• India: Women’s response to devastating mining
• Indonesia: The Nature Conservancy's plans in Komodo National Park
• Laos: Dams and the forgotten people of the Boloven Plateau
• Malaysia: Indigenous communities reject timber certification
• Malaysia: MTCC certification scheme seeking acceptance in Europe

- India: Women’s response to devastating mining

Mining has devastating impacts on the environment and on people, but it has also specific serious effects on women (see WRM Bulletins Nº 71 and 79). Besides causing deforestation and contaminating the earth, rivers and air with toxic waste, mining destroys the private and cultural spaces of women, robbing them of their socialization infrastructure and social role, and all that for the sake of profit of just a handful of huge corporations.

In the case of India, when mining projects displace villages, women are left more unprotected, with even less possibilities of claiming at least for rehabilitation or compensation, since they have no rights over lands or natural resources. With forests being cut down to accommodate mines and related infrastructure --more often than not failing to comply with the laws and international agreements related to human rights including ancestral and cultural rights of indigenous peoples-- women become alienated from their traditional economic roles and lose their right to cultivate their traditional crops or gather forest produce for domestic consumption and medicinal purposes. Plunged into a strange cash economy, they may end up pushed into marginalized forms of labour as maids and servants or into prostitution. Women also have to face previously non-existent social evils like wife-battering, alcoholism, indebtedness, physical and sexual harassment, which become commonplace among mining and mining-impacted communities.

Mining, by its very nature, has no room for women to be employed, so they lose their independence as they depend solely on the wages of the male members. In the cases where they are employed --in the small private sector mines-- they are the first to be retrenched, have no work safety measures, are susceptible to serious health hazards which affect their health and ability to bear healthy children. The conditions of work, in the event that they are employed in mining activities, expose the women to sexual exploitation.

Human rights abuses on women miners or women affected by mining have shockingly increased with the entry of big capital and private corporations (see WRM Bulletins Nº 40 and 52), with no attention paid by the government on this situation. On the contrary, protests and resistance from the victims have faced violent response from the State.

However, against this background of women’s exploitation and alienation from their environment, many small struggles to protect and campaign for the rights of women as communities, workers, protectors and nurturers of natural resources and ecology, are trying to come together and raise a collective voice and action.

Thus, a national alliance has been formed called “mines, minerals & PEOPLE” (mm&P). A major focus of the alliance is the National Network of Women and Mining in India, which seeks to address the problems of women miners and women in communities affected by mining. This Network is also a member of the International Network of Women and Mining and its coordinating office for the Asia-Pacific region.

The objectives of the network are:

* Understanding the status of women in mining and affected by mining
* Work for the rights of women mine-workers and women displaced/affected by mining
* Work towards a collective struggle in order to advocate for a gender sensitive mining policy for the country
* Link up with women’s struggles and campaigns nationally and internationally, and particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, to gain strength and solidarity for their struggles
* Fight for new legal rights for women to gain control over land and other natural resources which have traditionally been male-oriented domains
* Campaign for the protection of human rights of women displaced by, or working or living in mining areas
* Fight against employment of girl-child labourers in mines
* Understand the health problems and hazards of women in mining areas and address these problems
* Organize the Third International Women and Mining Conference in India (which will be held in October of this year 2004, hosted by mm&P)

The Network assumes the “Pact for Life” “because the earth is our mother and the rivers are our mother´s milk. The earth is our life and death. Therefore we demand water for all, protected wells, rivers free from contamination and waste, an earth free from degradation.”

Article based on information from: “Women and Mining. A resource Kit”, April 2003, published by Delhi Forum, E-mail: delforum@vsnl.com ; “The International Network, Women and Mining - An Appeal for Support”, 25 February, 2004, Mines & Communities Website, http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Mineral/women6.htm

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- Indonesia: The Nature Conservancy's plans in Komodo National Park

Komodo National Park (KNP) was established by the Government of Indonesia in 1980 to protect the habitat of the unique giant lizard Varanus komodoensis, called Komodo dragon. In 1995, the central government invited the US-based organisation, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to co-manage the park.

TNC is one of the largest landowners in the world. Counting on huge donations from the United States government (US$ 147 million between 1997 and 2001, and another US$ 142 million during the year 2000), it has been able to purchase lands and make contracts for the management of protected areas.

Along the line of the present global commercial trend in conservation followed by transnational NGOs, TNC’s strategy is to generate more cash for conservation from eco-tourism and marketing. It proposes to put the management of the Komodo National Park into the hands of private company PT. Putri Naga Komodo (PNK), which is 60% owned by TNC and 40% by PT. Jaythasha Putrindo, a private tourism company of Malaysia-born hotel businessman Feisol Hashim (a relative of Malaysia's Prime Minister, Mahatir Muhammad).

The idea is supported by the World Bank and some of the communities living in the park. But there have been strong objections from other local people and local NGOs who say that neither they, nor the local government have been consulted about the plan and will not have a share in the benefits.

The other side of the coin of this strategy is to keep the area free from local people. According to TNC, the greatest immediate threat to the park comes from outside fishermen engaged in destructive fishing practices. Thus, it has helped form a team consisting of park rangers, navy, police and fishery services, which works together to carry out routine patrolling.

However, the root of the devastation should be traced back to the introduction of shrimp farming in Indonesia's mangrove coastlines.

Indonesia's aquaculture exports were valued by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) at over US$2 billion in the year 2000 - high earnings for a debt-ridden country. But the environmental and social costs, borne by local people, are not calculated. Coastal communities are already among Indonesia's poorest - the Asian Development Bank reckons that around 80% are below the poverty line.

Mangrove coastlines cleared for shrimp farms can no longer protect coastal abrasion, provide breeding grounds for coastal fish species or provide the wood, medicinal leaves and other resources used by local communities. The intensive shrimp farms themselves are unsustainable --they need high levels of chemical inputs, pollute local coastal waters with waste and cause saltwater intrusion into rice-fields and other agricultural lands.

All this has completely distorted the life and livelihoods of coastal communities, who on the one hand are deprived of their traditional way of living and on the other hand are blamed for the destruction.

Komodo National Park has recorded two fishermen shot dead by the KNP joint patrol team (which includes staff from The Nature Conservancy, Komodo National Park, military, and police) over the last two years. Overall, since the establishment of KNP, there have been 12 such deaths by shooting. Aside from the fatal shootings there have been more cases of violence; numerous fishermen claim to have been beaten or tortured by the KNP joint patrol team. Several fishermen and their families were exiled from the KNP zone, and no less than 40 fishermen were tortured, arrested and denied their legal rights, with each suspect being sentenced to imprisonment between one to two years by the civil court.

The implementation of the Marine Protected Area Program has impacted substantially on the livelihoods of the local fishing communities. Currently, approximately 20,000 people in KNP could loose the basis of their livelihoods. The Nature Conservancy and KNP authorities consistently report to the government and to their international donors that their community development programs have been a success. In reality most of these programs have failed.

If TNC's current plan of putting the management of the Komodo National Park into the hands of private company PT. Putri Naga Komodo goes ahead, it could set a worrying precedent: privatising national parks has serious implications for indigenous peoples whose customary-owned lands fall within the boundaries of national parks.

Article based on information from: “The Hidden Problems in Komodo National Park”, by Indonesia Forum for Environment (WALHI), E-mail: walhi@walhi.org.id , SKEPHI, E-mail: skephi@cbn.net.id , NUANSA (Local Fishermen Association), The Komodo Watch; “Conservation is not for concession”, Position paper for the COP7 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, February 2004, by WALHI, Mining Advocacy Network (JATAM), E-mail: jatam@jatam.org , and Archipelago Indigenous People Alliance (AMAN), E-mail: rumahaman@cbn.net.id ; “Shrimp business destroys mangroves and livelihoods”, Down to Earth No. 58, August 2003, http://dte.gn.apc.org/58mar.htm

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- Laos: Dams and the forgotten people of the Boloven Plateau

For hundreds of years, Heuny and Jrou indigenous people living in Nong Phanouane and Houay Chote villages have practised rotational swidden farming in their forests on the Boloven Plateau in the south of Laos.

Now, government officials have told them that they have to stop swidden farming and will soon be forced to move. The reason? They have the misfortune to live in a watershed which the government declares must be protected because of a proposed hydropower dam.

South Korean company Dong Ah started construction of the $1 billion Xe Pian Xe Nam Noi dam in 1996 but pulled out after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Recently, the Vietnam Laos Investment and Development Company announced plans to build six dams in Laos, including the Xe Pian Xe Nam Noi dam (see WRM Bulletin 74).

The Houay Ho dam, also on the Boloven Plateau, was completed in 1998. A consortium of Daewoo (South Korea), Loxley (Thailand) and Electricité du Lao started construction of the dam in 1994 after Daewoo signed a 25 year build operate transfer contract with the Lao government. The electricity produced by the 150 MW dam is exported to Thailand.

The consortium hired Electrowatt Engineering, a Swiss consulting firm, to design the dam, produce an environmental impact assessment (EIA) and supervise construction of the dam. Electrowatt’s EIA, which was completed two years after dam construction started, failed to deal with the impact of logging or with the impact of the project on the indigenous peoples in the area.

An unusually generous 50 metre-wide corridor for the transmission lines gave a bonus to the Thai logging companies responsible for clearing the forest in the reservoir area. About 70 kilometres of wide new roadways were built through previously “inaccessible and undamaged primary forest”, according to Doug Cross, a consultant on an Asian Development Bank-funded project who visited the area in 1997.

Around 4,000 people, mainly Heuny and Jrou, were forcibly evicted to make way for the Houay Ho dam.

A recent report, “Hydroelectric Dams and the Forgotten People of the Boloven Plateau”, based on research conducted on the Boloven Plateau, describes the impact of forced resettlement on communities there.

The researchers found that many families in the resettlement areas have too little farm land. Much of the land is poor quality and unsuitable for agriculture. As a result villagers face serious food shortages. Although wells were drilled, many are now dry and villagers lack access to clean water. Schools exist, but without enough classrooms or teaching materials. Older villagers told researchers that they miss the fertile lands and the large fruit trees growing near their old villages. Traditions are dying out, as people are forced to travel to find work. Downstream of the Houay Ho powerhouse, villagers face flood damage to their paddy fields and drowned livestock, especially in the rainy season.

A Heuny man told researchers, “My relatives and I don’t want to live in the resettlement village but we were forced to and we could not protest. We miss our native lands where we used to live for hundreds of years, our crops, vegetables and our happy lives.”

In September 2001, the Houay Ho Power Company, a joint venture of subsidiaries of Tractebel Electricity and Gas International, bought Daewoo and Loxley’s shares in the Houay Ho dam for $140 million. The Lao government retained its 20 per cent share in the project. Financing came from a syndicate of Thai banks and the Belgian export credit agency, Office National du Ducroire, provided political risk insurance for Tractebel’s involvement.

Katje Damman, responsible for External Communications at Tractebel, is unwilling to describe the details of the political risk insurance provided by Ducroire. “If you want to have all the details of what the political risk insurance exactly covers, you should check with the agency. I can’t tell you. It’s what a national political risk insurance normally covers, I think. It’s a normal political risk insurance,” she said.

Ducroire declined to answer questions about the Houay Ho dam.

Damman denied that the villagers evicted by the Houay Ho developers are facing problems. “The resettlement programme has been finalised. There are no claims and the Houay Ho Power Company keeps in contact with the local authorities to see if there are any problems.”

The authors of the “Forgotten People” report point out that the local authorities “have not taken any responsibility for the livelihoods of the villagers who have been moved out of their former villages.”

Having seen what happened to their friends and relatives who have already been forced to move, the Jrou from Nong Phanouane village have worked out a plan. If they are forced to move to the resettlement areas, they will not take down their houses. If, after four or five months, government officials fail to provide them with everything promised, the Jrou will return to their homes in Nong Phanouane. The authors of the “Forgotten People” report add, “If they are killed for returning, they will be ready to be killed in their own homes.”

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

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- Malaysia: Indigenous communities reject timber certification

Local communities from all over Malaysia reject the country’s attempt to greenwash its timber industry. During the COP-7 meeting of the Biodiversity Convention in Malaysia in February, representatives for 253 indigenous, forest based communities presented a statement describing the Malaysian Timber Certification Council scheme, MTCC, as a scheme that "has caused, and continues to cause, the further marginalisation of our communities".

The recently launched campaign is ongoing, and signatures from additional communities rejecting MTCC are still coming in.

Malaysia is the world’s biggest exporter of tropical timber and timber products. Unfortunately, this timber comes from forests which have for years been seriously over-logged. According to data from FAO, Malaysia lost 2.7 million hectares of forest during the 1990s, 13.4 per cent of the country’s forest area. Malaysia plans a further “legal” deforestation (i.e. “forest conversion”) of 3.9 million hectares. No less important is Malaysia’s lack of recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples and forest based communities. Logging is conducted in the forests which local people depend on for their survival, without any meaningful consultation.

Responsible for the community campaign is JoangoHutan, the Network of Indigenous Peoples and NGOs on Forest Issues in Malaysia, which have distributed information about MTCC and Malaysian forestry to hundreds of villages where MTCC’s certifiers never have been.

As written in the statement from the indigenous communities; “Malaysia has a diversity of indigenous ethnic groups. The majority of us live in the interior areas and depend on the forest and the resources found on our traditional or adat territories. Our forest homelands are the source of our histories, cultures, and identities.”

The communities continue; “It is clear that MTCC’s goal is to find ways to sell our timber while we are mandated to protect our forests and to secure the livelihoods and interests of our people who live in, depend on, and derive their spiritual and cultural identity from the forests.”

“Logging causes many problems for our peoples. It degrades the environment, pollutes the air and the rivers, devastates our livelihoods, threatens our health, causes landslides and mudslides that destroy lives and property, and can subject us to involuntary resettlement and oppression. However the biggest impact that logging has on indigenous peoples is the loss of our rights over our traditional lands. Outsiders are invariably given logging rights to our lands without our prior informed consent.”

MTCC was set up in 1998, after more than a decade of harsh criticism of Malaysian forestry and the violation of indigenous peoples’ rights, from both Malaysian and international organisations. “Malaysia wanted to revive its timber product exports to Europe where the trade has suffered from the ill-founded perception that the products did not come from well-managed forests,” the Malaysian Primary Industries Minister, Dr. Lim Keng Yaik, has explained. Today, more than 4 million hectares in Malaysia are certified as ‘sustainably managed’ by the MTCC.

Several Malaysian social, environmental, and community-based groups were invited to participate in the process in 1999. 14 of these NGOs, together forming the JoangoHutan network, have repeatedly demanded changes in MTCC, to ensure that the Malaysian certification scheme can be considered credible. The fact that their concerns were ignored during the process, led JoangoHutan to withdraw from the negotiations in July 2001. Lack of recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights has been, and continues to be, one of their crucial points in the criticism of MTCC.

“MTCC does not recognize nor protect indigenous peoples rights over traditional lands.(…) If MTCC is honestly concerned about guaranteeing the social and cultural sustainability of indigenous communities, then it should put a halt to all logging in the traditional lands of the indigenous peoples until at least when the highest standards of timber certification are in place,” the communities write.

This criticism is confirmed by the MTCC senior manager Harnarinder Singh. To the Malaysian web-based newspaper Malaysiakini, he says that to recognise indigenous claims over traditional land would require an overhaul of state laws, which at the moment do not acknowledge native customary rights over their land. “Since the council can only operate within existing legislation, it would be unfair to place the onus of such demands onto the council,” he adds.

The statement from the Malaysian communities concludes with a clear rejection of MTCC, and demands fundamental changes before MTCC can be considered a credible mechanism for certifying sustainable forestry: “We cannot accept the MTCC Timber Certification Scheme. We can only accept a scheme to certify timber as having been harvested in a socially and environmentally sustainable way if it complies with the following minimum conditions:

- Our rights to our traditional territories must be recognized and secured;
- The full principles and criteria of the FSC must be applied, without any dilution to the indicators and verifiers by the insertion of clauses allowing such standards to be “subject to existing national legislation”;
- Assessors and certifiers should include credible indigenous peoples themselves;
- And, most importantly, the prior informed consent of the communities affected by the proposed logging should be obtained before any indigenous traditional land is designated for logging.”

By: Nils Hermann Ranum, Rainforest Foundation Norway. Article based on the statement “Reject the MTCC timber certification scheme”, from JoangoHutan/Malaysian indigenous communities, Feb 19, 2004, and article from http://www.malaysiakini.com , Feb 19, 2004.

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- Malaysia: MTCC certification scheme seeking acceptance in Europe

The Malaysian Timber Certification Council scheme, MTCC, is set up to meet demands from the Western markets for a green stamp on tropical timber, and MTCC has been a pioneer among the national certification schemes from tropical countries to really invest in getting acceptance from the European market. Malaysian delegations, headed by the Minister of Primary Industries, have several times visited Europe, and the active promotion of their own scheme has worked. Last year, Denmark, as the first European country, officially accepted MTCC as “a good guarantee of legal forest management, on its way towards becoming sustainable” in their tropical timber purchasing guidelines. This was done with the acceptance of two Danish environmental NGO’s; WWF Denmark and Nepenthes, who participated in a working group elaborating the guidelines.

The EU Commission, European national governments and several cities in Germany and the Netherlands, such as Hamburg and Amsterdam, have also been approached by the Malaysian government and the country’s timber industry, actively promoting MTCC as a credible certification scheme.

Whether MTCC standards are deemed acceptable has implications not only for forestry in Malaysia, but also for the future of forest certification around the world. Accepting MTCC would undermine the rights of indigenous peoples and sustainable forestry in Malaysia. Further, it would indicate globally that certified forestry remains exploitative and unsustainable business as usual, and is essentially meaningless in protection of forests and indigenous peoples’ rights.

MTCC has repeatedly been criticised by Malaysian and international NGO’s, but apparently more work is needed. One of the latest efforts is an email action alert by Forests.org and the Rainforest Foundation Norway towards the Danish government, asking for a withdrawal of the Danish support of the MTCC scheme.

By: Nils Hermann Ranum, Rainforest Foundation Norway.