Bulletin articles

On 6 December, 23-year-old Pascual Pichun Collanao, a member of the Antonio Nirripil community from the Temulemu sector in the southern Chilean commune of Traiguen, formally requested political asylum in Argentina. The young man had been on the run since November 2003 when, with his brother Rafael they decided not to give themselves up to justice after being refused the right to freedom under surveillance because they were unable to pay a court fine. The brothers had been given a 5-year jail sentence for setting fire to a truck belonging to Forestal Minico in March 2002.

A new report by Friends of The Earth International; “Campagna Per La Riforma Della Banca Mondiale”; CEE Bankwatch Network, and World Economy, Ecology & Development issued in January 2006, highlights the role of the European Investment Bank as financer of so called “development” projects in the South, including Africa. The question raised is: development for whom? The research, entitled “The European Investment Bank In The South. In Whose Interest?”, gives insights around that question.

On February 15, 2006, Kinshasa was the venue of a National Forest Forum where global financial institutions, government authorities, environmental experts, human rights campaigners and local people discussed ways to protect the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), the world’s second largest after the Amazon. National and international NGOs participated in the event reaffirming the need for a sustainable management of forest ecosystems in the DRC, respectful of the rights and interests of local communities.

Ongoing heart-rending stories of starving people in Kenya are highlighting the problem of drought and its causes. Kenya, east Africa's richest nation and a top attraction for tourists who flock to its reserves and parks for safari holidays, is under a severe crisis of poor rains that hits its harvests. The number of people who face starvation is spiralling ever higher: from 2.5 million in December to 4 million now, according to Kenya's minister for emergency operations.

Although miles and miles of pine monoculture can be visually appealing to those of us with a more northern hemisphere way of looking at things, they can also be seriously bad news environmentally. Exotic tree plantations have earned the name ‘green death’ from eco-activists, who point out that they displace native species, very few of which can live in plantations. Plantations in the eastern parts of South Africa are particularly notorious for consuming grassland, now considered our most threatened biome due to 60% (ACTUALLY 80%) of its area being lost.

Burma, with a population over 40 million, is endowed with a great variation of rainfall, temperature, soil and topography, resulting in many different forest types, from temperate to tropical landscapes that range from the Himalayas in the north and east to the lowland forest, mangroves and coral reefs in the south. Part of Burma’s global conservation significance derives from the fact that it contains ecotypes, such as lowland peninsular rainforest, that are already depleted in neighbouring countries. The forests of this region are unusually rich in plants and animals.

At the recent "Seafood Summit" conference event in Seattle organized by Seafood Choice Alliance (January 29-30, 2006), the WWF’s “Aquaculture Specialist”, Aaron A. McNevin, PhD, announced that WWF has formed the Sustainable Aquaculture Alliance, which is itself working towards some sort of farmed shrimp certification based upon Best Management Practices.

It's official. The Asian Development Bank's Industrial Tree Plantations Project in Laos has increased poverty. In a December 2005 report, the Bank's Operations Evaluation Department (OED) concludes that the project "failed to improve the socioeconomic conditions of intended beneficiaries, as people were driven further into poverty by having to repay loans that financed failed plantations."

Can people co-exist with forests? This nagging question will come to the fore once again if the controversial community forest bill makes it to Parliament for a final vote. This is a case of asking the wrong question. If we really want to protect the remaining forests that have survived a series of state plundering, a different question must be asked: Can our forests survive state mismanagement and exploitation if we don't allow people's participation and public monitoring?

We would like to share with our readers an announcement on two documentaries on the disastrous impacts of mining in Guatemala. The first documentary is called: “Explotación de oro a cielo abierto en Guatemala; Proyecto Marlin” (Open-Cast Gold Mining In Guatemala: The Marlin Project). This documentary addresses the activities of a trans-national mining company that started prospecting for gold in part of the San Marcos territory in 1996.

In November 2005, hundreds of quilombolas marched through the streets of São Mateus in northern Espírito Santo to protest against Aracruz Celulose, the world's largest producer of bleached eucalyptus pulp. "Aracruz Celulose: you are against the life, return our lands to produce food", "Workers Mutilated by Aracruz Celulose demand their Rights", "President Lula: The future of indigenous people is more important than exporting pulp!" read some of the banners. I took part in the march and walked with the quilombolas, to the sound of drumming, through the town.

Following the violent eviction of the Tupinikim and Guarani villages by tractors of the plantation and pulp company Aracruz Celulose with the support of the Federal Police in January (see WRM Bulletin Nº 102), hundreds and hundreds of international messages of solidarity with the struggle of the indigenous people to recover their legitimate lands were sent to the Brazilian authorities.