United States

The world’s first ‘Park’, established in Yosemite in the Sierra Nevada in California was the homeland of the Miwok people. The startling landscapes of Yosemite, substantially an outcome of indigenous land use systems, were proposed for conservation by the very same settlers and miners who, twelve years previously, had waged the 'Mariposa Indian War' against the area's indigenous people - the Miwok. In this one-sided struggle, forces sanctioned by the US Government made repeated attacks on Indian settlements.

While the bombs still fall, the military tanks roll on, thousands of people die, the probable victors are already sharing out the loot. That is what this war was all about. Saddam and his mythical weapons of mass destruction were no more than a not very credible excuse. The whole world knew and still knows it. Both the oil and the lucrative contracts to reconstruct what they themselves destroyed are already in "good" hands.

Genetically engineered trees represent a global threat to native forests and biodiversity as a whole. Traits such as herbicide resistance, insecticide production, rapid growth and reduced lignin content coupled with the inability to maintain sterility virtually assure devastation of forest ecosystems. The purpose of Action for Social and Ecological Justice (ASEJ)'s campaign against GE trees (see WRM Bulletin Nº 69) is to achieve an international ban on the release of genetically engineered trees into the environment including test sites and commercial applications.

Genetic engineering is racing ahead to provide genetically tailored trees designed for commercial plantations with traits such as herbicide resistance, insecticide production, rapid growth and reduced lignin content in trees for commercial convenience.

The imagination of technocrats seems to have no limits. On the other hand, their common sense appears to be extremely and increasingly impaired. Their bright ideas surprise us --backward people-- constantly and at times we even doubt --unscientifically-- about their mental sanity. Such is the case of a Dr Klaus Lackner, a Columbia University physicist, who has invented an artificial tree which according to him is much better than the obviously limited real one.

The National Network of Forest Practitioners (NNFP) is a grassroots alliance of rural people who are striving to build an ecologically sound forest economy whose benefits are accessible to communities that have traditionally depended on the forest for their well-being. NNFP’s 500 members include community-based non-profits, small businesses, indigenous groups, forest workers, researchers, agency officials, and landowners.

Recently some forty locally based community practitioners, academics, graduate students, and NGO heads (see http://www.nnfp.org and http://www.ncfc.org for more information) met for four days at the Federation of Southern Co-operatives ( http://www.fsclaf.org ) in Epes, Alabama, USA, in order to discuss trends in community forestry (CF) and community-based ecosystem management (CBEM) in the United States.

The United States is also affected by the predatory scheme that is elsewhere replacing forests by monoculture tree plantations. In the state of Tennessee, the sorrow is also felt by those who know the peril behind the short-term profit driven projects.

Under pressure from Thai civil society groups, the Thai government rejected a "forest conservation" proposal by the United States (US) that would establish tree plantations to meet the US targets for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in return for reducing debt owed by Thailand to the US.

Ted Williams, author of the excellent article on the impacts of monoculture pine tree plantations in Southern US ("False Forests", Mother Jones magazine, http://bsd.mojones.com/mother_jones/MJ00/false_forests.html ), has now published an equally excellent article focused on eucalyptus ("America's Largest Weed"). The following are some excerpts from his recent article:

We at Project Underground are outraged and deeply saddened by this morning's violent attacks on human life and human possibility in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Project Underground condemns and deplores the transformation of scores of human beings into weapons to kill thousands of people and terrorize millions more. We share in the sense of outrage, fear and loss that radiates out from these attacks and offer our deepest sympathy for those killed, injured and those without their loved ones tonight.

Few people know that the Southern US is currently the largest wood and paper producing region in the world. Successful efforts to protect the last remnants of old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, resulted in the expansion of the industry into the recovering second-growth forests of the South. In the last 10 years, more than 100 industrial-scale wood-chipping facilities have been constructed in this region, while paper production alone has increased by one-third since 1985. Approximately 5 million acres of forests are clearcut every year in the region for paper.