Bulletin Issue 33 – April 2000

Gabon's primary rainforests are disappearing at a high speed. Logging of precious tropical wood is practised as a depredatory activity, where transnational logging companies, that hold huge concessions, make big money, while local communities have to bear the costs (see WRM Bulletin 28). Logging in the Mingouli region, near Libreville, is an example of the above. At the community of Ovan, people are concerned by destructive logging activities that are devastating the region, carried out within a framework of negligence by the authorities of the Waters and Forests Administration, and the lack of interests by politicians.

The Ogiek people of Kenya -a minority forest-dwelling community currently composed of some 20,000 people- who have lived from time immemorial in the highland Tinet forest area of Molo in Nakuru District, have been defending their rights for decades against the arbitrariness of both colonial and post-colonial governments, which progressively pushed them to marginal areas. Only in 1991 their territorial rights were partially recognized and a portion of Tinet forest was granted to them. Nevertheless, since powerful interests wishing to occupy their lands for logging continue to threaten them, they went to court to avoid imminent eviction (see WRM Bulletin 24).

During the first years of the 1990s Liberia was the scenario of a civil war which left 150,000 fatal victims and one million people displaced or leaving the country as refugees. From January to November 1996 the war was triggered again until finally presidential elections took place in 1997. Governments of neighbouring countries, as well as European governments and companies -particularly Belgian and French- were involved in the delivery of weapons to the different groups engaged in the conflict, in exchange for gold, diamonds and roundwood.

In October 1999 the Nigerian Minister of the Environment himself blamed multinational oil companies for the situation reigning in the Niger Delta, and gave them a six-week ultimatum to clean up the communities' environment affected by several oil spills (see WRM Bulletin 28). However, nothing much seems to have changed.

During the decade of the 1990s the Cambodian government, supported by the World Bank, tried to promote large-scale industrial shrimp farming in the coastline of the country. In 1993, the Mangrove Action Project (MAP) helped to avoid that the Thai agri-business giant Charoen Pokphand opens up Cambodia's mangrove coasts to a black tiger prawn culture project. Nevertheless, the idea was not abandoned, and new investors from Thailand subsequently financed intensive black tiger shrimp aquaculture operations in Cambodia, importing equipment, expertise and even feed to that purpose. Koh Kong province, which shares an extensive border with Thailand, was invaded by shrimp farming ponds and the industry promised a future of prosperity for the region.

Runaway logging in the Malaysian state of Sarawak has been a major concern for environmentalists since the mid-1980s. The issue gained international prominence in 1987, when indigenous Dayaks, their patience exhausted after decades fruitlessly demanding recognition of their land rights, erected barricades across logging company roads to halt the destruction of their forests. When the government reacted with mass arrests and the detention of activists without charge or trial using colonial security laws, international campaigns in solidarity with the Dayaks were launched world-wide making the forest destruction in Borneo second only to the Amazon in terms of public profile.

Massive protests against dam megaprojects have taken place in Thailand due to their negative social and environmental impacts. The cases of Pak Mun Dam (see WRM Bulletin 22 and new article in this issue) and Rasi Salai Dam (see WRM Bulletin 27) are perhaps the most notorious even if not the only ones. Now Thailand is trying to export this destructive model to neighbouring Myanmar (formerly Burma).

Pak Moon dam in the Ubon Ratchathani Province of North-East Thailand has been strongly resisted by local villagers, who are suffering its negative effects of drinking water shortage, reduction in the number of available fish, health hazards, flooding of their lands and compulsory relocation (see WRM Bulletin 22). In spite of the powerful adversaries they have to face, and that already ten years have passed since the year when the dam was set up, their struggle continues. Now the Pak Moon dam villagers are employing local traditions and customs to make their voices heard.

Honduras has the obligation both under international and national law to protect 75,000 hectares of wetlands in the Gulf of Fonseca. On May 1999, The Honduran Government, through the Natural Resources and Environment Secretariat (SERNA), during the RAMSAR Convention on Wetlands, obtained the designation of the Coastal Wetlands of the Gulf of Fonseca as "RAMSAR Site 1000".

Five hundred years ago, Portuguese conquistadores in shining armour used their modern weapons against indigenous peoples armed with bows and arrows. Now, police in shining riot gear used their modern weapons against unarmed civilians including indigenous, black and white people protesting against the official celebration of the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500. The photographs are self explanatory (see photos at http://www.wrm.org.uy/english/tropical_forests/photospataxo2.html ). The reason? Again the "indians".

In Southern Chile, near Osorno, lies the Huitrapulli estate -a 20,000 hectare forest, inhabited since time immemorial by Mapuche-Huilliche indigenous peoples. The area is part of the extensive forests of Valdivia, which constitute one of the world's last non-fragmented reserves of temperate rainforests. The area is characterized by its biological diversity and by high levels of endemism.

From March 15-21, 2000, an International Mission, summoned by the major authorities of the Embera-Katio and U'wa indigenous peoples, visited Colombia to observe in the field their situation concerning the long conflict in which they are involved to defend their territorial and cultural rights. The mission was conformed by representatives of indigenous peoples of Ecuador and Panama, the World Rainforest Movement, Oilwatch, Friends of the Earth, International Rivers Network, Rios Vivos, and other human rights and environmental organizations.

The comercial cultivation of "palmito" palms (from which heart of palm is extracted) began in Ecuador in 1987 and since then its expansion has been constant, having become a new export crop. The heart of palm is obtained from the interior of the trunk of several species of palm trees. The "chontaduro" (Bactris gasipaes), a palm native to Ecuador, is the most cultivated in the country to this aim.

Smurfit Carton, subsidiary of Jefferson Smurfit, owns 34,000 hectares of monocultures of gmelina, eucalyptus and pine in the Venezuelan states of Portuguesa, Lara and Cojedes. 27,000 hectares are located in Portuguesa, where the company confronted the local communities of Morador and Tierra Buena, which resisted the invasion of tree plantations in their agricultural lands (see WRM Bulletins 18, 20, 22 and 23).

The new Government of Aotearoa -a coalition supported by the Greens- has banned the cutting of indigenous beech trees (and soon probably Rimu and other species), because of the enormous pressure on the country's remaining areas of natural forest, which include temperate rainforest and temperate dryforest. As a result, the downstream beneficiaries of forestry (the mills and processors) took the Government to Court over the breach of existing contracts which if honoured would have seriously endangered the sustainability of beech forests. Luckily they lost in Court, but the action set off a huge national fight over the future of the forestry industry, which is one of New Zealand's largest employers and most powerful industries.

Genetically engineered trees are a new threat pending on native forests and other ecosystems worldwide. The development of "Frankentrees" is being promoted by joint-ventures formed by biotechnology, chemical and paper giants, together with some of the world's largest landowners. Monsanto -which has a long dark history in the field of genetically engineered food- ForBio, International Paper, Fletcher Challenge Forests, GenFor, Canada Interlink, Silvagen, the Chilean Development Agency, Shell and Toyota are some of the firms involved in the development of this technology.