Bulletin Issue 103 - February 2006

For many years people have been hearing about climate change and the terrible impacts it would entail. In spite of warnings of the pending disaster, a group of scientists in the service of corporate interests has been trying to cast doubts on the scientific evidence. At the same time, another group of academics and technocrats has been inventing absurd mechanisms to “compensate” for carbon emissions in order to allow fossil fuel use to continue. Among these mechanisms are large-scale plantations of fast growing trees – located in the South, of course.

On 6 December, 23-year-old Pascual Pichun Collanao, a member of the Antonio Nirripil community from the Temulemu sector in the southern Chilean commune of Traiguen, formally requested political asylum in Argentina. The young man had been on the run since November 2003 when, with his brother Rafael they decided not to give themselves up to justice after being refused the right to freedom under surveillance because they were unable to pay a court fine. The brothers had been given a 5-year jail sentence for setting fire to a truck belonging to Forestal Minico in March 2002. Presently Rafael is serving a sentence in Traiguen prison following his arrest in July 2005.

A new report by Friends of The Earth International; “Campagna Per La Riforma Della Banca Mondiale”; CEE Bankwatch Network, and World Economy, Ecology & Development issued in January 2006, highlights the role of the European Investment Bank as financer of so called “development” projects in the South, including Africa. The question raised is: development for whom? The research, entitled “The European Investment Bank In The South. In Whose Interest?”, gives insights around that question.

On February 15, 2006, Kinshasa was the venue of a National Forest Forum where global financial institutions, government authorities, environmental experts, human rights campaigners and local people discussed ways to protect the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), the world’s second largest after the Amazon. National and international NGOs participated in the event reaffirming the need for a sustainable management of forest ecosystems in the DRC, respectful of the rights and interests of local communities.

Ongoing heart-rending stories of starving people in Kenya are highlighting the problem of drought and its causes. Kenya, east Africa's richest nation and a top attraction for tourists who flock to its reserves and parks for safari holidays, is under a severe crisis of poor rains that hits its harvests. The number of people who face starvation is spiralling ever higher: from 2.5 million in December to 4 million now, according to Kenya's minister for emergency operations. Drought has been a feature of the region, a natural climatic phenomenon. However, two things have changed: deforestation and the emergence of global climate change.

Although miles and miles of pine monoculture can be visually appealing to those of us with a more northern hemisphere way of looking at things, they can also be seriously bad news environmentally. Exotic tree plantations have earned the name ‘green death’ from eco-activists, who point out that they displace native species, very few of which can live in plantations. Plantations in the eastern parts of South Africa are particularly notorious for consuming grassland, now considered our most threatened biome due to 60% (ACTUALLY 80%) of its area being lost.

Burma, with a population over 40 million, is endowed with a great variation of rainfall, temperature, soil and topography, resulting in many different forest types, from temperate to tropical landscapes that range from the Himalayas in the north and east to the lowland forest, mangroves and coral reefs in the south. Part of Burma’s global conservation significance derives from the fact that it contains ecotypes, such as lowland peninsular rainforest, that are already depleted in neighbouring countries. The forests of this region are unusually rich in plants and animals.

At the recent "Seafood Summit" conference event in Seattle organized by Seafood Choice Alliance (January 29-30, 2006), the WWF’s “Aquaculture Specialist”, Aaron A. McNevin, PhD, announced that WWF has formed the Sustainable Aquaculture Alliance, which is itself working towards some sort of farmed shrimp certification based upon Best Management Practices. He further stated that WWF is working with the Indonesian government, the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), NACA (Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific) and the World Bank to re-establish the shrimp farms that had been destroyed by the tsunami along the coast of Aceh in Sumatra, Indonesia.

Can people co-exist with forests? This nagging question will come to the fore once again if the controversial community forest bill makes it to Parliament for a final vote. This is a case of asking the wrong question. If we really want to protect the remaining forests that have survived a series of state plundering, a different question must be asked: Can our forests survive state mismanagement and exploitation if we don't allow people's participation and public monitoring? For that is the heart of the original version of the people's draft bill. No matter what the opponents say, their arguments boil down to their belief that the villagers - particularly the hill peoples - are forest destroyers. And that the forests will remain in good hands under state control.

It's official. The Asian Development Bank's Industrial Tree Plantations Project in Laos has increased poverty. In a December 2005 report, the Bank's Operations Evaluation Department (OED) concludes that the project "failed to improve the socioeconomic conditions of intended beneficiaries, as people were driven further into poverty by having to repay loans that financed failed plantations." The ADB rated the Industrial Tree Plantations Project, which ran from 1993 and 2003, as "unsuccessful" and the ADB's performance in the project was "unsatisfactory", according to the November 2005 Project Completion Report.

We would like to share with our readers an announcement on two documentaries on the disastrous impacts of mining in Guatemala. The first documentary is called: “Explotación de oro a cielo abierto en Guatemala; Proyecto Marlin” (Open-Cast Gold Mining In Guatemala: The Marlin Project). This documentary addresses the activities of a trans-national mining company that started prospecting for gold in part of the San Marcos territory in 1996.

In November 2005, hundreds of quilombolas marched through the streets of São Mateus in northern Espírito Santo to protest against Aracruz Celulose, the world's largest producer of bleached eucalyptus pulp. "Aracruz Celulose: you are against the life, return our lands to produce food", "Workers Mutilated by Aracruz Celulose demand their Rights", "President Lula: The future of indigenous people is more important than exporting pulp!" read some of the banners. I took part in the march and walked with the quilombolas, to the sound of drumming, through the town. We walked to the river, down to the square where slaves were unloaded during colonial times.

Following the violent eviction of the Tupinikim and Guarani villages by tractors of the plantation and pulp company Aracruz Celulose with the support of the Federal Police in January (see WRM Bulletin Nº 102), hundreds and hundreds of international messages of solidarity with the struggle of the indigenous people to recover their legitimate lands were sent to the Brazilian authorities.

A member of the Bretton Woods family since its creation in 1944 together with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank continues to be one of the main actors in drawing up and applying macro-economic policies in Southern countries, financing public and private companies in what it qualifies as “development” projects (ranging from the construction of highways to the installation of pulp mills).