The WRM International Secretariat endorsed a letter sent by a number of environmental organizations to the FSC Board Committee on February 4th, requesting that the deadline of the comment period of Principle 9 (January 28th, 1998) is extended. Principle 9 deals with the issue of how and under what circumstances, the FSC should choose to endorse logging in primary and high conservation value forests.
Bulletin articles
In WRM Bulletin nr. 3 (8/8/97) we informed about a megaproject of industrial tree plantations in Eastern Cape province of South Africa by Malaysian forestry companies. The activities of the Malaysian in Africa continues, also in the logging sector. In September 1997 Innovest Bhd began logging in a 3,360 km2 concession in the southwest of Congo-Brazzaville. The company, that holds 92% of the shares of the Congolese subsidiary Innovest Congo SA, is planning to cut 100,000 m3 of timber each year.
It seems that problems for the Dayak people in Central Kalimatan do not cease. While they are still suffering the consequences of this year's enormous forest fires, the mega-project launched by President Suharto at the beginning of 1996 to convert around 1.5 million hectares of peat swamp forests into rice-fields keeps on going, in spite of the local and international protests, and of the recommendations made two months ago by the EIA carried out in the area.
Brazilian NGOs FASE and IBASE, the National Commission for the Environment of CUT (Brazilian Workers Union), Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, addressed a letter to the Federal Government expressing their doubts about the promise made by President Fernando Henrique Cardozo during his visit to the UK last December, to guarantee the protection of 10% of the Brazilian forests until year 2000. The organizations demand effective measures to protect the Mata Atlantica and the Amazon.
For the first time in Brazilian history the Federal Government has been condemned by the Court to pay a compensation to the Panara -also called Krenhakarore- indigenous people of Mato Grosso because of the damages and deaths suffered as a consequence of interethnic contacts. The Panara were forced to abandon their lands, which were to be crossed by the new highway Cuiaba-Santarem, and reestablished at Xingu National Park. In the period 1973-1976 a total of 186 persons died of influenza, diarrhoea and other illnesses.
Rainforest Action Network (RAN), Amazon Watch and Project Underground remain deeply concerned about Shell's activities in the Peruvian Amazon and have decided not to participate in the workshops organized by the company to discuss the Camisea Project that took place in Washington DC on December 12 and in London on December 15.
Shell is planning to start prospecting activities for oil exploitation at Pañacocha-Tiputini, located at the Cuyabeno Faunistic Reserve and the Yasuni National Park. The latter was declared World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO and hosts ancestral indigenous communities and a variety of wildlife. It is a unique place for the pink dolphins, some varieties of tropical parrots (guamacayos), several species of monkeys and other mammals. Accion Ecologica calls the attention on the menace that Shell activities means for this region and expresses its determination to fight against it.
Rainforest extended over most of ancient Burma, but deforestation now affects two-thirds of the country’s forests. The Kanchanabury Conservation Group and 11 conservation human rights groups and their allies are threatening to close off the forest to prevent the controversial Thai-Burma gas pipeline being built through it. The groups involved claim that this controversial project, undertaken by the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT), has infringed the rights of locals -since no consultation has been realized- and will damage natural resources.
Freeport, a huge US-based mining company that operates in Indonesia, owns the Grasberg gold mine in Irian Jaya, the biggest open-pit gold mine in the world. This mine is producing a significatively negative environmental impact both on the water courses and on the forests of Irian Jaya. Ajkwa River -into which Freeport dumps 125,000 tons of rock waste every day- was considered by the provincial environmental bureau in April 1997 as not filling the required public health standards because of contamination from mining waste.
The alliance between UPM-Kymmene of Finland and APRIL of Singapore to develop jointly their respective fine paper operations in Europe and Asia has been severely criticized by environmental and human rights groups (see WRM Bulletin nr. 6).
A letter, whose text is included below, was addressed to the owners and managers of UPM-Kymmene and APRIL, as well as to the Finnish press as a part of a campaign aimed to stop the alliance.
In a letter signed by Aviva Imhof -Mekong Program Coordinator of International Rivers Network (IRN)- as a response to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) regarding the Sekong-Se San and Nam Theun River Basins Hydropower
Development Study, IRN has expressed once again its concern on these megaprojects for Laos. IRN considers that the ADB should focus its attention on identifying and quantifying the impacts of existing or already committed projects, and on evaluating their economic returns to the Government of the host country, rather than proposing yet more dams for the region.
In 1991 the World Bank adopted a forest policy that resulted from a process of extensive consultation with the international NGO community. One of the main points of this policy was that it bans direct funding for logging in primary forests. These represent only 20% of the forest cover of the Planet and are to be found in the Amazon, Canada’s Pacific Northwest and the taiga in Siberia. As a request of the Bank’s Board, the policy was to be reviewed three years after its entry into force, but this period proved to be too short for a complete review. The review has not been accomplished yet.