reduce to the minimum environmental and social requirements and do not respect management and zonation plans. To this is added the granting of mining concessions linked to political power. Eight oil companies obtained 24 concessions to explore and exploit hydrocarbon minerals in nine protected areas in Bolivia according to data from the National Service for Protected Areas (Servicio Nacional de Areas Protegidas – SERNAP). Andina, Total, Chaco, Repsol, Maxus, Petrobras and Don Wong are some of the companies carrying out such operations in Bolivian preservation areas.

If the bill is approved, proposals for sustainable biodiversity use will be dismantled, such as the Indigenous Mapajos Ecotourism Enterprise in the Pilon Lajas Reserve and Indigenous Territory, the community ecotourism projects in the Amoro Park (La Chonta, Mataracu, Villa Amboro) and others in the Eduardo Abaroa Reserve and Sajama Park and in all the protected areas in Bolivia. According to Jose Coello from SERNAP, income from tourism in nature preservation zones can generate more than the returns from oil exploitation. Tourist activity has just started in these areas in Bolivia and has already generated over 4 million dollars, in the Madidi region alone.

The bill establishes the need to re-classify and re-adapt all protected areas to be ratified by the law, implying that the national parks where oil interests exist could be reclassified to enable such activities to enter the areas; this would be the case of the Amboro and Madidi Parks. Although it establishes an exception in the core zones, parks and sanctuaries, protection would be reduced to small conservation islands, such as in Pilon Lajas, one of the most important protected areas in the Andean-Amazon region of Bolivia, part of the Vilcabamba (Peru) – Amboro (Bolivia) ecological corridor.

It is clear that if the bill is adopted, one of the first results will be approval of the Petrobras seismic exploration project, presently on hold at the Ministry of the Environment. To carry out seismic exploration, straight lines 1.5 to 4 metres wide are traced through forests, rivers, plantations or villages, removing the plant cover or other cover in order to locate geological structures containing hydrocarbon deposits by means of detection equipment. In addition to constructing roads, heliports, camps, storage zones for material and equipment causing deforestation of large extensions of forest, pollutants will be dumped in rivers, soils and in the air and there will be impacts on the fauna in the area. Populations in these territories suffer from the invasion of camps of workers from other locations, which totally alter community life.

Most of the legal provisions on protected areas expressly prohibit new oil, mining and logging exploitation activities. Therefore, although sectoral oil and mining laws have defined these activities as a national priority, approval of environmental licences is not guaranteed and has been strongly questioned by ecologist, social and local community organizations. In 2001 the Department of Santa Cruz and many national institutions managed to halt approval of an environmental licence for the Andina (Amoco) oil company, which was attempting to enter the Amboro Park where ecotourism projects, hostels, research and training projects are being implemented, making the area one of the most promoted and important conservation zones in Santa Cruz.

Another basic aspect questioned in the bill is that for its authors, biodiversity is an issue of flora, fauna and micro-organisms. They forget that the laws in force in the country define biodiversity as having an "intangible" component referring to collective knowledge or associated cultural life. These same laws recognize local community protection of this component.

The bill not only legalizes oil, mining and logging activities in protected areas, but places the "users" of these activities on Management Committees as "actors in the management of Protected Areas," forgetting that it is precisely these activities and companies that are the main causers of contamination and degradation problems where they operate.

Article based on information from: "Proyecto de ley de Areas Protegidas a la medida de las petroleras", 25 August 2003, FOBOMADE press release, e-mail: comunicacion@fobomade.org.bo ; "Las áreas protegidas afectadas por 24 concesiones petroleras", El Deber, 26 June 2003, http://www.el-deber.net/20030626/nacional_6.html

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- Brazil: Women’s working conditions in tree plantations

In many regions of Brazil, woodlands and areas previously used for agriculture are now substituted by large-scale monoculture tree plantations, recruiting their work force among men, women and children. In the case of Minas Gerais, plantation implies a series of activities carried out by women on a par with men, except logging which is a masculine activity par excellence.

Hiring of women workers was based on their greater aptitude to carry out certain tasks, such as growing plants in nurseries, which requires greater dexterity. In some cases too, women are entrusted with the application of ant-killers to the land planted with eucalyptus.

While the plantations expanded and the work rationale changed, given the technical specificities of tree production, in some cases female labour simply became a form of direct incorporation of cheap labour, contributing to lower the salaries of men workers.

The labour conditions of women workers have much in common with those of men, but some degree of differentiation may be established with relation to their work in the tree nurseries. In the plantations of two large forestry companies (V&M and Plantar), a large quantity of reiterated injuries caused by making great efforts have been observed, in spite of which women continue to work, many of them with swollen or bandaged hands. They also suffer from rheumatic diseases, probably caused by their constant exposure to cold water in the nurseries and to a generally cold environment in the wintertime.

In these two plantations there are no specific gender policies, which is detrimental to them and to their children. As there are no day-care centres near the place of work, it is almost impossible for women to breastfeed their babies after their 4 months maternity leave, established by law, thus increasing malnutrition. They usually leave their homes at 5.30 in the morning and return late in the afternoon. Added to the workday, they are obliged to return home in the company transport, which takes an hour or more as it goes around, picking up all the workers at the plantations.

In interviews held in Curvelo, Minas Gerias, to women working in plantations, one of the main complaints they made was the basic need for drinking water. One of the women interviewed reported that there were days when the water came out of the watering places very cloudy and reddish, which makes one suspect contamination from the agrochemicals used by these companies, some of which are prohibited on international lists. Perhaps this data should be related with the numerous cases of cerebral diseases of workers that have been discharged and the high incidence of cancer in the zone.

All this takes place in a context of unemployment, misinformation regarding workers rights and loss of access to the natural resources that previously satisfied their needs. Thus, many women workers do not receive medical care, and do not know how to bring their case to court. To this is added that they are made to feel guilty for work-related accidents or diseases. Furthermore, they fear loosing their jobs or not receiving the basic food basket that the Collective Agreement ensures them and that they count on for their family’s basic food.

The plantation companies arrived in the region promising development. They substituted the "cerrado" vegetation by monoculture tree plantations, thus eliminating all the goods and services that this ecosystem provided to its inhabitants and in particular to women. In exchange, they received the "benefit" of jobs such as those described. Is this what they call development?

Article based on information from "Agricultores e asalariados das plantações florestais em Minas Gerais: quais problemas?", Múcio Tosta Gonçalves, http://www.cedeplar.ufmg.br/diamantina2002/textos/D72.PDF ; "Certifying the Uncertifiable. FSC Certification of Tree Plantations in Thailand and Brazil", World Rainforest Movement, August 2003; and information provided by Rosa Roldán, e-mail: rroldan@alternex.com.br

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- Peru: Ex-Im Bank rejects funding Camisea Project

In 1980 the Shell Company, logging companies and Evangelical missions forced contact with the Indigenous Yora people, causing the death of approximately 50% of the population due to epidemics. Indigenous organizations requested the government to set up a reserve, which they finally obtained in 1990. In the State Nahua Kugapakori Reserve, in favour of peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact, inhabit peoples such as the Yora and Chitonahua identified in the Pano linguistic family, the Nanti peoples and various Matsigenka subgroups with linguistic varieties classified among the Arawak ethno-linguistic group. There are also Indigenous Peoples in isolation that have not yet been identified in the upper Serjali and Timpia.

In the year 2000, the Peruvian government granted exploitation rights of lot 88 to the oil consortium Pluspetrol Peru Corporation S.A. for a 40-year period. The site, located on the river Camisea, is in the heart of the tropical rainforest of the Urubamba and three quarters of it are in the Nahua Kugapakori Reserve. In other bulletins we have already referred to the enormous damage this project has caused, both to the communities and Indigenous peoples of the zone, and to the rich biodiversity of unique primary tropical forests (see WRM Bulletins 56 and 62) and we disseminated a call for action launched by Oilwatch in this respect, see http://www.wrm.org.uy/alerts/Peru0703.html (only in Spanish).

The Camisea Project does not have effective plans to monitor the welfare of the villages under impact during the life of the project, nor does it have contingency plans in case the situation becomes worse. The incidence of crime, prostitution, sexually transmitted diseases and alcoholism has increased with the immigration of workers and settlers to already established communities. Furthermore, the presence of a market economy distorts the self-subsistence economy, changing consumer patterns and upsetting the Indigenous Peoples’ food chain.

The enormous pressure on natural resources as a consequence of opening up primary forests to build the oil pipeline, camps, plant, seismic lines, access roads and pipelines between wells and the plant, opening up of routes of access to the zone facilitating the movement of people inside the primary forests, contributes in the long run to fragmentation and deforestation and in addition, is an enormous threat on the local communities’ natural resources.

The Indigenous Peoples demand, among other things, the project to be halted and the withdrawal of the contracting companies, compliance with ILO Convention 169, respect for the rights of Indigenous Peoples in isolation to decide the time and way of interacting with others, that mechanisms for direct indigenous participation in the independent control, assessment and monitoring of the project be ensured, the establishment of a Fund, with direct Indigenous participation, aimed at the environmental management of the Amazon forest in the area affected by the Camisea Project, that sanctions be imposed regarding irreversible ecological damage and to demand measures of prevention and compensation.

Within such context there is at least one good news: the board of directors of the U.S. Ex-Im Bank, which was to provide 270 million dollars to the controversial project, has decided against funding. The decision is a cloud hanging over a credit of 75 million dollars for Camisea from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), whose board of directors has not addressed the issue for the third consecutive time.

It is evident that the pressure against the project for environmental reasons has weighed here. There are also sectors in the United States that do not share the idea that IDB should support this much questioned project that mainly benefits large companies suspiciously linked to people who are firm contributors to President George Bush’s campaigns. Such is the case of Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), a branch of Vice-President Dick Cheney’ old company, Halliburton, which now has the business of reconstructing oil facilities in Iraq.

It is hoped that this Ex-Im Bank decision will contribute to halting the project and that IDB will adopt a similar decision.

Article based on information from: "Declaración de los Pueblos Indígenas en Defensa de la Vida, el Territorio y el Ambiente", sent by Correo Indígena, N° 33 - Lima, 28 August 2003, e-mail: coppip@amauta.rcp.net.pe ; "Financing for Peru’s Camisea Project Voted Down by U.S. Ex-Im Bank", press release by Amazon Watch, Friends of the Earth, Bank Information Center, Environmental Defense, Amazon Alliance, Institute for Policy Studies, 28 August 2003, sent by Atossa Soltani, e-mail: asoltani@igc.org ; "Bush, the rainforest and a gas pipeline to enrich his friends", The Independent, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=428887 , sent by Amazon Alliance, e-mail: amazon@amazonalliance.org

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- Uruguay: Semi-slave work in plantation forestry

Plantation forestry --promoted by the 1987 forestry law and consisting of large-scale monoculture plantations of alien trees-- promised an infinite number of benefits to the country: exports, industry, thousands of new jobs. Subsidies, tax exemptions for the import of machinery and industrial equipment, land rates, net worth tax, credits from the World Bank and the Bank of the Republic and the possibility of corporations becoming owners of the land by means of exceptions to the law, were some of the benefits those entrepreneurs received.

"With the experience of having invested in my own property, I recommend you to study these opportunities and to follow my example," invited the then President of Uruguay, Luis Alberto Lacalle, who had more than one headache over his wheeling and dealing in the forestry issue. Spanish, Finnish, United States and Canadian capitals arrived to install themselves on Uruguayan territory.

In a little over ten years, Uruguay multiplied the number of hectares covered by plantations. The 45,000 hectares existing at the beginning of the nineties today reach over 600,000. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries' 2002 agricultural census, plantation forestry has given permanent work to 2,962 people, although the seasonal nature of the work prevents knowing exactly how many jobs it generates. There is another difficulty; the rate of moonlighting is very high, above all in outsourced work.

Recruited in small villages, in bars, in the cattle ranches where they work as labourers, driven by the need to work and added to the fact that many of them have no knowledge of their labour rights or are afraid that if they make demands they will be fired, or because they are minors, lumber-jacks end up by accepting the conditions they are offered without protesting.

Thirty year-old Alexis Silva arrived in the Department of Treinta y Tres from Salto to work for the Otalin S.A. Company that exploits a plot of 250 hectares planted with eucalyptus on the La Candela ranch. The movement of people from one Department to another is usual in this activity and, additionally, is a way of exerting pressure on workers. Far from home, it is harder to complain.

Felling is hard work. The axe weighs between 5 and 9 kilos and each tree trunk between 40 and 100 kilos. Activity starts at sunrise and ends at sunset, from Sunday to Sunday, with an arbitrary rest every 15, 20 or 43 days. Workers usually have a breakfast of porridge oats and cocoa and during their work, they only drink water which is not provided by the employer although the regulations oblige him to do so. To provide drinking water of course, and not from the stream as has been the case. Dinner is the only real meal of the whole day.

While the work lasts, the lumberjacks, save for exceptions, stay in the woods and manage as they can. They build huts using tin sheeting, polyethylene bags, branches, boards or any other material. The beds may be thick branches of eucalyptus, sometimes with a mattress. They have a bath as they can, have dinner, play a while on a mouse-eaten accordion and then off to bed.

Another task is that of the chainsaw operator who cuts the trees down, trying to avoid accidents and in a way that will enable them to grow again properly. Once on the ground, a worker takes off the branches and makes a mark with burnt oil every 2.4 metres. The chainsaw man cuts at the marks and another worker strips the bark off each of the logs. Once this is finished they make piles of ten logs at the base by two metres high, which are then put on a trailer and taken to the trucks that will go to the port. They also work making logs for firewood, which implies felling the tree, taking off the branches, cutting them, chopping up the logs and making a pile of them. Whatever the job is, it is hard to earn more than 150 or 200 pesos (US$ 5.5 - 7) daily, provided the outsourcer does not swindle them and before the "normal" discounts…

Twenty year-old Ruben told us "it seemed to me that what they are doing there (at Otalin) is a racket. I was there three months and the most money I ever made was 1,000 pesos (US$ 35). All I earned went to the store". In other cases, the employers pay part of the wages with bonds to be exchanged in stores where the companies have some kind of an agreement, or at the ranch itself.

When Alexis started work as a chainsaw operator, he had to purchase the saw that the employer sold him at 600 dollars, taken out in instalments from his wages. Petrol, oil, chains, files, he had to pay for everything ("replacement for an axe handle 60 pesos", was registered in one of the invoices), although regulations oblige the employer to cover these costs.

Ruben and Alexis talk about the dangers of the job: from a splinter flying and going directly into an eye, a wrong manoeuvre with a mechanical arm and the logs falling on someone, to a tree falling on the workmate who is stripping another log, or the chain of the chainsaw breaking and hurting someone’s legs, a simple slip when using this tool…

The amount of irregularities, abuses, default in payment, was what led the lumberjacks, encouraged by Silva, to lodge a claim. However, only a few are willing to follow-up with legal action; others have commented that they know that this is right but are afraid of "getting a bad name" and that they will not be hired again and "you have to take care of your job."

The Ministry of Labour inspectors were there and verified that the living and working conditions are those described. In the meanwhile, the paperwork follows its course. For Alexis, the major objective is to disseminate the story. "If I am offered work again, I’ll take it, but not under the same conditions, this is why I am fighting."

Excerpts and adaptation of the article "Empleos semiesclavos de la forestación. Los monteadores," (Semi-slave jobs in forestry. The lumberjacks), Mariana Contreras, Brecha, 15 August 2003.