Ricardo Carrere went to the state of Portuguesa in Venezuela following an invitation from AMIGRANSA and from Alfredo Torres, advisor to the Senate's Environment Committee. The objective of the trip was two-fold: 1) To get in contact with local communities affected by large-scale plantations implemented by the Irish-based transnational Jefferson Smurfit to feed its pulpmill in Venezuela and 2) To share WRM's findings on the reasons behind the spread of such plantations in the South, the impacts they are having and the struggles that are taking place against them.
Other information
Nothing much seems to have happened during the 4th Conference of the Parties held in Buenos (COP4) Aires from 2 to 13 November. From a broad perspective, this can be regarded as very bad news, given that climate change is happening and will increasingly affect the lives of millions of people.
One point that is not being sufficiently taken into consideration in the debate about plantations as carbon sinks is the production end of the issue. That is, most of these monocultural non-native species plantations are being grown for either of two products: paper or fiberboard. In both cases, the trees will be turned into chips and then made into something else.
How much of the actual wood fiber grown on the plantation is sequestered? Very little, especially in the case of paper.
Press release. Buenos Aires, 9 November 1998. NGO Forest Working Group expresses strong concern about inclusion of forests in the Clean Development mechanism.
Ricardo Carrere participated in the Africa Workshop of the Joint Initiative to Address the Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation held in Accra, Ghana, from 26 to 30 October. The case studies presented at the workshop will be shortly available in our web site, where we have already included some of the studies presented in other regional processes, such as Latin America, North America and Western Europe.
The WRM is deeply concerned about the direction in which the climate change negotiations seem to be leading, particularly after the Kyoto Protocol. A great number of Northern governments appear to be currently more concerned about seeking to buy their way out of their responsibilities to the global environment --particularly through the Clean Development Mechanism-- instead of implementing actions to effectively counter the greenhouse effect.
On October 2 the WRM International Secretariat addressed the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights, supporting the document sent to this international organization by CEJIL (Centre for Justice and International Law) and CIMI, denouncing the Brazilian government for ignoring the Tupinikim and Guarani indigenous peoples land rights and demanding the inmediate filing of the Federal police investigation against the Dutch missionary Winfried Overbeek.
Juan Pablo Orrego, Chilean anthropologist and ecologist, member of the NGO GABB (Grupo de Acción por el Bio Bio), received the 1998 prize from the Norvegian organization Right Livelihood Foundation for his permanent defence of the Bio Bio watershed and the Pewenche indigenous peoples against hydrolelectric projects in the VIII and IX Regions in southern Chile. The award –known as the Alternative Nobel Prize- is confered to people and organizations distinguished by their actions for world environment and peace.
An action alert for the Costa Rican mangroves launched by the WRM International Secretariat on October 13 –following a request from Mangrove Action Project (MAP) -contributed to leave unchanged the text of the national law that protects these rich ecosystems. The Government had proposed the Parliament to introduce some modifications in the law, that would have opened up these protected areas to the shrimp farm expansion.
In its chapter related to forests, “Life out of Bounds” deals with the menacing trend of tree monocultures for biodiversity. Those interested in purchasing the book, please address the Worldwatch Institute's website <www.worldwatch.org>, or call the Institute directly, at (U.S. dial) 800-555-2028, or the online bookseller amazon.com. Chris Bright, “Life Out of Bounds: Bioinvasion in a Borderless World” (New York: WW Norton, 1998). Issued as a part of the Worldwatch Environmental Alert Series. 288 pages; $13.00.
WRM's International Coordinator participated as part of the Global Secretariat at meetings held in Geneva (20-25 August) of the Joint Initiative to Address the Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation. He was also present during part of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests meeting held at the same time in Geneva. The Montevideo Declaration on Plantations and an analysis of the issue of plantations within the context of the Proposals for Action of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (see WRM Bulletin 14) were distributed at the meeting in English and Spanish.
After the launch of the plantations campaign last June (see WRM Bulletin 13), the secretariat has been focusing on:
- preparation of campaign materials.
- information gathering and dissemination
- influencing global processes
As to campaign materials, they are currently being produced in English and will soon be translated into Spanish (some of them already translated), French and Portuguese. These materials are being posted in the WRM web page, where they can be accessed, downloaded, printed and disseminated locally, both in electronic and printed formats.