Bulletin Issue 127 – February 2008

International Women’s day is around the corner and we would like to pay homage to the countless women struggling for their rights by sharing parts of a recent research (1) carried out by two women in Brazil which, on the one hand, provides a broad account of women’s struggles against plantations in that country and on the other hand provides testimonies from local women on how those plantations have impacted on their lives and livelihoods.

In her article “Peoples hidden in the forest: the right to live in their own Amazon? (*), the Argentine writer, Elina Malamud explores with great sensitivity the conditions that have led numerous forest peoples to voluntarily choose isolation. The author quotes the words of Sydney Possuelo, a Brazilian champion of the struggle in defence of the rights of indigenous groups to continue living their way of life: “If we were more decent, there would be no peoples in isolation, but our behaviour has led them to seek protection from us. Their isolation is not voluntary, it is forced by us.”

On 28 March 2006, in the midst of strong pressure from the Government and the timber industry, Law 1021 was adopted in Colombia, better known as the “Forestry Law” (see WRM Bulletin No. 105), enabling major timber investors to have easy and privileged access to the country’s forests, thus compromising the future of these forests, both public and those belonging to Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities. In 2007, the “Public Interest Rights Group of the University of the Andes,” with support from a wide range of social sectors in Colombia and internationally, filed a lawsuit against the Forestry Law as being unconstitutional.

Born to independence in 1960, the Democratic Republic of Congo has lived since then amid fighting. Its former colonial ruler Belgium, as well as the US, the EU and international financial institutions such as the World Bank have been key hidden actors and interested parties in a scenario where ethnic rivalry has caught the world attention, while hiding economic struggles over the riches of a country which was the world’s largest cobalt exporter, the fourth biggest diamond exporter and ranked among the top ten world producers of uranium, copper, manganese and tin.

The struggle for environmental defenders in Mexico continues. Activists who seek to protect their local ecosystems continue to be under threat from illegal loggers and the inaction of local government authorities.

The giant pulp company PT. Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper (PT. RAPP), operating in Riau Province, is applying for a Plantation Forest Management Certificate from the Indonesia Ecolabeling Institute (LEI) Certification System. Riau-based NGOs and several regional and national NGOs are strongly challenging the application on several grounds including: * Based on Landsat images, “there occurred land conversion long before the definitive permit was issued on 1 October 2004.” According to Civil Society’s “Critical Response” (1) long before the Minister of Forestry endorsed 75,640 hectare to the company, PT. RAPP had logged the natural forest where its Pelalawan Sector lies.

The ADB has handed out more than US$1 billion for forestry projects since its first forestry project in 1977. Most of the Bank's recent forestry projects were rated "partially successful or unsuccessful". The Bank acknowledges "problems with project design and implementation" and that "its [forestry] sector investments have had a minimal positive impact on forest loss and degradation". Even this "minimal positive impact" is a result of defining a plantation as a forest. According to the Bank, clearing villagers' forests and farmlands and replacing them with monoculture tree plantations is "positive".

The major issue of land tenure underlies the problem of oil palm schemes in Indonesia and elsewhere. Occupying large tracts of community land where food and cash crops used to be grown and medicines and building materials were harvested, monoculture oil palm plantations erode the rights and livelihoods of local communities. Through promises, bribes, and cheating combined with the unawareness of local communities of their rights, companies move in leading to the large-scale privatisation of land and natural resources.

The pulp and paper company ENCE owns monoculture eucalyptus plantations in Spain and Uruguay, certified by FSC. Part of these plantations, some 12,000 hectares spread out among over 200 plots, are located in the Northeast of Spain (Galicia, Asturias and Cantabria) and are managed by one of its forestry subsidiary companies, NORFOR.

The recent study “Rights of rubber farmers in Thailand under free trade”, by Ms Sayamol Kaiyoorawong and Ms Bandita Yangdee, [http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Thailand/Rights_of_rubber_farmers_in_Thailand.pdf],makes a thorough review of the whole rubber business and its actors in that country.

Mount Elgon has seen major land disputes since it was declared a National Park in 1993. Villagers were evicted from the park in 1993 and again in 2002. The area surrounding the park has a high population density and farmers have little choice other than to keep going back into to the park to plant their crops. Violence has flared between the Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA), the agency responsible for managing the park, and villagers trying to make a living. Villagers say that UWA officials have threatened them, shot at them and sexually abused them. Several people have been killed.

Late last year, the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB), a life sciences research institution applied for permission to establish a field trial of genetically modified poplar trees in Belgium. The GM trees would have modified lignin content, aimed at making production of ethanol easier. VIB was established in 1996. Funded largely by the Flemish government, it employs more than one thousand scientists. VIB aims to produce scientific discoveries with "industrial application potential", which it patents and either signs agreements with existing companies or establishes start-up companies to develop the discoveries into "market-ready products". By 2006, VIB had patents on 100 of its discoveries.

From the Amazon to Finland, New Zealand and Chile, from Indigenous Peoples to European NGOs, from women to youth groups, in just a week nearly 140 people got connected and became involved in the gathering of signatures for an Open Letter demanding a ban on the release of genetically engineered (GE) trees.