Bulletin Issue 15 – September 1998

Since the 1992 Earth Summit, many trees have been felled to provide paper for the voluminous documents produced by a number of intergovernmental processes --including parallel expert meetings-- aimed at addressing the urgent problem of deforestation. Many solutions have since then been found ... on paper. The real world is clearly going in another direction. Forest are set on fire to give way to "development" plans, including eucalyptus, oil palm, soya and other monocrops; forests are cleared to be substituted by cattle-raising; mangroves are disappearing to provide shrimp to mostly Northern consumers; tropical forests are being destroyed and polluted by oil exploration and mining; and forests are still being exploited for their valuable wood.

The news of the release on September 9th. of the 20 Ogoni youths that had been held without charge since 1994, is a hope for reconciliation and peace in the abused and ravaged Niger Delta. The land, waters and the atmosphere of the Niger Delta have suffered, and continue to suffer much abuse and the presence of the occupation force officially known as the Rivers State Internal Security Task Force. Local people have been bearing the brunt of the adverse effects of oil exploration, exploitation and transportation, that have proved detrimental to the environment and to their livelihoods.

Gabon is one of the richest in biodiversity and less populated countries of Africa. Until a few years ago, 85% of its forests were primary rainforests, inhabited by indigenous peoples. However, the current development model --aimed at the exploitation of wood, oil, uranium and other minerals-- is rapidly destroying those rainforests. Logging is carried out everywhere and transnational logging companies are active agents of the destruction of the tropical forests in this country. Livelihoods of the Pygmy population are disappearing, while gorillas, chimpanzees, mandrills and elephants are in danger of extinction as a consequence of hunting.

In Bangladesh the remaining virgin rainforests are near to extinction. The whole Bangladesh mainland and its off-shore areas are gradually being leased for oil/gas explorations. Even the Sundarbans, considered a world heritage and the largest mangrove forest of the globe and only remaining habitat of royal bengal tiger is being occupied by the exploration activites of oil/gas companies.

The Sarawak State government and the Ministry of Resource Planning have recently proposed to constitute Protected Forest and/or Forest Reserves in the State, that would encroach on areas claimed as Native Customary Right (NCR) lands by the various native communities. The risk exists that the natives will find that their rights to their ancestral lands and forest will be extinguished in the process, without having been consulted. Moreover, most of the Protected Forests and Forest Reserves previously constituted have been licensed out for logging to timber companies, which have depleted them. On the contrary, native communities of Sarawak have proved they can utilise, manage and conserve the forest resources in a truly sustainable manner.

Phoenix Pulp and Paper Company in Khon Kaen province in northeastern Thailand is the recipient of a large credit extended by the Finnish DIDC (Department of International Development Cooperation of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs), former FINNIDA. Between 1990 and 1994 Scandinavian companies including Ahlstrom, Sunds Defibrator, Valmet and Jaakko Poyry delivered most of the machinery, equipment and services for the Phoenix P&P's second pulp line and waste water treatment plant. The second pulp line increased the mill's production capacity to some 200,000 tonnes per year, using kenaf (sister plant to jute), bamboo and eucalyptus as raw materials. This second pulp line is the first mill in South East Asia producing Elemental Chlorine Free pulp.

Since the Indonesian government wants this country to become the first world exporter of oil palm --overcoming Malaysia-- this industry is currently undergoing a boom. To face the negative effects that oil palm plantations are producing at the local level on the environment and on peasants and their livelihoods, last July a group of Indonesian NGOs created Sawit Watch (see WRM bulletin nr. 14). Several actions have since then been carried out.

Vietnam is currently involved in a large scale "reforestation" programme. According to offical sources 850,000 hectares of trees were planted nationwide between 1993 and 1995. Large areas of the country have been covered with monoculture plantations, often for export as wood chips to Taiwan and Japan. This scheme is not aimed at attending the needs of farmers, villagers, or even the Vietnamese economy in the long run. The Vietnamese paper business is currently suffering a severe crisis, since more wood is being produced than the country's pulp processors can handle.

Last February in the village of Rosita, on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, representatives of the indigenous peoples Sumus and Miskitos, local and regional authorities, NGOs, community and religious leaders, met to consider the illegal activities of the Korean transnational company Kimyung, which operated through the subsidiary SOLCARSA, responsible for invading communal lands and destroying the forests and livelihoods of local people. The meeting approved a declaration demanding the inmediate suspension of the concession awarded to the company (see WRM Bulletin nr. 11). The environmental NGO Centro Humboldt, present at the event, was entrusted with evaluating the environmental impact provoked by the activities of SOLCARSA.

Greenpeace has launched a virtual boat tour of Canada's endangered temperate rainforest. The site is intended to acquaint web surfers with this remote ancient forest and the impending threats it faces from clearcut logging. The 52 foot sailing yacht, the 'Freedom Dancer', will act as the cyberspace base for transmitting satellite images to the Greenpeace Canada web site. The virtual boat tour will explore the beauty of the rainforest, feature the people and wildlife who live there, and focus attention on the companies currently logging this global treasure --Western Forest Products, International Forest Products and West Fraser Timber.

We have received the sad news that a person was killed while trying to protect native forests being cut in Grizzly Creek by the timber company Pacific Lumber.

What follows are quotes from research carried out in the Bolivian Andes by Danish researcher Thor Hjarsen, who is one of our readers. “During the last 13 years a forestry project: "Programa de Repoblamiento Forestal" (PROFOR), has planted more than 15 million trees in the Andean zone in Cochabamba. About 80 per cent of the trees are Eucalyptus globulus and Pinus radiata. This important project [funded by the Swiss government] has largely neglected to acknowledge the role of native tree species for erosion control and preservation of ecosystems and water catchments. Little attention has also been given to the fact, that the indigenous communities also rely on the non-timber resources offered by the Polylepis forests such as medicine plants, game and wild tuber plants.

After a long struggle started in 1995, Brazilian NGOs and peasant organizations, with support from representatives of the Catholic church, succeeded in halting a megaproject of eucalyptus plantation in the state of Amapa in northern Brazil. The plan of Champion Paper and Cellulose. and its subsidiary Chamflora Amapa Agroflorestal Ltda to set up 100,000 hectares of eucalyptus, would have affected the lands and livelihoods of the peasants of the region. Local people joined in the Organized Civil Society Forum (Forum da Sociedade Civil Organizada), which, with the support of the Pastoral Commission for Land (Comissao Pastoral da Terra) carried out a complete study to demonstrate that the company had illegally occupied the peasants’ lands.

Smurfit Cartons Venezuela --a subsidiary of the US-based transnational Jefferson Smurfit-- has been operating in Venezuela's Portuguesa state since 1986. Its extensive pulpwood plantations for the production of paperboard have resulted in equally extensive social and environmental problems. This situation has been analysed by the Venezuelan Senate's Environment Commission, which has recently produced a 120-page report documenting such impacts. We have been informed about some of those impacts, which include human rights violations, dispossessment of local peoples' lands, corruption, disregard towards national legislation, substitution of riverine forests by tree monocrops.

Mapuche and Pehuenche organizations of Chile are planning a visit to Europe to contact and lobby financial and state agencies involved in the controversial hydroelectric projects that are afecting the Bio Bio watershed (see WRM Bulletin nr. 11). The visit has been programmed for 2 to 20 November and will cover Spain, The Netherlands, Germany, Norway and Sweden. Organizations interested in cooperating to make it possible, please contact the Action Group for the Bio Bio (“Grupo de Accion para el Bio Bio”). Source: Dario Jana. September 1998.

Boreal Forests of the World IV: Integrating Cultural Values into Local and Global Forest Protection. Tartu, Estonia 5-10 October 1998 Every two years (since its founding in 1992), Taiga Rescue Network has organised an international conference on boreal forests. This year it will be held in Estonia and will focus on: Integrating Cultural Values in Local and Global Forest Protection.

For many years the Australian environmental movement has chosen to "lay off" plantations as an issue, as it was seen that in the Australian context, they could be a useful alternative to native forest logging. This situation has now changed with the Tasmanian Greens, for instance, opposing the establishment of any further plantations. This is as a result of the "Regional Forest Agreement" process, which seeks to remove the Federal Government from forestry conflicts with the states, by allowing for unlimited woodchip exports in exchange for a so-called "comprehensive, adequate and representative reserve system" (CAR reserve). Needless to say the RFAs signed to date have produced inadequate and unscientific reserves, while chip exports are rising dramatically.

WRM's International Coordinator participated as part of the Global Secretariat at meetings held in Geneva (20-25 August) of the Joint Initiative to Address the Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation. He was also present during part of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests meeting held at the same time in Geneva. The Montevideo Declaration on Plantations and an analysis of the issue of plantations within the context of the Proposals for Action of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (see WRM Bulletin 14) were distributed at the meeting in English and Spanish. Stuart Wilson --from Forests Monitor-- made a presentation on "High Stakes", produced jointly by his organization and WRM.