India

The Korean company POSCO arrived to India for business and entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Orissa on 22 June 2005. Its projects include a steel plant and a port as well as mining prospection in the Eastern State of Orissa (see WRM Bulletins Nº 147 and 155).

As we reported in October 2009, the Korean steel company POSCO has been granted the opportunity both in India and in Uruguay to occupy territory that is valued by the inhabitants of both countries. 

The Copenhagen Accord - the agreement reached by a group of countries at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit and imposed on the rest - was defined by Transnational Institute’s Praful Bidwai as “a travesty of what the world needs to avert climate change”: The two degrees Celsius increase target in global temperature is 0.5 degrees above the target accepted by the majority of UN nations; poor countries are mainly left to fend for themselves in terms of adapting to climate change; and eventually, violations of the Copenhagen Accord w

 WRM information sheets on GE tree research First posted: 25 November 2009 Last update: August 2014 Forest tree species being manipulated: Rubber tree Aim of genetic manipulation More rapid growth rate to increase yield Those carrying out the research:

Uruguay and the Republic of Korea have recently signed an Agreement for Investment Promotion and Protection which, according to Uruguayan government authorities establishes a framework for Korean investment in Uruguay. From past experience in Uruguay, the establishment of a framework for investment in this country may mean reducing or eliminating all taxation, granting of foreign trade zone permits and all kinds of support to the company’s enterprises.

On 10-12 June 2009, adivasis, forest workers and other forest dwellers from 16 states of India held a conference on ‘Resisting commodification of Forests; Establishing community governance over forest resources’. After discussing and debating they united in a strong message called the ‘Dehradun Declaration 2009’.

The plans for the establishment of jatropha plantations aimed at the production of biodiesel are based on the alleged availability of “barren and degraded” lands in the country. Within government there is a belief that large areas within forests are wastelands, including degraded forests, pasture and grazing lands, and under-stocked forest land that could be used for jatropha plantation.

he old Lepcha tribe were isolated forest dwellers living harmoniously with nature over centuries. They were hunters and gatherers leading nomadic lives until mid-nineteenth century when they began practicing settled agriculture. They are known for their rich cultural heritage and for being sacred and restricted, especially to outsiders.

The Niyamgiri Hill, in Orissa, an outstanding natural beauty place rising more than one thousand meters, has some of the most pristine and dense humid forests in the region and is the source of Vamshadhara river and of major tributaries of Nagaveli river. It is also the most sacred site of the Dongria - literally 'hill people'-, a dwindling sub-section of the Kondh peoples, who have inhabited the forests of eastern India for several thousand years.

Vangujjars, a distinct nomadic tribe with a very rich cultural heritage has been living scattered in the Indian upland forests of the Uttrakhand since the last three centuries. They still maintain nomadic life with their buffaloes and travel between higher reaches of Himalaya in summer to lower Himalaya in winter. They have always received step motherly treatment by all the governments whosoever ruled Uttar Pradesh or Uttrakhand. But from October 2008 the attack on vangujjars has become more intensified and blatant.

In yet another incident, the tribal and dalit women of village Harna Kachar, Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, had to bear the brunt of atrocities by the Police and the Forest Department.

Buxa was one of those forests which the British foresters boasted of. Originally grassland and Sal forests in stony highlands, the area was irreversibly altered when the colonial foresters moved in around 1865 and banished the indigenous swidden agriculturists like the Rava, the Mech, the Dukpa and the Garo. Evergreen trees colonised the empty spaces rapidly as the forest fires got "controlled", and the foresters came to realize that they could not have new Sal plantations unless the fire motif was re-introduced.