The world is increasingly concerned over the disappearance of life forms on Earth and many organizations --governmental and non governmental-- appear to be trying to find solutions to the problem. However, in most cases they are failing, either because of implementing the wrong solutions --or more simply for not doing anything-- or because the political, economic and social causes which are at the root of the problem are not being adequately addressed.
Bulletin Issue 44 – March 2001
Biodiversity, forests and people
THE FOCUS OF THIS ISSUE: Biodiversity, forests and people
Biodiversity loss constitutes a major threat to millions of people throughout the world and particularly in the tropics, where peoples' livelihoods strongly depend on forests and their biodiversity. At the same time, the increasing loss of biodiversity and forests puts a question mark on humanity's future on Earth. The fact that the Convention on Biological Diversity's Scientific Body (SBSTTA) has recently addressed the forest issue provides a good opportunity to highlight the problem seeking for solutions. We have therefore focused this WRM Bulletin on the problem, looking at it from different perspectives and particularly on how biodiversity loss affects people at the local level, who are in fact protecting --in many cases against their governments-- what governments have committed themselves to protect.WRM Bulletin
44
March 2001
OUR VIEWPOINT
LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS
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12 March 2001Governments should be directly responsible for the conservation of the natural and cultural heritage of their respective countries and people. Nevertheless, what frequently happens in the South is that the authorities act in collusion with powerful internal and external interests, and to the detriment of the country’s biodiversity, and thus against the welfare of the population they are supposed to protect. This is what is going on in Kenya.
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12 March 2001Liberia hosts the last two significant blocks of the remaining closed canopy tropical rainforest within the upper Guinea Forests of West Africa, which spans Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The original extent of tropical rainforest in the region is estimated at 727,900km2, but has shrunk to about 92,797km2 - about 12.7% of its original size! Liberian forests account for 44.5% of the remaining 92,797km2 followed by Cote d’Ivoire with 29.1%.
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12 March 2001Known by its historical past because of the vast and powerful empire that surprised European visitors in the XIV century, nowadays the Malian territory comprises more than 1,200,000 square kilometres in West Africa, over the Sahara desert in the north, the Sahel grasslands in the centre and the savannah region in the south. In the Sahel, human life as well as that of the flora and fauna follow the Niger River's annual flood cycle, with high water levels between August and November. More plentiful rainfall and water courses --including the Niger River-- in the southern region give place to a more lush biodiversity.
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12 March 2001Invasion of habitats by alien plants is one of the causes of the extinction of native species. Some plant species have developed the capacity to adapt to new sites and to displace the original vegetation cover. This phenomenon has been widely recorded and it is known as “bioinvasion”. Needless to say that invasive species constitute a threat for biodiversity at the local and regional level, since the spread of newcomers alters the richness and abundance of the flora and fauna of the original ecosystem.
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12 March 2001Bangladesh is one of the states signatories of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Nevertheless, the three types of forests existing in the country --the evergreen and semi-evergreen rainforests in the eastern region and at the Chittagong Hill Tracts region, the moist and dry deciduous forests, known as “sal” forests, situated in the central plains and the northeast region, and the tidal mangrove forests along the coast-- are under threat, and little is being done to save them. In the meantime, annual deforestation rate has reached 3.3%.
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12 March 2001Forest and biodiversity conservation mean different things to different people. In the case of Cambodia, village people throughout the country depend on farmland, fisheries and forests for their livelihoods. For them, conserving the forest and its biodiversity implies ensuring their present and future means of survival. In recent years, even as peace has returned to rural areas, large scale logging concessions have reduced villagers' access and rights to forests, and caused massive damage to the forests themselves. Cambodia's villagers and their forests now face a new threat -- that of massive industrial tree plantations.
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12 March 2001Not long ago, the Nakai Plateau and the surrounding forest in central Laos was home to tiger, elephant, otter, rhesus macaque, tawny fish-owl, crested kingfisher, Siamese fireback and brown hornbill. The communities living in the area use 28 different languages. A hunter-gatherer group, unknown outside the Plateau, speaks a language unrelated to any of the five major language groups found in the area. In 1992, a new genus of bovid, the Sao La, was identified in Vietnam. Its habitat also extends into the Nakai-Nam Theun National Biodiversity Conservation Area (NBCA) in Laos.
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12 March 2001Vegetation maps published in Geography books still show the archipelago of the Philippines, as covered by dense tropical forests. Unfortunately, this does not correspond to reality any longer. Over the past 50 years almost two thirds of the country's forests --most of them primary-- have been lost, and nowadays forest cover is only 17 % --far below the original 60% of the country area. In 1990 the country's forest was down to only 16 million acres, 1,75 million of which was primary forest and only 50% of the original mangroves remained standing. The situation has since worsened.
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12 March 2001Biological corridors are linear strips of vegetation that provide a continuous or near continuous pathway between habitats. They constitute a strategy used in nature conservation to cope with the problem of habitat fragmentation provoked by economic activities such as industrial agriculture and tree plantations, urbanizations and infrastructure works like highways and dams. Based upon modern theories of Ecology applied to conservation --e.g. island biogeography, metapopulations and minimum viable population-- the core idea of biological corridors is that natural populations, communities and ecological processes are more likely to be maintained in landscapes that comprise an interconnected system of habitats.
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12 March 2001In the last issue of our bulletin we included an article on Belize, calling it a country "where forests can still be saved." We should have added: "if the government and a Canadian power company allows it." The fact is that the Canadian based Fortis Inc. -- which also holds a majority stake in Belize Electricity Ltd.-- is planning to build a dam along a branch of the Macal River.
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12 March 2001With an area of 2,791,810 square kilometres, Argentina is the second largest country in South America. Due to its extension in latitude --from 22 to 56 º SL-- its territory encompasses a variety of climates, landscapes, flora and fauna. Argentina is included in the group of the 25 most biodiverse countries in the world in terms of sheer numbers of species present. The several types of native forests to be found in that country are strongly linked to such biodiversity levels. Nevertheless, they have been disappearing at an alarming rate. At the beginning of the 20th century, the country had more than 100 million hectares of forests, which at present are reduced to less than 20 million hectares, half of them suffering an accelerated process of degradation.
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12 March 2001In international processes related to forests and biodiversity, Brazil is one of the countries with a stronger discourse regarding the defense of countries' sovereignty. Unfortunately, it is only a discourse. In reality, what most of Brazil's different governments have actually done is to open the door wide open to foreign investment and the results have been increased poverty and environmental degradation. Which has nothing to do with defending the country's sovereignty. Quite the opposite. Examples of the above abound and we have chosen only one recent example of yet one more project against the Amazon forest: the Urucu Gas and Oil Project in Amazonas.
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12 March 2001The Chocó Biogeographical Region comprises an area of some 75,000 square kilometres on the Pacific Coast of Colombia, spreading from Panamá to Ecuador. Due to a combination of evolutionary, ecological, climatic and geologic factors, this region presents the highest biodiversity concentration per area in the world. Between 7,000 and 8,000 out of the 45,000 species registered in Colombia are found in the Chocó. Endemic plant species are more than 2,000 while endemic birds comprise more than 100 species, which represent the highest endemism levels in the Planet. Afrocolombian communities living in the area have developed a rich culture in harmony with the environment in that tropical environment. It is a biodiverse region in a biodiverse country.
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12 March 2001The state of Papua New Guinea (PNG) comprises the eastern part of the island of New Guinea and a series of smaller islands in the Bismarck Sea and the Coral Sea in the Pacific region. It holds one of the largest intact wilderness areas on Earth. Both natural and cultural diversity used to thrive in that country. The wide variety of microclimates and landforms existing in its more than 462,840 square kilometres have made it possible for several forest types ranging, from lowland mixed forests to mangroves along the coast. Accordingly, PNG's forests provide the habitat for about 200 species of mammals, 20,000 species of plants, 1,500 species of trees and 750 species of birds, half of which are endemic to the island.
GENERAL
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12 March 2001The so called "free trade" is in reality but the granting of unlimited power to transnational companies to govern the world to the detriment of the vast majority of humanity and nature. Forests worldwide are menaced by the process of liberalization of the economy which tends to weaken yet more the already feeble public controls on logging.
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12 March 2001The Global Forest Coalition is an informal coalition of NGOs and Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations engaged in the global policy debate related to forests, established at the last session of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) in February 2000. The first issue of "Forest Cover" --the newsletter of the Global Forest Coalition-- was published in January 2001. The issue includes the following articles:
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12 March 2001Verónica Yépez, from the Ecuadorian NGO FUNDECOL, sent us a message in relation to an article published in WRM bulletin 43 (“Ecuador: action to save the mangroves in Guayas”). She thanks us for having publicised the issue and makes some clarifications about the information provided in the article.