Mapuche Statement
criticizing environmentalists for negotiating with the companies responsible for their repression (Arauco and CMPC/Mininco)

From: COORDINACION OF ORGANIZATIONS AND TERRITORIAL IDENTITIES
MAPUCHE
To: AMERICAN LANDS ALLIANCE
Cc: FORESTETHICS; GREENPEACE; DEFENSORES DEL BOSQUE CHILENO; TERRAM

In the course of the year 2002, your networks of organizations initiated a campaign in the United States for the protection of the native forest. At the beginning of this year you continued this campaign, even denouncing as part of it the situation that the Mapuche communities are facing due to the expansion of forestry, and these initiatives were valued and very well received by our organizations and territorial identities.

Nevertheless, we have knowledge that you have assumed a negotiation process with firms such as Arauco and Mininco, companies that are one of the main enemies of the Mapuche movement in the demand of their rights.

In almost all of Latin America, on many occasions, environmentalist groups have assumed almost always to speak about the existence of native communities. Nevertheless, in moments of conversations, negotiations or parallel agreements undertaken with firms and governments, almost always, they finish leaving the proposals of the communities and their interests aside; forgetting about the people who face the direct conflicts, and the damages governments and businesses inflict on the ecosystems where the communities live.

In this respect, we have the feeling that the process of negotiations that you have assumed with the forestry companies is not an exception, and in confronting this fact, we want you to know our position so it can be considered:

• We firmly believe that currently none of the conditions exist to assume any negotiation with the companies, especially when these conversations discuss the protection of the native forests and the FSC certifications. The companies are not directly destroying much of the native forests, because very little of that natural heritage remains; besides understanding the principles of FSC, we do not believe that the monoculture tree plantations can be environmentally certified.

The FSC was created with the objective of protecting the forests and not to promote monocultures of trees on a large scale. Every certification in this sense will support the forestry invasion and the serious conflicts that the Mapuche communities face, such as territorial conflicts, decrease and loss of the water resources, poverty, migrations, unemployment, clear-cutting in a principally mountainous country, and pressure and isolation of communities, causing irreparable damage to the spiritual, cultural, and social life of the members, among other hardships.

• Our Mapuche communities continue to react for their survival in the face of the forest invasion, to stop its expansion, and to claim these lands. This invasion has caused constant conflicts with the companies MININCO and ARAUCO, the primary controllers of the wood market, who have been overprotected by the Chilean State. The conflicts have caused the militarization of the Mapuche territories, with the application of laws from the dictatorship of Pinochet, such as the Interior Law of Security of the State, and the Anti-Terrorist Law, causing numerous detentions, persecutions, and police repression. Along the same lines, today important leaders and Mapuche authorities are being held as political prisoners. In the same manner, in recent years there have been numerous Mapuches injured by the police within the forest interior, amidst the land conflicts. In November of 2002 Alex Lemún, a young Mapuche of 17 years, was cowardly murdered by the Chilean police on the property of the forest company MININCO, an action that maintains absolute impunity.

To establish any negotiation with these companies is to contribute to the washing of their image, to continue consolidation of the international wood export markets, and to continue to ignore the fundamental problems that exist in these territories.

• Another serious problem detected at this time are the announcements of the government towards the increase of exports, under the Free Trade Agreement, to $6 billion dollars by 2010 and by $10 billion in the year 2025; likewise to enlarge plantations to 5,000,000 hectares. This is related to the present campaigns and pressure by the government and companies on small peasants and Mapuche communities to plant pine and eucalyptus, and to implicitly attach these lands to the interests of large businesses, because they are the ones who buy wood. This fact is very worrying, since it will be the vulnerable sectors of society maintaining the expansion of forestry, increasing the destruction of natural resources, and replacing the little-remaining native forest with exotic plantations.

• Our spirit and interest is to stop the forestry expansion for the protection of the natural resources in these areas and to transform the current social, political and legislative relationships that the Mapuche communities face with the Chilean State. It is fundamental to understand that our interests should not be opposed to your interests of environmental protection, and specifically forest protection, but we understand that to arrive at this end we must address the fundamental problems, not the appearances, which we believe you are doing.

We believe in the path that you had shown, involving a campaign of criticism and awareness that you generated in the United States. Therefore, we encourage you to continue in that way, and not to negotiate, and we urge you to engage in strategies that can be taken accordingly.

On another subject, at the same time that we call on you to accelerate an international campaign against the wood market which we want to promote to other places, we believe that it is a priority to locally address issues of awareness and conscience; among them, the so called Chile Native Forests Campaign, where there are instances of the State, private sector, and academia involved in washing the image of the companies to mislead the public opinion; the introduction of genetically modified species of pine and eucalyptus where there are public agencies such as INFOR specializing in this; the programs of reforestation in rural communities that is promoted by decree law 701 (it is vital to generate awareness to avoid greater introduction); among others topics.

Understanding your high level of conscience and commitment, we expect that you can redefine your current strategies, and at the same time understand that we, as organizations and territorial Mapuche identities, need support and solidarity. Especially when we find ourselves in a situation of exclusion, marginalization and oppression that limits us. Because of this, every negotiation undertaken by you without a doubt will have negative effect to our present condition.

Hoping to have a good reception, we send cordial regards,

Coordination of organizations and territorial identities Mapuche

Identity Movement Lafkenche
Territorial Counsel Lafkenche
Counsel of werkenes (BUDI)
Territorial Organization Willipikunmapu
Group Williche Nepen (Ancud)
Group Mapuche Konapewman
Coordination of families and communities in environmental conflicts IX Region
Corporation Xeg Xeg
Organization of students We Kintun
Association Makewe pelales
Association Ñankuchew Identity Nagche
Center Mapuche Liwen
Corporation Aukinko Zomo
Organizations Mapuche Neuquen COM – Puelmapu
Territorial Organization Wajontu Coj Coj Mapu
Urban Native Counsel – Santiago
Collective Inche ta Pewman
Urracas of Emaus Temuko