Bulletin Issue 14 – August 1998

Invited by GTZ, Alvaro González of the International Secretariat of the WRM, participated at the International Expert Consultation on the Six-Country Initiative “Putting the IPF Proposals for Action into Practice”, that took place in Baden Baden, Germany, from June 29 to July 3.

On June 10, the WRM secretariat addressed a letter to the president of the World Bank, expressing our concern over the arrest of Ngarlegy Yorongar and two journalists in relation with a declaration by the former opposing the construction of the oil pipeline Chad-Cameroon, which is being financed by the World Bank. The World Bank's country director for Chad, Mr Serge Michailof, responded on June 22, expressing that he believed that the three had been released. On the general situation he added:

The WRM International Secretariat addressed the President of Venezuela and environmental authorities of that country expressing concern for the energy transmission line being built between Macagua power station and the Brazilian states of Roraima and Amazonas. The plan is expected to cause deforestation and loss of livelihood for the Pemon indigenous people. Faxes were also sent to Venezuelan authorities concerning the energy transmission line across the Imataca Forest Reserve, that is being resisted by the Kari’na, Arawako, Akawaio and Pemon indigenous peoples due to its negative environmental impact (see article in this issue).

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.

The Steering Committee of the Joint Initiative to Address the Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation will meet in Geneva on August 22nd. The meeting will be focused on strategic planning for the Global Workshop which will be held in Costa Rica on 18-22 January. At the same time, there will be presentations on the regional and indigenous peoples' workshops whose findings will form the basis of the discussions in Costa Rica. Special attention will be given to the CIS (ex-USSR) workshop which recently took place, to share the experiences with all Steering Committee members.

The Intergovernmental Forum of Forests will be holding its second session in Geneva (24 August-4 September), and a group of NGOs will be present throughout the meeting, interacting with government delegates. Documentation prepared for this session, as well as on its first session and the IPF process are available in the IFF's web page, which can be easily accessed through the WRM web page (related sites).

The IPFs proposals for action contain a number of items which refer to tree plantations, which the WRM believes should be further reflected upon by the IFF in view to their implementation. Paragraph 22 states that:

As informed in WRM bulletin 11, the second meeting of the Conference on Central African Moist-Forest Ecosystems (CEFDHAC) took place in Bata, Equatorial Guinea from 8 to 10 June 1998. We include here the Indigenous Peoples' and NGO declarations presented at that conference. Indigenous Peoples' Declaration Declaration by the Indigenous Peoples of Central Africa to the 2nd Conference on Central African Moist Forest Ecosystems (CEFDHAC, or the ‘Brazzaville Process’). We, the indigenous peoples of Central Africa, gathered together under the auspices of our network Coordinating Committee of African Indigenous Peoples, Central African section, have the distinguished honour of putting forward the following recommendations and proposals:

Seven Dayak Iban natives from Rumah Bugah, Tubai, Ukong, Limbang are suing the Police for wrongful arrest and baseless imprisonment.

The ban on the activities of three environmental NGOs -LBBJ; Plasma and SHK Kaltim- in Kutai district, East Kalimantan has caused general concern. LBBJ (better known as PutiJaji) carries out community empowerment through legal rights education, Plasma is a forest campaigning organisation, and SHK Kaltim is a branch of a national network which promotes community-based forest management systems. They have played a very important role in campaigning on the Bentian people's struggles against Bob Hasan's companies; Rio Tinto's operations at the Kaltim Prima coal mine and Kelian Equatorial (gold) mine; the London-Sumatra oil palm plantations; the forest fires last year and earlier this year and the problems which the drought and rising food prices have caused for local communities.

Oil palm (know as "Sawit" in Indonesia) is an increasing problem for people and the environment in that country. In May this year, the Minister of Forestry and Plantation Estates stated that the government had allocated 30 million hectares of forest for oil palm plantations. Indonesia has already 3.2 million hectares of oil palm plantations, mainly located in Sumatra (1 million ha). Every year 330,000 hectares of forest is targeted for conversion into new plantations and 650 investors --75% of which foreign companies-- are applying for converting forest into oil palm plantation. The negative impacts of oil palm plantations

On July 20 over 1,000 security forces arrived to break through a blockade set up by villagers and students at Indorayon's paper and rayon pulp factory (PT IIU) in Porsea, near Lake Toba in North Sumatra. Demonstrations have hampered production since mid-June. Hundreds of local people supported by university students and members of environmental groups had blocked roads leading to PT IIU's mill, forcing the factory to stop production since its supplies of timber and fuel have been cut off. After the violent confrontation at least 13 local people are reported seriously injured and some are missing.

It seems amazing that tree plantations can be promoted all over the world as a profitable activity, while at the same time they need to receive a number of incentives to make it really profitable. Recent reports from Vietnam shows that this country is following the lead from what other countries have either done in the past (e.g. Brazil) or are doing at present (e.g. Chile, Mexico, Uruguay): to promote via subsidies an activity which in this way will indeed become very profitable ... for the powerful pulp and paper industry and other connected and equally powerful corporations. The subsidies will be paid by the people and so will the impacts of the plantations and the attached future pulp mills.

The increased activities of the "maquiladora" industry (installed within Mexico and based on imported inputs and external export markets), have resulted in an enormous deficit in packaging papers --which are currently being imported from the US and Canada-- used in the necessary packaging of the industrial goods for the supply of external markets. Responding to pressures from the country's industrial sector, the Mexican government is now paving the way for the promotion of large scale pulpwood plantations to provide industry with raw material to produce cheap pulp and paper to fill in that gap.

We received the following message from Brazilian forester Jackson Roberto Eleoterio (from the University of Sao Paulo), which we can't but share with our readers: Why doesn't your "organization" mind your own business instead of mixing yourselves with the confusion created by indian delinquents incited by a bunch of unemployed leftists, who only wish to embarrass a productive enterprise such as ARACRUZ, which is thereby forced to make concessions to avoid an international scandal. The situation is that the indians destroy the fertility of their land, which has already been demarcated, and want new lands, preferably with all the infrastructure in place. Original version in Portuguese

We, the undersigned Non-Governmental Organizations, wish to express our concern with both the content and the potential consequences of the campaign lead by the WWF International, and supported by both the World Bank and the Brazilian Government, to protect some ten percent of the Amazon region through the establishment of environmental conservation areas of indirect use. We do not oppose the creation of new conservation areas of indirect use. On the contrary, we consider the system of protected areas currently in existence as insufficient to protect the Brazilian ecosystem, both in terms of overall size, and in the variety of environmental systems being protected, with respect to the Amazon as well as to other regions.

As in a number of other countries, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is now promoting the development of pulpwood plantations in Colombia. The bank has recently approved a "non-reimbursable" loan of 2 million dollars --through the Multilateral Investment Fund-- to support the creation of a Training and Technological Development Centre for the Pulp, Paper and Cardboard Industry (CENPAPEL).

31 July 1998. Ecuador's Minister of Environment has promised Greenpeace that she will take steps to secure a permanent ban on mangrove clearcuts by the country's shrimp farming industry and investigate evidence of illegal mangrove destruction in a protected national reserve. In a meeting with Greenpeace, Minister Flor Maria Valverde also agreed to confront the Ecuadorian Forestry Institute of Natural Areas and Wildlife (INEFAN) over evidence of 745 cases of mangrove destruction by shrimp farm operators that were lodged with it by local environmental organization Fundecol since 1989. Only four cases were investigated.

Indigenous peoples of the Imataca and Gran Sabana regions began a blockade of the only highway between Venezuela and Brazil, to protest against a high voltage electrical transmission line being built through the Imataca Forest Reserve. The indigenous peoples are demanding that the Venezuelan government legally recognize and respect the boundaries of their ancestral lands. Their action is taking place in the context of a number of demonstrations all over the country related to the 500-year anniversary of the arrival of Columbus to Venezuela. The government’s policy in relation to Imataca had already been resisted by indigenous and environmental organizations of Venezuela (see WRM Bulletin nr. 12).