A group of about 20 social activists, wildlife conservationists, researchers, lawyers, and mediapersons met from 10 to 12 April, 1997, at Bhikampura- Kishori in Alwar District, adjacent to the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan (western India). The meeting, called by the Indian Institute of Public Administration and Kalpavriksh, and hosted by Tarun Bharat Sangh, was an attempt to initiate a dialogue between those advocating the cause of wildlife protection and those struggling to uphold the human rights of rural communities living in and around wildlife habitats.
Bulletin Issue 3 – August 1997
General Bulletin
PRESENTATION
Dear friends,
This is the third issue of the World Rainforest Movement's Bulletin. The World Rainforest Movement is a global network of citizens'groups of North and South involved in efforts to defend the world's rainforests against the forces that destroy them. It works to secure the lands and livelihoods of forest peoples and supports their efforts to defend the forests from commercial logging, dams, mining, plantations, shrimp farms, colonisation and settlement and other projects that threaten them. We hope that this Bulletin may become a tool for enhancing communication and information among all those people concerned with this issue and willing to contribute to stop and reverse this destructive processes. Your comments, suggestions and contributions are welcome.
Warm regards
Ricardo Carrere
WRM Bulletin
3
August 1997
LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS
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7 August 1997To the oil and mining companies, repressive governments and banks we list among the world's exploiters, we must add another sector -conservationists. Unaccountable, opaque and pursuing a model of protection that is both repressive and outmoded, some of the world's biggest conservation organisations are becoming indistinguishable from other neo-colonial corsairs. Unwilling to contemplate the wider consequences of their actions, they have ensured that conservation is now one of the greatest threats to the global environment.
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7 August 1997Malaysian forestry companies could be given a thirty-year concession in South Africa to establish 300.000 hectares of industrial tree plantations in the Transkei in Eastern Cape province. Such project has raised very difficult and delicate questions given that this is probably South Africa's most impoverished area and plantations are being presented as providing development, jobs and money. Malaysian companies would also receive exclusive rights to develop elite and exclusive tourist resorts in the most pristine areas of coastal forest endemism. For sure this will prevent rural people from having access to their own natural resources and will degrade the local ecosystems.
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7 August 1997The four big pulp and paper projects in the Brazilian Amazon (Companhia Suzano de Papel e Celulose and CELMAR in Maranhao, Jari Celulose in Para, and Champion in Amapa) are facing important problems from the economic, social and environmental points of view. The anarchic character of the pulp and paper industry has resulted in falls in the prices of market pulp. Rural workers denounce illegal work contracts while peasants protest about the expansion of the lands owned by the companies. Champion bought a total of 448.000 hectares in Amapa. Regional governments -as that of Amapa- have denounced that some of the land sales to the companies have been illegal since those were publicly owned. The utilization of agrotoxics in eucalyptus plantations has raised workers' protests.
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7 August 1997A report on the activities of Asian logging companies in the Brazilian Amazon, prepared by a special committee of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies will be ready by the end of August. According to Deputy Gilney Viana of Matto Grosso (Workers' Party), two dozen transnational logging companies are working in the Amazon. Those financed by Malaysian and Chinese capitals entered the area in 1995. The Malaysian WTK Group bought 1.400.000 hectares at Carauari Municipality, Amazonia State, in association with the Brazilian company Amaplac that exports plywood. A second Malaysian group -presumed to be connected to Riguma and Jau companies- has created a holding for wood industrialization together with two Brazilian firms.
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7 August 1997The relatively untouched areas occupied by rainforests in Suriname -source of a rich biodiversity and ancestral homeland for thousands of Indigenous peoples and Maroons, descendants from ancient African slaves- are threatened by the increase of mining concessions that the Government is granting to foreign companies.
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7 August 1997After more than two years monitoring and carrying out research visits to Suriname, the Tropical Rainforest Team of IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) and SKEPHI have published an interesting report on N.V. MUSA Indo-Surinam -an Indonesian logging company- operating in that country.
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7 August 1997Aotearoa (New Zealand) has planted extensive industrial tree plantations (more than one and a half million hectares), mostly based on one exotic tree species: Pinus radiata. In recent decades planting clonal stock has become standard practice. Currently, more than 95% of new planting (this includes new afforestation and planting after harvest) is based on Pinus radiata clones, selected primarily for rapid growth (and thus reliance on fertilisers), tree form to maximise the amount of `clear' (knot free) wood, and qualities that suit industrial purposes.
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7 August 1997Amid strong local opposition, eucalyptus plantations are coming to Hawaii. Following a move by Bishop Estate, a huge local landowner, to lease 6400 hectares of ex-sugar lands on the Big Island of Hawai'i to a subsidiary of Prudential Insurance company for eucalyptus pulpwood plantations, the state and county of Hawaii are preparing to offer a rental agreement to Oji Paper/Marubeni on an additional 4150 hectares of public land. Oji/Marubeni are also seeking private land leases on the Big Island and elsewhere. Some 10,000 hectares of state lands, in addition, may soon be taken out of cattle grazing and put into pulp timber.
WRM CAMPAIGNS
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7 August 1997As part of the Plantations Campaign to be launched soon, we have thought that it would be very useful to have a video on the issue. The idea is that the video would be used as an important campaign tool (accompanied by a script translated into English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, which could also be translated into many other local languages). A close friend from an NGO (Hilary Sandison from Imagenes) is willing to seek for funds and to produce a video according to our needs. She has already produced some excellent videos, focused on social and environmental impacts of "development" projects. Due to time and financial constraints, she would only be able to film in a couple of countries (Brazil -eucalyptus- and Chile -pines).
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7 August 1997In our last Bulletin we informed about the inprisonment of 42 Dayak-Ibans at Miri for resisting the expansion of oil palm plantations in their customary lands and disseminated their letter from Lambir Miri Central Prison. We are now pleased to inform that all of them have been freed. On July 7 a group consisting of 11 persons was bailed by their wives and relatives who were worried about their health. One of them -Mangagat Ak Bukong- was sent to hospital due to severe chest pains, while the others are seeking medical treatment as a consequence of the violence suffered in jail.
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7 August 1997Even if the Minister of Justice devoted just a few minutes to meet with Indigenous Peoples' delegates and representatives of CIMI on July 15th, they were able to hand him 3800 signatures from 29 countries expressing support to their struggle. A meeting with the undersecretary was arranged for August 12th. In the meantime, Aracruz does not seem to change its attitude towards Indigenous claims. It hired Burson-Marsteller -the biggest public relations company in the world- known for its previous activities in favour of the past Argentinian dictatorship, of Philip Morris in the USA and Union Carbide after the infamous accident in India.
WRM GENERAL ACTIVITIES
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7 August 1997Concern for the environmental consequences of the forestry schemes applied in Uruguay is growing all over the country. The planned installation of a pulp and paper mill in the small city of Fray Bentos, on the River Uruguay coast, has raised a wave of protest. This fact is impressive since the unemployment rate in that city is particularly high.
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7 August 1997On July 21 the WRM Secretariat addressed a letter to Mr. Tinoco Rubi -Governor of Michoacan, Mexico- to inquire about the odd circumstances in which Alberto Alonso Salmeron, President of Juchari Uinapecua Society of Michoacan and member of the Mexican Network of Forest Organizations, died while in police custody. According to information received from that country, Salmeron had previously received death threats because of his activities. The WRM Secretariat requested the Governor of Michoacan to carry out investigations to clarify Salmeron's death and eventually to implement measures to make the police agents who are suspected to have denied him assistance responsible for his death.