The "yungas" are forest lands that spread along the Andes from northern Argentina to Venezuela, and from an altitude of 500 to 3,000 metres, according to their latitude. From the floristic point of view they belong to the Amazonian Domaine and their typical formation is the so called misty forest. These montain forests maintain high levels of endemism and biodiversity, but they are being threatened by increasing deforestation, especially for crop production.
Bulletin articles
Indigenous women, some of them accompanied by their men and children, initiated a march on September 28 in Pastaza province -northern Ecuador- with the aim of joining the National Constitutional Assembly to be held in Quito on October 12.
Advance unedited text
(New York, 1-3 October 1997)
1. The Forum considered suggestions regarding its future activities as contained in the report of the Secretary-General (E/CN.17/IFF/1997/2).
This forum met for its first time in New York (1-3 October), with the participation of an important number of NGOs and indigenous peoples organizations. The IFF is the continuation of the process of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF), which presented its conclusions to the CSD in April 1997. The IFF discussed the terms of reference of its future work and grouped it under the following categories (see full text at the end of this bulletin):
On September 4 we addressed a letter to president Suharto and Mr Robert Wilson, chairman of Rio Tinto Co., expressing our concern for the death -possibly murder- of four Ekari tribal people around Freeport and Rio Tinto’s mine, as well as for the obligation of Ekari villagers to hand over their working tools to the police. We also demanded that abuses of foreign mining companies in the region cease.
Alvaro Gonzalez, from the WRM secretariat, participated in an International Workshop that took place in Reykjavik and Klaustur, Iceland last September. Even though forests were not the central theme of the workshop, it was a good opportunity to get to know in situ the harmful effects of woodland destruction and overgrazing in the fragile icelandic ecosystems.
The Ghanaian Government has signed an agreement with the FAO to support private forestry plantations in the country. The government will benefit from a U$S 138,500 assistance package under the agreement, to design long term mechanisms to support private forestry plantations in the country.
The use of Cameroon’s forests is oriented to the logic of private accumulation and economic interests, regardless of the interests of the Pygmy population that depends on those forests for their survival. Forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate, due to the high prices of some types of wood in the international market, to the weight of the country’s external debt and to the collusion of government officials and international forestry companies.
One of the main reasons why Indonesia continues occupying East Timor after its invasion in December 1975 and based upon a continuous repression of the Maubere people are the business interests of president Suharto’s family in that country. The Indonesian Army is heavily involved in protecting the First Family’s interests in the occupied land, that cover many different economic activities, from coffee and sugarcane plantations to textile and mining.
In WRM Bulletin Nr 1 (23/5/97) we informed on PT Tanjung Enim Lestari (PT TEL) plans to establish a huge pulp mill in South Sumatra. Despite protests from local communities and NGOs the project continues. Although PT TEL has not still received the necessary government license (which is to be taken for granted since President Suharto’s eldest daughter, Tutut, is a shareholder in the project herself), the company has already cleared 800 hectares of the 1,250 hectares of forested lands the factory site will occupy.
The US logging giant Simpson Forestry announced it would abandon its operations in Guatemala since a Constitutional Court ruling prohibited its access to the Rio Dulce for the transportation of logs. Guatemala’s National Commission of Protected Areas (CONAP) played a very important role in the matter by presenting a study before the Court, showing that the dredging of the river needed for log transportation, was very risky for this biodiversity-rich area.
According to a decision of the Federal Public Ministry and the Court of Justice of Acre State, the swiss NGO Selva Viva is up to be expelled from the Brazilian territory. CIMI and the Union of Indigenous Nations of Acre (Uniao das Nacoes Indigenas do Acre) had denounced Selva Viva in the courts for suspected activities of biopiracy, because of its activities of cataloguing roots, barks and seeds for international laboratories (Ciba-Geigy, Hoechst, Sandoz, Lilly and Johnson & Johnson. Acre is the first Brazilian State that approved a law to protect biodiversity.