- Bangladesh: The Sundarbans under siege by megatourism

A project earmarked for the biodiversity rich Sundarbans is being firmly opposed by environmentalists and local population, who fear that it will harm the world’s biggest mangrove forests.

The Lucknow-based Sahara group, in partnership with the state, is setting up an enormous and controversial ‘eco-tourism’ project in the Sundarbans, which experts warn would do the ecologically fragile region more harm than good.

The Sahara India Tourism Development Corporation, a joint venture with the West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation, proposes to set up four land-based and three floating facilities mainly to draw the high-end domestic and foreign tourists to the Sundarbans. While the land-based complexes with air-conditioned cottages will come up on four islands — Sagar, Frazerganj, -Plot and Kaikhali — the five-star floating hotels will be berthed in three creeks, one of them near the confluence of the Muriganga and Hooghly rivers. The company plans to take 1,500 tourists a day by catamaran to the Sundarbans on a four-day package from Prinsep Ghat in Calcutta. The company promises to spend four to five per cent of its revenue from the project on social development of the region every year. “No company has done this before,” says Romi Datta, head of the project.

Not everybody, however, is convinced that the project will, as Sahara claims, actually end up enriching the environment. The delta is the gateway to the Hooghly-Brahmaputra basin. “Any major human interference like the floating facilities would affect not only the tidal and salinity balance, but the hydrology of the entire basin,’ Sinha says. This means more silt and less flow in the Hooghly, further clogging Calcutta’s drainage system. “Getting fish like hilsa would be a problem if the flow of water in the Hooghly reduces further,” Sinha says. “It’s absurd to have a project like this in the Sundarbans. The Sahara project will harm, not help West Bengal,” Bittu Sahgal, a well-known environmentalist and editor of Sanctuary Magazine, says.

More than 3.5 million people live in 54 of the 108 islands dotting the delta. What will happen to those people if the project, which aims to acquire a total of 836 acres of land to set up its tourism complexes and use 250 square kilometres of the total 490 square kilometres of water surface under the Sundarbans biosphere reserve, is put into place? Environmentalists fear the mega project will cause large-scale pollution in the rivers snaking through the Sundarbans and destroy the mangrove forests, which, besides hosting a rich and diverse flora and fauna, protect the inland from the fury of cyclones.

An environment movement is slowly building up against the project. Senior government functionaries admit that activists from different countries have already inundated the Union environment ministry with protest e-mails. Even schoolchildren have joined the campaign. Rukmini Das, a Class IX student at Modern High School, zipped an e-mail to Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, urging him to scrap the project. “Rather than help people, the project is likely to destroy the means of survival for millions of people dependent on fishing,” she explains.

The project itself is still mired in secrecy — one of the reasons why local people are suspicious of its intent. Even the public representatives from the Sundarbans were not taken into confidence by the state government before it announced the project.

The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report -a mandatory document- is not readily available in Bengali, says Bonani Kakkar of PUBLIC, a Calcutta-based environment group. At a public hearing on the project in Parthorprotima in January -where she says there were more project officials than villagers- there were not enough copies of the report in Bengali for villagers. Worse, says Kakkar, the EIA was prepared by Modular Consultants Pvt. Ltd, an agency appointed by Sahara. “There’s a conflict of interest there. An independent agency should have done the EIA,” she says. “It was a complete farce,” she adds.

“We need to debate what sort of development we want and for whom,” says Porua, a headmaster of a local high school. “Would it be for locals or for big companies out to make money from the Sundarbans,” he says with a note of anger in his voice. The murmurs of protests are, meanwhile, fast reaching a crescendo as activists gear up for their campaign. A new forum -called the Citizens’ Concern for Sundarbans- is ready to take the government on. A total of 19 small organisations working in the Sundarbans have also joined the campaign, forming a group called the Sundarban Chetna. “We have already ripped out the wooden poles erected by the administration to mark the land to be acquired for the project in Kaikhali,” says Dinesh Das, co-ordinator of Sundarban Chetna. The group plans to stage sit-ins and skits at all 18 blocks in the Sundarbans. “We will continue with the agitation till the government abandons the project,” Das says.

The battle has just begun.

Article based on information from: “Taking over tide country”, Debashis Bhattacharyya, distributed by Praxis News, e-mail: banglapraxis@yahoo.com

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- Cambodia: Pheapimex resume deforestation for a projected pulp and paper mill

In Cambodia, more than 80% of the population lives in rural areas and 36% lives in extreme poverty, earning less than 50 US cents per day. Though many villagers make a living out of the forest products, deforestation is part of the national policy and economy, showing that local and state authorities pay lip-service to the needs of the poor.

In mid November, another move where the most affected had the least say in deal making took place. The giant firm Pheapimex Co. Ltd. started works to clear 6,800 hectares of forest from its 315.000-hectare land concession, to later plant the land with eucalyptus and acacia trees to supply a planned pulp and paper mill in Kandal province. The land concession of the company reaches across the Pursat and Kompong Chhnang provinces, and is one of the many concession the company has in Cambodia (in Stung Treng, Kratie, Kompong Thom, Koh Kong provinces). The concessions system began in the mid-1990s and still remains the preferred method of managing forests in Cambodia, despite widespread criticism.

Pheapimex had started the project in 2001 but stopped because of the strong opposition from NGOs and local villagers, who saw their livelihoods under threat. Now, the company has stricken back, resuming the clear felling of the forest. But again it has encountered local people’s resistance. Hundreds of villagers have rallied about 5 km from the worksite and gathered in the Krakor district of the northwestern province of Pursat. Over 100 stayed overnight at the protest site to wait for the protest to go on the following day, but during the night they were attacked by a hand grenade which injured six of them.

Seven villages fall within the concession area where the forest is part of the livelihood of the villagers who collect fruit and other products. "If we lose that land, it means we lose our jobs. I survive because of that forest”, said Hem Sam, 42.

The logging company has decided to insist on pushing upon its commercial interests, but the local community is, once again, determined to defend their forest0, their livelihoods, and their lives.

Article based on information from: “The death of Cambodia's forests”, Keith Andrew Bettinger, sent by Oliver Pye, E-mail: opye@oxfamamerica.org ; “Villagers Protest Plans for Forest Clearance”, The Cambodia Daily, http://www.e-khmer.com/news ; “Protest against clear felling of a Cambodian forest”, ABC Asia Pacific, http://www.abcasiapacific.com/news/stories_to/asiapacific_stories_lofi_1243023.htm

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- India: Report from Kalpavriksh on mining on ecologically sensitive areas

The Indian Environment Action Group Kalpavriksh has recently reprinted the report titled: 'Undermining India - Impacts of mining on ecologically sensitive areas', which it had published in March 2003.

While a substantial number of the mining threats in India that are destroying some of the country’s most ecologically-sensitive areas are from ongoing mining (both large and small), a major emerging threat is new mining, warns the report, particularly in the light of the liberalization of the mining sector in the past few years. Since economic liberalisation began in the 1990s, the mining sector has opened up thousands of sq km for reconnaissance and prospecting

The report conveys a national picture of ecologically sensitive areas threatened by existing or proposed mining activities; an analysis of the legal and policy framework on mining and environment; the response of citizens and Indian courts to mining threats; a review of current practices for ecological amelioration of abandoned mines; and provides a set of concrete recommendations on the issue.

Since 1996, says the report, 65 large prospecting licences covering over 90,000 sq km have been granted. Since 2000, 119 reconnaissance permits covering 155,000 sq km have been given out.

At least 90 wildlife sanctuaries and national parks, as well as, hundreds of other areas with unique biodiversity and wildlife –including catchments that provide water to millions of people- are threatened. Some examples of the threats cited are the proposed bauxite mining in the Eastern Ghats in Andhra Pradesh, which will impact the catchment areas of four rivers; mining in Bailadila in Chhatisgarh which has hit the Sankhini river; iron ore mining in the Western Ghats which has impacted rivers in Karnataka and Goa; iron ore mining in the Saranda forests of Jharkhand which is impacting the Koina river; limestone mining in the Hemwalghati in Uttaranchal.

Many of these areas are crucial to long-term water security and also overlap with some ecologically-rich and culturally-sensitive areas in Rajasthan, Chhatisgarh, Maharashtra, Orissa and Jharkhand. The threat to ecosystems and livelihoods posed by mining seriously affects many culturally and economically fragile communities residing in these areas, including many Adivasi/ tribal groups, leading to conflicts such as those of tribal communities in Kashipur (Orissa), against bauxite mining in the Eastern Ghats, tribals in Andhra Pradesh against proposed calcite mining around the famous Borra Caves, and villagers in Hemwalghati in Uttaranchal against limestone mining.

Many mining activities are in gross violation of environmental policies and laws, of the constitutional guarantees to Adivasis and other communities and of the National Mineral Policy’s own assurances that "ecologically fragile and biologically-rich areas" would be avoided. The country's environmental rules, too, have been diluted to permit mining, and environmental public hearings were done away with for mining leases of major minerals up to 25 hectares.

The report urges the Union and state governments to declare sensitive areas off-limits, change mining policies and laws, have an independent assessment of impacts of the mining sector, restore mined areas, provide alternative employment to workers before closing mines in sensitive areas and set up an expert group to explore ways of sustainable material and energy use, among others the reduction of luxury and wasteful consumption of minerals.

Calling on communities, people's groups and NGOs to unite and network more strongly, to resist the increasing take-over of sensitive areas for mining, the report stresses the need to make a critical examination of current development policies, including those in the mining sector, to assess how they are impacting Indian ecological and livelihood security –especially of the most under-privileged sections of society who are dependent on natural resources. Finally, it appeals to make an introspection on the very many wasteful ways in which we use minerals, including luxury minerals like diamonds, marble, granite, and gold.

Article based on information sent by Neeraj Vagholikar, Kalpavriksh, E-mail: kvriksh@vsnl.com

To ask for copies of the report please contact Swati Kalpavriksh at the following address: Apartment No. 5, Shree Dutta Krupa, 908 Deccan Gymkhana, Pune - 411004. For further enquiries contact Swati at: kvbooks@vsnl.net

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- Malaysia: Charged logging company Rimbunan Hijau strikes back

Malaysia is one of the world’s major producers and exporters of tropical timber. It is the home base for a number of major transnational logging companies, including Rimbunan Hijau, a global conglomerate of companies controlled by the Tiong family from Sarawak in Malaysia.

Greenpeace released a report on Rimbunan Hijau (RH) in February of this year ("The Untouchables. Rimbunan Hijau's World of Forest Crime and Political Patronage", available at: http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/reports/ex-summary?item_id=398660&language_id=en ), highlighting the corrupt and destructive activities of the Malaysian firm which apart from being a powerful industry player in Malaysia and Equatorial Guinea, dominates the logging industry in Papua New Guinea and also holds significant forestry interests in Gabon, Indonesia, Vanuatu, New Zealand, and Russia. The timber extracted by the corporation is traded across the globe with little concern for the environmental damage, misery and suffering caused in producer countries.

According to the report, their Malaysian production comes from Sarawak, where RH has an estimated 800,000 hectares of production forest, affecting particularly the Penan people –a semi-nomadic forest dwelling people for whom this forest has been their home for thousands of years.

They have been fighting for their lives against logging for years (see WRM Bulletin 35, 41, 58, 75), waging protests and blockades. In 2002, they documented the abuses they have suffered at the hands of the logging industry in the Long Sayan Declaration ( http://www.earthisland.org/borneo/news/articles/020616article.html ).

“Our forest and land have been supplying us with abundant resources and providing us with sources of income and have also shaped our culture, beliefs and customs. Thus, to destroy the forest has the same impact of destroying our community” explains the Long Sayan Declaration.

Indigenous peoples in Sarawak have made many complaints to the authorities about logging-related and land rights problems, but their complaints have constantly been ignored. Meanwhile, the logging industry continues to reap huge profits from the sales of timber resources extracted from their ancestral land with impunity.

In response to the report, Greenpeace International has received a letter from the lawyers of RH threatening to sue the organization. The letter includes a demand to apologise to RH for the publication of the report. RH have also demanded that Greenpeace withdraw the report from the public domain, and to supply them with a list of the recipients of the report.

Needles to say, Greenpeace International has declined to comply with this demand. “RH is hoping that the threat of litigation will silence its critics. But Greenpeace won't back down, nor will we retract any allegations we have made. We're confident our report will hold up in court.” said Jasper Teulings, Greenpeace International's Senior Legal Counsel.

Impunity and bullying behaviour usually feature global corporations, be they loggers, miners, “dammers”, oil extractors -and the list goes on. They share the same greed for profits, the same indifference for the people and the environment. The same lack of future.

On the opposite side, humane humanity spreads the seeds of resistance.

Article based on information from: “World's largest forest destroyer takes on environmentalists”, Greenpeace press release, http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/press/release?item_id=58817