Issue 173– December 2011

The United Nations (UN) declared this year, 2011, the International Year of Forests. Now that 2011 is coming to an end, it would be interesting to take a look back for a brief overview. The theme of the International Year was “Celebrating Forests for People”. Back in January, we asked, will the world's forest peoples actually have any reason to “celebrate”? Will progress be made this year in fighting the direct causes of deforestation, such as logging and the expansion of agribusiness? What about the so-called indirect or underlying causes, that is, the reasons behind the destruction of forests, such as an economy fuelled by the drive for profit and financial speculation, and excessive consumption that benefits only a small minority of the world's people?

For WRM the women's struggle is a struggle for freedom and social justice. It is essentially a demand for changes in the social structures that have placed women in an unequal and subordinate position. Thus, the fight for gender justice becomes a social struggle against the dominant capitalist and patriarchal system that treats women and nature in a similar way exerting violence against women's bodies and lives to control them, and against communal goods such as water, land, sovereignty and even culture in its insatiable quest for profit and appropriation.

Land grabbing is a global phenomenon that has grown even more widespread as a result of the food, climate and financial crises created by the capitalist elites through their own neoliberal policies. Now, those who are responsible for these crises have set their sights on the world's land and natural resources in a new phase of capitalist expansion aimed at total control of the planet's natural wealth.

Real action to face climate change has once again been blocked by the world's polluters. The 17th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN COP17) in Durban ended with the launching of a new round of negotiations (the Durban Platform) aimed at a new regime. The decision represents a crime against humanity as long as postponing action to 2020 allows global temperatures to increase 4 degrees Celsius, based on the promises for emission reductions, made by industrial countries in Cancun for the period 2012-2020. In spite of a lack of action to come to a binding emission reduction agreement, many efforts once again were made in Durban to push for REDD+ as a way to move forward.

Since December is the month in which International Human Rights Day is commemorated, we feel it is urgent to highlight the cases of two communities in countries that seem very distant from one another and yet have a great deal in common. In Honduras and India, these communities have been struggling for years against the new form of colonialism represented by powerful economic groups connected with oil palm plantations and the iron and steel industry, respectively.

A new report published in November 2011, exposes how local police in the Province of Jambi on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, working with oil palm plantation staff, systematically evicted people from three settlements, firing guns to scare them off and then using heavy machinery to destroy their dwellings and bulldoze concrete floors into the nearby creeks. The operations were carried out over a week in mid-August and have already sparked an international controversy. Andiko, Executive Director of the Indonesian community rights NGO, HuMa said:

In Thailand, indigenous communities have been and continue to be threatened to be expelled from their traditional territories as a result of the implementation of the country´s REDD+ policy. This human rights violation is due to the fact that communities have been accused of contributing to the climate crisis because they would deforest, they would destroy natural resources and they would cause forest fires, all activities that result in carbon emissions. At the same time, they use not to be consulted when this type of analysis and, based on this, policies are being formulated.

On December 3, 2011, a front page article in the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant, denounced that the Dutch pension fund, ABP, one of the biggest in the world, is investing money through the Global Solidarity Forest Fund (GSFF), an initiative of Swedish and Norwegian Churches, in a monoculture tree plantation project of pine and eucalyptus in Mozambique that is affecting negatively peasant communities (see WRM publication of 2010: www.wrm.org.uy/paises/Mozambique/livro.pdf). In the recent article in the newspaper, the Provincial Union of Peasants in Niassa affirms: "We do not understand why church institutions and other investment funds are putting money in projects which are exploiting the poorest of the poor".

Governor Jacques Wagner and Environment Secretary Eugênio Spengler are preparing to give the people of the extreme south, south and southwest regions of the state of Bahia a SPECIAL CHRISTMAS PRESENT on December 21. The news has been leaked that regardless of the shortcomings of the corresponding EIA/RIMA (Environmental Impact Study/Environmental Impact Report), authorization will be granted for the expansion planned by Veracel Celulose. Although the EIA/RIMA contains numerous errors, this will pose no impediment. Although the local population has voiced a resounding NO to the company's expansion plans at public hearings, all that is needed is the signature of Mr. Eugênio Spengler

From June 18 to 23, 2012, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil will host the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), commemorating 20 years since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, better known as the Earth Summit or Rio '92.