Industrial Logging
Industrial logging opens up forests in order to extract the most economically valuable trees, leaving behind a trail of roads and destruction. Violence, corruption and illegality are often associated with the logging industry. “Sustainable management plans,” “low impact” or “selective” logging and certification schemes have only managed to cover up and perpetuate this destruction.
From its first day in office, the government led by Jair Bolsonaro has been trying to undermine the constitutional rights of Indigenous Peoples and quilombola communities in Brazil. WRM spoke with the organization CIMI in the Western Amazon.
Language is never neutral. Certain concepts have historically been used to dominate people and territories. This article highlights concepts that are usually presented in a positive light but that actually serve economic interests that harm forests and communities.
“Shock” is a common reaction when a crisis emerges… or when it comes to light. However, it also provides a convenient smoke screen for governments, financial institutions and companies behind which they can hide their own role in and responsibility for the current crises in the forests.
It is impossible to think about extraction without thinking about a vast network of accompanying infrastructure, and thus even greater deforestation and destruction.
We live in an age of ever more “extreme infrastructure.” The construction of roads, railway lines and other infrastructure linking production and resource extraction centres with major consumer areas is tied to profoundly undemocratic forms of elitist planning.
While the destruction of forest territories continues, more pledges, agreements and programs are being implemented in the name of ‘addressing deforestation and climate change’.
Millions of hectares of mostly forested areas in Malaysia have been targeted for developing monoculture plantations –including expanding timber plantations-, however, many of these have not been fully developed yet.
Despite that most forest fires in Indonesia started within expanding oil palm plantation concession areas, companies are not being persecuted. (Available in Indonesian).
How secrecy and collusion in industrial agriculture spell disaster for the Congo Basin’s rainforests.
