Bulletin Issue 22 – April 1999

The Intergovernmental Forum on Forests will be meeting from 3-14 May in Geneva to continue working on the implementation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests' proposals for action and on other matters left pending. Among the different inputs this meeting will be receiving, we would like to focus on two intersessional meetings, one held in Costa Rica (on the underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation) and another in Chile (on tree plantations), which have resulted in a number of conclusions and recommendations which will be considered by IFF3.

Thousands of hectares of mangrove forest and fresh water swamps of the Niger Delta, in the Cross River State, will be destroyed by ongoing oil exploitation activities. Responsible for the situation are the companies Moni Polu Nigeria Limited, that in early 1998 started its oil prospections in the area, and Nobles Drilling, which was contracted to start drilling oil wells. By December 1998 about 8 oil wells had been sunk. A 1000 km long pipeline, that will pass through over 25 communities, has also been programmed. In spite of the letters of protest sent by Nigerian environmental NGOs to the firms involved and to the national authorities, the new phase of the project will start without the accomplishment of the required Environmental Impact Assessment.

In spite of political changes after the coming to power of the new military government headed by General Abdulsalami Abubakar in 1998 the situation of human rights in Nigeria has not essentially improved. Members of civil society organizations --some of them involved in environmental causes-- are frequently victims of abuses by military and police corps. The situation of jailed Nigerian environmentalists and Human Rights activists has provoked grave concern worldwide since the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa in November 1995 in relation to the struggle of the Ogoni people for the defense of their territory against Shell.

Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto has been frequently denounced for its depredatory activities against forests and local villagers in Indonesia (see WRM Bulletin 8), Papua New Guinea (see WRM Bulletin 7) and South Africa. Now Rio Tinto has set its sights in rainforests of Madagascar, one of the megabiodiverse countries in the world, due to its situation in the tropical zone and to the fact of being a big island. Local villagers are strongly opposing the company's plans to mine for titanium, a mineral used to make hardened steel, on the Southeast coast of the country despite the company's efforts to woo the community.

What follows is a contribution sent by a new friend of the WRM for its dissemination, which highlights problems caused by tree monocultures in his country: Adapt or die I live in the province of Mpumalanga (where the sun rises), South Africa. I live on a protected reserve, close to the Sudwala Caves and Rainforest. The immediate area surrounding the reserve is under exotic plantations, and it is obvious to see the effect of this model on the environment.

During this decade Vietnamese loggers have been illegally felling trees in Cambodia, especially in Ratanakiri Province, to obtain wood to be used in manufactured garden furniture exported to Europe. According to Vietnamese law, exclusively imported wood can be used to this aim, and this raw material comes from the neighbour countries, being Cambodia one of them (see WRM Bulletin 18).

Four thousand representatives of rural, poor and ethnic communities within the upper nine provinces of Northern Thailand rallied at the Provincial Office in Chiangmai early on the 25th of April. These representatives of the people have released the following statement: Stop the violation of community rights and protect the dignity of human beings

During a high-level seminar on "The Forestry Department Chief's Vision" held in March 21st Plodprasop Suraswadi , Head of the Forestry Department, proposed giving logging concessions to companies to develop degraded forests, arguing it would stem encroachment and generate income for the state. To his view the problem with deforestation was that the government was bound to yield eventually to encroachers' demands and recognise them as rightful owners of forest land. So instead of giving forest land away for the exclusive use of a group of people, a concession should be made available so all sides could benefit. Concessionaires should be large companies with sound financial standing and should have to invest in tree-planting in designated deteriorated forests.

Dams are one of the most important causes for forest and agricultural land destruction, which usually goes together with the loss of their land by local communities caused by forced displacement. This unsustainable model is applied worldwide, from South America to Asia. Thailand is not an exception.

In late 1995 the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT) started a survey of the route for a gas pipeline between the western province of Kanchanabuti and Myanmar (ancient Burma). It was only after eight months that they admitted that the pipeline would be built. Since its very beginning this project was strongly resisted by villagers living near the route of the pipeline, who feared an explosion since the required security standards have not been reached. Now resistance has reached a national level and many civil society organizations have joined to object its economic feasibility and to protest against the environmental impact expected because of the works.

A big campaign is being pushed ahead to stop a dam project in Selangor, Malaysia, which will not only destroy rainforest but also evict indigenous people from their ancestral homelands. The campaign is aimed at protecting 600 hectares of rainforest from being devastated by this project.

Hydropower megaprojects in several Southeast Asian countries are frequently preceded by devastating logging operations in prospective inundation zones. This kind of practices cause an extensive negative environmental impact and damage indigenous communities, that are forced to abandon their lands and are resettled somewhere else. In Laos current and pending dam projects are being used as cover to evict village people from intended reservoir areas and from upland watersheds (see WRM Bulletin 8).

Papua New Guinea constitutes another good (bad) example of current trends regarding forest conservation. While the world declares its concern over the rate of deforestation which affects the planet as a whole, that same world does very little to address the problem. On the contrary, apparently "neutral" forces such as "the macroeconomy" or the "market forces" or "international trade" continue destroying forests, while governments and international organizations continue agreeing --on paper-- on the need to protect them. The result is not development but further impoverishment of people, further degradation of the resources they depend upon and further enrichment of transnationals and local elites.

On March 23rd the Government of the State of Espirito Santo, Brazil, issued Decree 4428 with new regulations related to "reforestation" (plantations) in that state. Plantations occupying an area of more that 100 hectares will require a permit form the Agriculture and Forestry Defence Institute (IDAF), while plantations of less than that area will not need a permit. Additionally, the decree establishes maximum percentages for plantations in different zones, which can reach 50% in the central hilly, extreme northern and north-western regions. According to the text, the aim of the norm is that the area of "planted forests" in the state increase from 3 to 6%. High priority is given to eucalyptus, that already represents 97,8% of existing plantations.

During the "Intersessional experts meeting on the role of planted forests in sustainable development" held in Santiago, Chile, from 6 to 10 April 1999 several voices, from governments and forestry companies, advocated in favour of tree plantations (See "Our viewpoint" in this issue). In this regard, the representative of CORMA (Wood Corporation of Chile) Mr Fernando Raga made a presentation highlighting the role of "forest plantations" as "an effective and ecoefficient response to the human beings with sustainable volumes of timber, as they are established on relatively small spaces of land". He also stated that tree plantations "contribute to the conservation of vast expanses of natural forests that satisfy the need of soil conservation, biodiversity, recreation and other services".

When confronted with allegations that plantations entail social and environmental impacts, most foresters will argue that there's no scientific evidence to support such allegations. For us, the following testimony from Ruperto Ramos Antiqueo, a Mapuche from Southern Chile, has much more weight than most so-called scientific studies:

After years facing strong opposition from local communities resulting from the social and environmental impacts of its activities in the State of Portuguesa, Smurfit Carton is now trying to profit from the recent political changes in Venezuela. Strange as it might seem this company, which short time ago was a declared enemy of today's President Hugo Chavez, is trying to use the "Plan Bolívar 2000", a social initiative launched by the new government, with the aim of weakening the peasants' organization and opposition to its monoculture tree plantations.

On April 8th, the WRM sent the following letter to Venezuela's new President Hugo Chavez. Our Venezuelan friends request your support by adding your signature to the letter, which will be resent to the President followed by the signatures of all those who are willing to support it. Please include name, organization and country and send that data to: wrm@chasque.apc.org LETTER TO PRESIDENT CHAVEZ (translation of Spanish original) We would like to express our concern regarding an issue which we consider to be extremely important, while at the same time we request you to personally intervene to find a solution to a conflict in the State of Portuguesa.

On 22 April (Earth Day), a demonstration was staged in Caracas to put pressure on the new government on a number of crucial social and environmental issues. The demonstration included environmental and other groups, as well as representatives from indigenous communities facing the destruction of their forests, rivers and culture resulting from the activities of mining, oil, logging and electricity corporations. Indigenous peoples' delegates came from their faraway communities in Gran Sabana, Imataca and the Orinoco Delta. Some of the slogans voiced during the demonstration --which received support and applause from the public-- reflect the different types of problems which need to be addressed by the government:

The U'wa of the Colombian cloud forest are in a life-and-death struggle to protect their traditional culture and sacred homeland from an oil project slated to begin on their land at anytime. The U'wa are adamantly opposed to the drilling and warn that the project will lead to an increase in violence as seen in other oil regions of Colombia. Despite this, Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum and the Colombian government continue to move forward with plans to drill. The U'wa have made a call for international support; now is the time for us to answer.

During a meeting held on March 16th in La Paz, with the participation of NGO representatives and government officials on the situation and perspectives of forests in Bolivia and on the draft decree for awarding concessions for the exploitation of most forest lands, a number of concerns were raised on the policy regarding forest conservation in that country. It was pointed out that there are no clear objectives in this regard. The participation of civil society was considered vital in the formulation and implementation of such a policy, that should always give priority to the interests of local communities and to the promotion of sustainability. Revealing mistakes were detected in the draft version of the decree.

With 22,960 square kilometres and 220,000 inhabitants Belize is the smallest and less populated country in Central America. 83% of its territory is covered by forests, most of them in a pristine state, and 40% of the country is now protected as parks and reserves. As in many other Southern countries dam megaprojects are a major problem for Belize's forests and people. The Chalillo Dam projected in Belize would flood 1,100 hectares (2,718 acres) of primary forest, engulfing the valleys of the Macal and Raspaculo rivers in the Central Maya mountains, near the Guatemalan border. The works would destroy this fragile ecosystem that is a site very rich in biodiversity. The dam's flood waters would also bury archaeological sites of the Maya civilization dating from the 5th century.

Jorge Varela, co-founder of the Committee for the Defence and Development of Flora and Fauna of the Fonseca Gulf (CODEFFAGOLF), a grassroot organization of small fishers and peasants in Honduras, is one of the seven environmental and human rights activists that have been awarded with the Goldman Prize 1999. This NGO has focused its activities in the defence of the Fonseca Gulf area against industrial shrimp farming, that has provoked the destruction of mangroves and other coastal wetlands, the pollution of estuaries, the loss of fisheries and the shortage of food for local villagers.

The expansion of tourism has meant the increase of the possibility of enjoying leisure time for many people wordwide. Nevertheless, tourism usually brings negative social and environmental consequences with it and more so in the case of the fragile mangrove ecosystems.

Ten years ago, the World Rainforest Movement met in Malaysia and issued the Penang Declaration. Much of what it stated was at the time original thinking and challenged the "received wisdom" of most national and international experts. It is therefore important to take stock of the changes that have occurred since then in order to identify the changes that still need to be implemented to save the world's endangered forests and to ensure the livelihood of the people that depend on them.

The Pan European Forest Certification Scheme (PEFC) was presented on April 20 at a seminar in Wuerzburg Germany. The scheme, set up by forest owners and part of forestry industries, is meant to present an alternative to the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council Scheme) scheme. Forest owners claim the FSC scheme is not suitable to deal with small-scale forestry, and is too much led by NGOs. However, environmental NGOs as well as some sectors of the forestry industry and the unions have expressed strong reservations about the scheme. They say it is not clear yet whether this scheme will lead to an improvement of forest management in Europe.

On April 7th we endorsed a letter signed by a number of international civil society organizations and addressed to the World Trade Organization's Third Ministerial Conference to be held next November in Seattle, USA, which expresses opposition to the expansion of the powers of the WTO through a new comprehensive round of trade liberalisation, and asks governments to review and rectify the deficiencies and injustices of the present trade system and the WTO regime itself.