The different cases addressed in this bulletin describe a broad range of situations where forests are either being destroyed or conserved. Contrary to the discourse of many experts, these cases show that deforestation is more linked to policies implemented by governments than to actions carried out by local communities. Additionally, they show that cases where forests are being conserved are more the result of organized community efforts than of government action.
Commercial logging --legal and illegal-- is clearly a major cause of deforestation, but it is still being promoted by governments. Large corporations --mostly foreign-- reap the benefits while impacts are borne by local communities and within them particularly by women and children.
Bulletin Issue 50 – September 2001
General Bulletin
WRM Bulletin
50
September 2001
OUR VIEWPOINT
LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS
-
11 September 2001The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has nearly half of Africa’s, and 6% of the world’s, tropical rainforest and the area has been recently designated one of the most important forests on the planet by the United Nations.
-
11 September 2001The Western Lowlands of Eritrea are the easternmost extension of the Sahel, lying between Eritrea’s border with the Sudan and the Eritrean/Ethiopian highlands. Their hills and plains are mainly covered with semi-desert scrub and savannah woodland and interrupted by three river valleys clothed with remarkably dense woodland, some of it mixed acacia and dom palm and elsewhere almost pure stands of dom palm (Hyphaene thebaica).
-
11 September 2001The establishment of large-scale fast growing tree monocrops is always accompanied by a debate on the issue of water. The vast majority of forestry experts will deny that plantations impact on water, usually using the lack of scientific studies as an argument to counter local peoples' allegations that plantations deplete water resources. Within that context, South Africa is an exception, because no-one denies that plantations affect water resources and what is more interesting is that this unanimity is based on research carried out over many years.
-
11 September 2001Deforestation is considered one of the priority environmental problems in Zambia and woodland conversion to agriculture and wood harvesting for charcoal production seem to be the main causes of forest loss. The simplistic conclusion is therefore that "poverty" or "the poor" are to be blamed for deforestation.
-
11 September 2001All participating countries of the Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG) East Asia Ministerial Conference held in Bali agreed to adopt a 13-point Ministerial Declaration, which will commit them to, among other things, taking immediate action against forest crimes. The three-day conference was attended by some 150 participants from at least 15 countries. In the first point of the declaration the participants stressed that they would take immediate action to intensify national efforts and strengthen bilateral, regional and multilateral collaboration to address violations of forest law, in particular illegal logging, associated illegal trade and corruption.
-
11 September 2001In response to the article on Indonesia published in the previous issue of the WRM bulletin, we received the following message from Bartlet W. Edes, External Relations Officer & NGO Liaison of the Asian Development Bank: "Dear Mr. Carrere, I am a regular reader of your informative electronic newsletter. I noticed that WRM Bulletin No. 49 contains a story about the Mamberamo Dam in Indonesia. The story reports that the World Bank will not be funding the project, but that "it is still unknown if the ADB shares the same views and if it will or will not fund the project."
-
11 September 2001The World Bank is edging towards making a decision on whether to award a US$100 million loan guarantee for the proposed Nam Theun 2 hydropower dam in Laos. Without the World Bank's guarantee commercial investors will not risk lending money to a joint venture project with the "formerly communist" regime in Laos. (See WRM Bulletin 44.) Four years ago, the World Bank established an International Advisory Group (IAG) "to provide independent evaluation of the World Bank Group's handling of environmental and social issues related to the proposed Nam Theun 2 hydropower project."
-
11 September 2001At the beginning of the 1950s, the Philippines still had some 100,000 sq. kms of primary forests, which had shrunk to some 10,000 sq. kms by 1988. The main beneficiaries of such destruction were the logging companies and wood consumers abroad. while its main promoter was the government itself who opened up the forest to "development".
-
11 September 2001When we say that forest loss is increasing across the globe we are not talking only about trees. We are losing not only the physical resources --plants, animals and insects-- but an irretrievable treasure of local knowledge, that in Sri Lanka --as in many other countries-- has been preserved mainly by women. However, women's contribution to forestry is concealed behind their domestic tasks as their forestry-related activities are directly related to home maintenance activities. Forests provide the vital three F's for women: food, fuel and fodder.
-
11 September 2001Jamaica, the third largest island in the Caribbean, is dominated by an extensive cordillera. The island was once almost entirely covered by forest, of which there are four main types whose distribution is determined by the rainfall pattern: dry limestone forest on southern lowlands and hills; intermediate limestone forest in the central uplands, wet and very wet limestone forest in the Cockpit Country and John Crow Mountains, and rainforest (lowlands and mountain). At present, Jamaica’s lowlands have been mostly cleared for agriculture, and overall more than 75% of the original forest has been lost. Remaining forest is largely secondary in nature and only the mountain forest in the most remote, inaccessible and steep part of the island has survived undisturbed.
-
11 September 2001Thirty delegates from 10 Latin American countries met at Choluteca, Honduras, from 27 to 30 August to establish the REDMANGLAR (Mangrove Network). Its main objective is to defend mangroves and coastal ecosystems, to guarantee their vitality and that of the populations who relate with them, from hazards and impacts of activities, mainly industrial, likely to degrade the environment. The REDMANGLAR has the following objectives: 1.- To halt the expansion of inappropriate economic industrial activities in coastal ecosystems as they are considered to be destructive. 2.- To strengthen the overall development of local communities and their grass-roots organizations and promote exchange, knowledge and experience.
-
11 September 2001The Mayagna Indian Community of Awas Tingni has won a major legal battle against the government of Nicaragua. On September 17, 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights released its decision declaring that Nicaragua violated the human rights of the Awas Tingni Community and ordered the government to recognize and protect the community’s legal rights to its traditional lands, natural resources, and environment.
-
11 September 2001We at Project Underground are outraged and deeply saddened by this morning's violent attacks on human life and human possibility in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Project Underground condemns and deplores the transformation of scores of human beings into weapons to kill thousands of people and terrorize millions more. We share in the sense of outrage, fear and loss that radiates out from these attacks and offer our deepest sympathy for those killed, injured and those without their loved ones tonight.
-
11 September 2001The construction of the gas pipeline between Bolivia and Brazil by the Shell and Enron petroleum companies has affected an area of 6 million hectares of Chiquitano Forest, inhabited by 178 indigenous and peasant communities. This forest has been in the hands of Chiquitano and Ayoreo indigenous peoples for hundreds of years. In order to grant the loan of 200 million dollars for the construction of the gas pipeline, the US export credit agency OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation) demanded that Enron implement a plan for the conservation of the Chiquitano dry forest.
-
11 September 2001The growing consolidation of land by Aracruz Celulose in Espirito Santo and in the extreme south of Bahia, followed by plantation of eucalyptus monocrops, is generating increasing opposition. A sign of this was the International Seminar on eucalyptus and its impacts organized last August by the Legislative Assembly of the State of Espirito Santo (see WRM Bulletin 49). However the responsible State bodies do not seem to be willing to undertake the studies necessary to regulate this activity.
-
11 September 2001The Chilean forestry model is known in Latin America because of its use of frontline technology in large scale pine and eucalyptus plantations, the rapid growth of wood-related exports and State subsidies for the promotion of plantations. Little is said of the social and environmental impacts of these fast growing plantations. The challenge of finding alternatives to this model, having a higher level of sustainability from the economic, environmental and social standpoints and a greater level of cultural relevance leads us to examine other ways of forest management practised by peasant and indigenous communities.
-
11 September 2001A second joint letter from international environmental and human rights organisations is being circulated urging the head of the financing German bank, the Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB), the Prime minister of the German Federal State Nordrhein Westfalen, NRW (the main shareholder of WestLB), and the two responsible ministers for finances and economy in NRW, to stop the financial support to the Ecuadorian oil megaproject OCP (Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados). (to see the full text of the letter please go to: http://wrm.org.uy/alerts/september01.html)
-
11 September 2001The compromise agreement reached last July in Bonn on greenhouse gas emissions includes a renegotiated and broadened definition of sinks which allows tree plantations to be included as carbon sinks. This is certainly good news for the carbon investment industry. Not for the Earth's climate though. Now, trees like eucalyptus may be planted elsewhere by international investors, electricity-generating companies or any other greenhouse gas-emitter which will thus be able to continue pumping out carbon dioxide as owners of the carbon content stored in the timber of those tree crops, now labelled carbon sinks.
-
11 September 2001A new report on the social impacts of development on Solomon Islands’ communities has found village-based enterprises strengthen family and village life. The report, “Caught Between Two Worlds”, concluded that, in contrast, large-scale industrial enterprises such as logging and plantations often create tension, more work for women, and damages villagers’ way of life.
GENERAL
-
11 September 2001One of the most commonly used arguments by those promoting large scale monoculture tree plantations is that they generate employment. As we will see from the following examples, such arguments are false. Let us look at the multinational company Aracruz Celulose, based in Brazil. Presently the company owns 144,000 hectares of eucalyptus plantations in the States of Espirito Santo and Bahia. According to the data to be found in its own web page (www.aracruz.com.br) if we add up the hectares of plantations and the hectares of native forest, this company owns a total of 210,000 hectares of land. It also states in its web page that it has a total of 4,643 employees (of which 1.689 are direct and 2,954 permanently indirect).
-
11 September 2001Soap, lipsticks, chocolate or perfumes are difficult to perceive as products associated to deforestation and human rights abuses in the tropics. However, this can easily be the case when one of their components is palm oil, though few people outside the plantation areas are aware about this. The first aim of this book is thus to highlight the impacts associated with large-scale oil palm plantations by providing a general overview of the problem and a broad range of country-level situations, ranging from articles to detailed case studies in Africa, Asia and Latin America.