Bulletin Issue 36 – July 2000

Sweden, Finland and Norway rarely appear in the media. At least not in relation with the North's footprint in the South and even less so in deforestation-related matters. The US, Canada, Japan and many West European countries usually dominate the headlines. And they certainly deserve it, since corporations based in those countries are actively extracting ever increasing resources from the South and destroying the local and global environment in the process. As a result of their activities, those countries are directly or indirectly responsible for most deforestation processes occuring throughout the world.

A report recently released on the situation of the forestry sector in Gabon confirms the existence of a negative trend that is leading to the destruction of the country's rich primary forests to the hands of a few foreign companies (see WRM Bulletin 28). The report titled "First Look at Logging in Gabon" and issued by the World Resources Institute (WRI) as part of its new initiative Global Forest Watch (GFW), where several Gabonese ONGs take part, reveals that more than a half of Gabon's forests have already been allocated as logging concessions and these areas have more than doubled in the last five years. In 1997, 221 companies and individuals held logging concessions, but only 13 companies were beneficiaries of 50% of the total area.

Blaming the victims is common practice in many places. In the case of Nigeria, such practice can only be defined as criminal. On July 11, more than 200 villagers from Adeje died when a gasoline pipeline exploded. Many others suffer from terrible injuries. The media reports that "the victims were villagers who were scooping up gasoline after the pipeline, which carries refined petroleum products from Warri to northern Nigeria, was punctured by thieves on Sunday night." So they were theives and those who punctured the pipeline were "vandals". As easy as that. End of the story. For the government, "several lives" were lost and "a vital petroleum products pipeline" destroyed.

Located at the Northern limit of the African tropical forest region, Togo still has 1,396,200 hectares of forest cover, which represents 24% of the country's total area. In a landscape dominated by the savanna, forests constitute a very important biodiversity site as well as a fundamental source of livelihoods for local communities. Nevertheless, forest management in Togo has been facing important problems. Amis de la Terre-Togo (Friends of the Earth-Togo) considers that, even though promising conservation initiatives do exist, the management of the so-called "classified forests" (forêts classés) and that of protected areas has not been successful.

  The story is not new. Dam megaprojects, presented to Southern governments and local communities as a token of prosperity and progress, bring disaster with them. The promotion of foreign investments disregarding the protection of the environment and the peoples' claims is now menacing the survival of Bujagali Falls in Uganda. The government is promoting the construction of a huge dam which, if realized, will destroy the scenic virgin beauty of the Bujagali falls, and the living space of thousands of people.

Gas and oil exploitation constitute a cause of forest destruction and human rights abuses in many countries and particularly in Burma. The construction of the Yadana gas pipeline -linking gas fields in this country with Thailand- constitutes one of the hotspots regarding nature conservation and human rights in that country. The presence of foreign companies in Burma -among them oil companies- is linked to the military dictatorship that has governed the country since 1962, confronting the will of the vast majority of the population and imposing a regime characterised by repression, human rights abuses, disregard to ethnic groups' rights and -since 1989- the opening of the country to forest investors.

Indorayon's pulp and rayon factory (PT IIU) in Porsea, North Sumatra, has provoked a long socio-environmental conflict in the region, where villagers and local NGOs have been demanding its closure -due to the pollution affecting Lake Toba because of the factory effluents, the destruction of the forests of the area and the plantation of tree monocultures to obtain raw material- while the mill's workers want to keep it open in the absence of other job opportunities in the region. In March 1999 the government -which has proved unable to find a fair solution to the problem- decided to temporarily close the factory on environmental reasons (see WRM Bulletin 21). But recently it decided to give a permission for the reopening of the mill.

Over the last decade or so Thailand has seen repeated protests against eucalyptus plantations. Villagers have taken part in marches, uprooted trees, set fire to plantations, declared their lands "eucalyptus free" and reclaimed plantation land by regenerating community forests. (See WRM Bulletin no. 8) Despite these protests and the problems associated with eucalyptus plantations, Thailand's two largest pulp and paper producers Phoenix Pulp and Paper Plc and Advance Agro Plc are currently planning large scale expansions.

Palms are typical of the coastal landscape in the Pacific region of Honduras, inhabited by the Garifuna communities. They are descendants from Africans that were brought to the region after the Spanish Conquest and have developed a culture strongly related to their environment, of which palms are an essential component. Palms occupy an area of 6,000 hectares and about one million people depend directly or indirectly upon it.

The Maya Biosphere Reserve in the region of Petén has been at the centre of a strong dispute where peasant communities, Guatemalan and international NGOs, the national government and oil companies are involved. The problem started in 1997 when the government put out to tender for oil exploitation an area of 300,000 hectares belonging to this Reserve, part of which comprises a territory which has been traditionally used by local communities. On February 1999 Guatemalan concerned organizations issued a strong declaration where the situation was denounced and a definitive solution was demanded (see WRM Bulletin 21).

Northern Santiago del Estero Province is mostly inhabited by people of mixed Quichua and Spanish descent. During the 19th century the province -as well as the whole region of the Great Chaco- suffered the environmental destruction provoked by powerful European logging companies, which used peasants as workers under a near-slavery system. After the region was almost completely deforested and logging was no longer profitable, foreign companies left the country leaving a landscape of devastation and poverty behind. Once again a product originated in the Latin American territory was exhausted with no benefit in the short or the long term for local dwellers: a new cycle in the country's economic history was over.

News about the association of Stora Enso with Aracruz Celulose is certainly bad news for local people in the Brazilian states of Bahia and Espirito Santo, dominated by three major pulp corporations: Veracel, Aracruz and Bahia Sul. Veracel will now be jointly owned by Stora Enso and Aracruz (with 10% of the remaining shares in the hands of Brazilian group Odebretch). These three companies own more than 300,000 hectares of fast-growing eucalyptus monocultures, which are having strong negative impacts on water, soils and biodiversity which also impact negatively on local peoples' livelihoods. At the same time, plantation development has not only not provided the badly needed jobs but, on the contrary, has resulted in net employment losses in the region.

  The forestry sector in Chile has reached an enormous development basically thanks to the resources that the Chilean state has devoted to it and to the aggressive behaviour of the companies, which have acted with complete disregard to both people and the environment, determining the disappearance of peasant villages, the appropriation of traditional territories belonging to the Mapuche people and the deforestation of vast areas to give place to pine and eucalyptus monocultures. It can be thought that such "development" could have brought welfare to the workers employed in the sector. However, reality shows something else.

Ecuador's lush mangroves at the Pacific Ocean coast have been suffering for long the effects of commercial shrimp farming that, together with the government's shortsighted vision and irresponsible behaviour on the issue, is to be blamed for the destruction of this valuable ecosystem regarding biodiversity, local communities' livelihoods and coastal protection (see WRM Bulletins 14, 21 and 24).

Two-thirds of Mexico’s territory was once covered with different type of tree formations, such as the riparian forests, the thorny chapultepeco thicket, the low thorny forest, the high evergreen forest, the crasicaule thicket, the mountain mesophyle forest and many others. Still nowadays Mexico is considered a "megadiverse" country with regard to both flora and fauna, part of which is hosted in forests and thickets. These rich areas have been suffering a severe degradation and destruction process in the last decades. Official estimates of forest loss vary widely (ranging from 370,000 to 746,000 hectares annually), but whatever the real figure, the situation is alarming.

Destruction of forests to make place to tree monocultures is a well documented fact in many Southern countries. A similar but less known process is also happening in the southeastern region of the USA. The states of Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and North Carolina have been and continue to be invaded by huge loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) plantations. This species is native to the region, but specifically to the moist piedmont between highlands and the sea, and a stranger to the hills where plantations are mostly being installed. But these aren't just any loblollies. They are cloned "supertrees," selected for swiftness of growth, straightness of trunk, and resistance to drought, disease, and insects.

Vast areas of the southern island of Tasmania in Australia are being planted with tree monocultures as "carbon sinks" and causing concern at different levels (see WRM Bulletin 35). At the same time, the timber industry is also very active in promoting plantations for the production of raw wood material.

Easter Island (Rapa Nui in Polinesian language) is famous worldwide for its anthropomorphic stone monuments and the enigmas surrounding them. But most people haven't heard about the island's environmental degradation and the consequences it had on the survival of its people.

Bolivia hosts 440,000 sq.km of rainforests, which represent 57% of the lowlands total surface in the country. Deforestation rate reaches 168,000 hectares/year, being the promotion of export crops and logging concessions wantonly granted the main causes of this problem. Environmental NGOs have frequently expressed their concern over the situation of the forestry sector in Bolivia, characterized by the disrespect to indigenous traditional territories and the inefficiency of the government to adequately address the problem (see WRM Bulletin 22).

The Oilwatch network will be holding its International Assembly in Durban, South Africa, on 1-2 August. The Assembly will be preceeded by a preconference on "Dictatorships and Oil" (28-29th of July 2000). During their meetings, the Oilwatch people will be addressing the problems generated by the oil industry in the tropics and the ways forward to support local peoples resisting it. For further information, please contact the network's International Secretariat

 

Fundación Beteguma is a Colombian NGO, with headquarters in Quibdó at the Pacific coast region, which seeks to promote the social, cultural and environmental development of the Biogeographic Chocó through activities of research, conservation and sustainable production involving local communities. The Chocó is one of the few biodiversity hotspots in the world and is suffering a process of environmental degradation because of illegal logging and mining, as well as abuses to human rights.