Under pressure from Thai civil society groups, the Thai government rejected a "forest conservation" proposal by the United States (US) that would establish tree plantations to meet the US targets for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in return for reducing debt owed by Thailand to the US.
The Green Economy
The Green Economy is a tactic used to “clean up” the image of corporations rather than address corporate capture and capitalism as the true drivers of deforestation. False solutions promoted under the Green Economy include certification, sustainable forest management, ecosystem services, REDD+, the bioeconomy, nature-based climate solutions, and zero net deforestation. Rather than stopping it, these “solutions” support corporate-driven destruction that is causing a deep social and ecological crisis.
Bulletin articles
15 April 2002
Bulletin articles
21 December 2001
Although many NGOs believe that certification of wood and other forest products is a good idea, there are a number of doubts about whether the actual process is moving in the right direction. The issue has resulted in confrontations between environmental organizations in countries such as Brazil, where some NGOs are working hard to convince logging companies to move into Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, while other NGOs accuse those same NGOs of thereby promoting further forest destruction.
Bulletin articles
27 November 2001
Located in the heart of the African continent, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s 2.3 million square kilometres territory covers most of the Congo River basin and has a narrow outlet into the Atlantic. The center and northern regions are covered with rainforests (1.1 million square kilometres in 1993) which, although sparsely populated, are the major livelihood for many of the country’s 48 million people who depend on the forests for non-timber forest products such as food, building materials and medicines.
Bulletin articles
27 November 2001
In February last year, “Río Foyel S.A.” a company set up in March 1999 and recent owner of a 7,800 hectare plot located in the zone of El Foyel, in the southern province of Rio Negro, submitted a project for the logging of four thousand hectares of ñire native forest and then reforestation of the zone with exotic Oregon and Radiata pine and the “sustainable” management of over 1,800 hectares of native species (see WRM Bulletin 38, September 2000).
Other information
30 October 2001
by Larry Lohmann, Corner House Briefing 24
Other information
4 September 2001
This book includes a selection of articles published in the World Rainforest Movement's (WRM) Bulletin on the issue of Forest Stewardship Council certification of tree plantations.
Bulletin articles
11 August 2001
The process to review, discuss and improve the Malaysian Criteria, Indicators, Activities and Standards of Performance (MC&I) for Forest Management Certification has been subject to disapproval by several Malaysian non-governmental, community based and indigenous peoples' organisations. Though they have been part to the process, they have decided now to withdraw on the grounds that their participation has been somewhat constrained and misconstrued as giving consent and approval to the present MC&I.
Bulletin articles
12 July 2001
The news have reached the entire world: the Kyoto Protocol has been saved! In spite of this information being formally true, it hides the fact that this does not mean that the planet's climate has been saved, which is the real issue at stake. On the contrary, as it now stands, while not solving the problem it was intended to address, the Kyoto Protocol will impose further impacts on local people through the implementation of carbon sink projects.
Bulletin articles
12 July 2001
In July 2001, Thailand’s chief logging agency, the state-owned Forestry Industry Organisation (FIO), received “sustainable management” certification of two teak plantations. Undertaken by SmartWood, a forest management certification organisation that is accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the certification would help solve the agency’s financial troubles as well as cover up its infamous past.
Bulletin articles
12 May 2001
A numerous group of Indonesian NGOs that gathered last April 21st issued a letter questioning the certification of forest concessions in that country, because those concessions are based upon the extinction of native customary (“adat”) rights. They reasonably argue that it is not possible to grant a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certificate to a forest concession holder under those circumstances.
Bulletin articles
16 October 2000
Our intrinsic relation with Mother Earth obliges us to oppose the inclusion of sinks in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) because it reduces our sacred land and territories to mere carbon sequestration which is contrary to our cosmovision and philosophy of life. Sinks in the CDM would constitute a worldwide strategy for expropriating our lands and territories and violating our fundamental rights that would culminate in a new form of colonialism.