The debate on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) has until now largely focused on agricultural crops and much less on genetically modified trees. This is understandable, given the fact that there are already several GM crops being commercially grown in many places of the world and given that many of them are aimed at directly or indirectly feeding human beings, whose health is thus potentially threatened.
Publications
This book includes a selection of articles published in the World Rainforest Movement’s (WRM) monthly electronic bulletin on the subject of mining.
by Oilwatch and World Rainforest Movement.
This publication has been jointly produced by Oilwatch and the World Rainforest Movement for dissemination at the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity which will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 9-20 February 2004.
This book gathers a selection of articles published in the monthly electronic bulletin of the World Rainforest Movement (WRM), addressing the issues of plantations and the struggles developed at the local and global levels against them.
By Marcus Colchester
Salvaging Nature was first published in 1994 as a discussion document of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development with the World Rainforest Movement and WorldWide Fund for Nature. This revised and expanded edition incorporates additional and more recent material.
Salvaging Nature: Indigenous Peoples, Protected Areas and Biodiversity Conservation
By the World Rainforest Movement
Concern over the spread of tree monocultures and their certification is at the centre of this book. However, this concern is merely one part of much broader concerns concerning forests, forest peoples’ livelihoods and communities of living things.
This book gathers a selection of articles published in the monthly electronic bulletin of the World Rainforest Movement (WRM), addressing the issue of the impacts of large dams on forests and local communities, as well as the struggles developed at the local and global levels against them.
Forests are one of the most valuable eco-systems in the world, containing over 60 per cent of the world's biodiversity. This biodiversity has multiple social and economic values, apart from its intrinsic value, varying from the important ecological functions of forests in terms of soil and watershed protection to the economic value of the numerous products which can be extracted from the forest. For many indigenous and other forest-dependent peoples, forests are their livelihood.
This report was produced in 2000-2001 for the World Rainforest Movement, looking at the current state of the pulp and paper industry in the Mekong Region: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The research covers the extent of plantations and their social and environmental impacts in the region, the role of the various institutions in supporting the expansion of industrial plantations, and the patterns of local resistance to ecological damage and loss of livelihood.
Generally speaking, public perception regarding tropical forests rarely includes mangrove forests, in spite of the fact that this type of ecosystem is found exclusively in tropical and subtropical regions of the planet. Clearly, their characteristics are entirely different from what popular imagination considers as "tropical forests" (exuberant vegetation, gigantic trees, accompanied by the most varied range of species of fauna).
The solution to climate change --which is already happening and being suffered by millions of people around the world-- is in theory quite simple: to substantially reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. The majority of those emissions result from the use of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas), whose carbon was safely stored under the earth's surface. The extraction of vast and increasing volumes of fossil fuels is at the core of the current climatic crisis.
For many people around the world, the relationship between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the future of forests appears to be difficult to perceive. The following briefing aims at assisting people to understand those links and therefore to facilitate their involvement in the struggle to radically modify the current corporate-led approach to international trade.
The World Trade Organization and Forests