Bulletin Issue 23 – May 1999

The WRM bulletin has completed its second year and we would like to take this opportunity to share some comments with you all. Since the first issue, our efforts have been geared at supporting indigenous peoples and local communities fighting to protect their forests. We have insisted on the fact that the forest is theirs and that they are the ones most interested in forest conservation. Consequently, that if humanity is really committed to protecting the remaining forests of the world, then it should begin by recognizing indigenous and local peoples' rights as a first step in the right direction.

The Ogiek people are a hunter-gatherer people, famed as harvesters of honey, which they consume themselves and exchange with their neighbours, and who have lived from time immemorial in the forests of the Mau escarpment in Kenya. Tinet Forest is part of their territory, and the Ogiek are their guardians. But since 1961, when the colonial government in 1961 declared it a government forest, they have lived there as squatters subject to constant harassment in their own lands. In 1991 the Kenyan government legally allocated five acres of the forest per family to 5,000 members of the Ogiek community, who began farming and constructing schools, while still using the forest and gathering honey.

Malawi, a country with a total land area of 118.484 sq.kms, is located in Southeast Africa. Its lowlands, which receive heavy rainfall, are covered by grasslands, temperate forests and rainforests, but the country has suffered deforestation at a annual rate of 1.3% (1981/90).

The preservationist approach to forest protection tends to consider people as a threat to nature protection and frequently results in the violation of the human rights of rural communities and indigenous peoples living in the forests. This view not only supports the unrealistic idea of a nature void of people, but also ignores the benefits that the traditional management of natural resources brings to nature conservation itself. Over the last few years, conflicts related to this issue have arisen in several places and the following case is yet another sad result of such approach.

What follows is the editorial comment ("Zambia's forests") of the 30 June edition of The Post (Zambia) which sheds light on the real problems which Zambian forests are confronting: "The deteriorating state of affairs in our forestry sector should be a matter of serious concern to all Zambians. The concerns raised by environment and natural resources minister William Harrington about Zambia's ecological and environmental degradation resulting from cutting down of trees for firewood and charcoal deserve the government's urgent attention.

Recent violent and unconstitutional actions on the part of the Thai Royal Forest Department, provincial authorities and the police against peaceful demonstrators are arousing strong concern both within the country and abroad. The demonstration for land, forests and citizenship rights of the Northern Farmer Network (NFN), the Assembly of Tribal Ethnic Minorities (ATEM) and the Assembly of the Poor (AOP) in Chiang Mai, started on April 25th, in which 40,000 lowlanders and highlanders are participating, is shaking political and social reality of Thailand (see WRM Bulletin 23)

The Bakun Hydroelectric Dam Project has aroused widespread concern among environmental and social NGOs and indigenous peoples' organizations in Sarawak, which have been opposing this megaproject considered unnecessary -since the present and future energy demand of the country are adequately covered with the electricity produced nowadays- and negative from an environmental and social point of view because one third of Sarawak's remaining primary forest lie in the area to be affected by the dam, thus forcing the migration of indigenous peoples from the catchment area. In May 1997 the Coalition of Concerned NGOs on Bakun (Gabungan) urged ABB, the main contractor involved in the project, to definitively abandon the project (see WRM Bulletin 2).

The spread of exotic species in natural ecosystems worldwide, known as “bioinvasion”, is deserving increasing attention and causing concern. Several plants, including tree species, have been identified as behaving like weeds. For example an African species of acacia (A. nilotica) is being promoted in regions of Africa where it is exotic as well as in India, while in Indonesia and Australia they are trying to eradicate it as a result of its invasive behaviour. At least 19 pine species have invaded various Southern countries’ ecosystems. Eucalyptus also appear on weed lists in many countries and its invasions are displacing what remains of the native vegetation in areas of the Mediterranean region.

Chilika Lake is one of the largest inland brackish water bodies in Asia, of immense ecological importance for its unique and varied biodiversity. Though Chilika was declared by the Ramsar Convention to be a wetland of international importance, the shrimp aquaculture industry at that time threatened to establish itself there via the mafia-like activities of the powerful industrial group Tata House which planned several industrial shrimp farms on the shores of Lake Chilika. By means of a court injunction, Tata House was stopped, and its pond construction halted mid-course, what was considered an important victory. Nevertheless later smaller scale shrimp farms operated by less noteworthy investors were quietly and illegally constructed.

The oil industry has been denounced for its environmentally destructive practices in Pakistani rainforests (see WRM Bulletin 9). Nevertheless, this is not the only threat hovering over them. For the last two years, forest dwellers of the District of Dir have courageously waged a war against illegal timber smuggling, the centralized and bureaucratic system of forest management, and appropriation of forest royalty belonging to thousands of poor and marginalized indigenous peoples by local elites, royalty purchasers and district administration. The current protest movement started in 1997 after the local administration, in partnership with influential politicians and timber contractors deprived them of their share in the royalty.

The defense of the environment undertaken by the Mapuche indigenous communities in Arauco, Malleco and Cautin Provinces in southern Chile is something not explicit nor new for them. According to their cosmovision, natural elements and forces, together with human beings, are the components of the world or "mag mapu". This view is directly related to the struggle for the recovery of traditional indigenous territories, lost when the Chilean army seized them during the last century. Nowadays, these lands are in the hands of big and powerful forestry companies and vast extensions of radiata pine monocultures expand where the Mapuche ("the men of the land") used to live off the forest.

The San Miguel-Cuiaba gas pipeline project of Enron-Shell which will cross Bolivia into Brazil has been severely questioned by Bolivian and international environmental and social NGOs for its serious long term impacts on the Chiquitano dry forest in eastern Bolivia, that is the world's last significant remnant of intact dry tropical forest, the headwaters of the Pantanal, which is the world's largest wetland. Rural communities and indigenous peoples that inhabit the area will be affected as well.

The giant US-based Weyerhaeuser Business employs 2,300 people and manages 5.3 million acres of private forests in the United States. Additionally Weyerhaeuser Canada manages 27 million acres of publicly owned forestland through long-term licenses in western Canada. Weyerhaeuser owns a majority interest in 193,000 acres of tree plantations in New Zealand. and 62,500 acres in Australia. In spite of trumpeting itself as being very committed to the environment, the company has got a sad record concerning its environmental performance worldwide.

To face the critical situation of public finances and meet the demands ot the IMF, last March President Jamil Mahuad sent to the National Congress a draft bill for the so called Rationalization of Public Finances, that among other measures, paved the way for the privatization of 60,000 hectares of land along the Pacific Coast by the shrimp industry. The operation would have meant an income of U$S 60 million dollars to the State budget. At the same time, the government added that the idea of opening new concession areas for shrimp farms would not be discouraged. The initiative was strongly resisted by environmental NGOs and the public opinion in general, since it meant the promotion of further degradation of natural resources to obtain short term incomes (see WRM Bulletin 21).

Recursos Nicaraguenses y Australianos S.A. (RENAUSTRA), financed by the Australian companies Mars Geosciencies and Boss Resources Corp., is trying to develop its gold mining activities in the buffer area of the Bosawas Reserve, which is one of the largest remaining rainforests in Central America. This provoked concern among local people and environmental NGOs, which denounced that the sources of fresh water of the community of Luz de Bocay were in danger and that the company was trying to buy the favour of the population of that poor area.

A very interesting debate on the impacts of tree monocultures in South Africa is currently taking place in the SAWAC (Southern Africa Water Crisis) web site. The debate starts with some critical comments on an article published in Sawubona magazine ("How green are my forests"), in which the forestry industry presents itself as the champion of nature conservation. The Chief Director of the Forestry Department of Water Affairs and Forestry replies defending that position, while other participants in the debate also express their points of view questioning the industry's approach. Those interested in the details of the debate are invited to visit SAWAC's site, where you will also find other relevant material on the impacts of large-scale tree plantations in South Africa.

Trade liberalization is being promoted by governments and multilateral agencies as the panacea for the world’s economy. The idea has also reached the forest sector and it is clear that what it really would mean is further forest degradation and destruction. A group of concerned environmental NGOs have issued the following statement: “NGO Statement of Oppositon to the Proposed Liberalization of the Forest Products Sector May 1999 We, the undersigned non-governmental organizations representing citizens concerned about environment and development, oppose the proposal by the US and other members of APEC to create a 'free trade agreement' for forest products.

Member organizations of the Industrial Shrimp Action Network (ISA Net) participated at the Global Biodiversity Forum (GBF) 13 and the Ramsar COP7 held in San Jose, Costa Rica from May 7 to May 18, 1999 and at the World Meeting of the NGOs, Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples that also gathered in San Jose on May 7-9. At the GBF, the presentations given by ISA Net's members (from Ecuador, Honduras, Bangladesh, Thailand, USA and UK) were well received. As a result, the GBF endorsed all the recommendations that were proposed. For those interested in this issue, the complete set of recommendations is available in the WRM web page. Source: Maurizio Ferrari 8/6/99