The news have reached the entire world: the Kyoto Protocol has been saved! In spite of this information being formally true, it hides the fact that this does not mean that the planet's climate has been saved, which is the real issue at stake. On the contrary, as it now stands, while not solving the problem it was intended to address, the Kyoto Protocol will impose further impacts on local people through the implementation of carbon sink projects.
Bulletin Issue 48 – July 2001
Fourth Anniversary of the WRM Bulletin
Fourth Anniversary of the WRM Bulletin
This issue of the WRM bulletin marks its fourth anniversary. During these four years we have tried to reflect the struggles and aspirations of the millions people who are trying to protect forests against the forces that destroy them. At the same time, we have tried to shed some light on the global processes and actors whose decisions and actions may impact local communities and their forests and have tried to influence them positively. It is not for us to say whether we have been successful or not in fulfilling those aims. What we can however say, is that the bulletin would have not been the same without the active participation and assistance from the numerous people and organizations who have provided us with highly useful information, articles, comments, suggestions and analysis. Additionally, the same and other people and organizations have further disseminated either the entire bulletin or selected articles to their own networks and contacts, thus helping to spread the message to many more people. To all of you, our most sincere thanks!WRM Bulletin
48
July 2001
OUR VIEWPOINT
LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS
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12 July 2001According to Cameroonian law, both local communities and industrial logging companies have the right to obtain and manage a portion of a forest. However, this apparent "equality" is extremely unequal regarding the extension of forest lands and the legal obligations associated with tenure rights. Regarding management obligations for instance, in the case of community forests the management plan has to be submitted before any activity starts. This constitutes a major constraint because communities face great difficulties to raise the funds to elaborate their management plans, and should therefore be authorised to at least cut a limited number of trees to finance the preparation of the plan.
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12 July 2001Compared to other countries in the Congo region, the Central African Republic (CAR) has a relatively small area of forest --around five million hectares-- corresponding to 8% of the country's territory. Yet in terms of commercially valuable species such as Sapelli (Entandrophragma cylindricum), Ayous (Triplochiton scleroxylon) and Sipo (Entandrophragma utile), its forests are some of the richest in Africa.
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12 July 2001Environmental and human rights organizations have recently sent an open letter to Danish timber trade corporation Dalhoff Larsen & Horneman A/S (DLH Group), calling it to stop dealing with Liberian logging companies which, besides being responsible for the serious process of deforestation that has been occurring during the last decade in Liberia, have been also found involved --according to a United Nations report-- in a number of illegal activities both in Liberia and in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
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12 July 2001For many years, fuelwood use and charcoal production have been blamed for deforestation throughout the South, though this has seldom been the truth. In the case of Senegal it is clearly false. Charcoal is a major energy source in this country, where its capital city Dakar consumes 90 per cent of all the charcoal produced from the forest. However, forests are not even close to exhaustion, and regeneration after woodcutting is reported to be quite robust. But charcoal production is resulting in other types of impacts on the local communities where it is being produced, which have usually gone unreported.
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12 July 2001Commercial-scale logging has a large number of impacts on local communities, among which the loss of sources of livelihood. One of such cases is the cutting of trees used by local people for collecting liquid resin. A report recently released by Global Witness includes valuable information on this issue. The report says that liquid resin is collected from several dipterocarp species, most commonly the Dipterocarpus alatus, which dominates Cambodia’s evergreen and semi-evergreen forest areas and is one of the most common trees to be logged. Holes are cut in the bases of the trees and the resin, which accumulates in the holes, is scooped out every three to seven days. The holes are burned out following each collection to increase the flow of resin.
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12 July 2001In July 2001, Thailand’s chief logging agency, the state-owned Forestry Industry Organisation (FIO), received “sustainable management” certification of two teak plantations. Undertaken by SmartWood, a forest management certification organisation that is accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the certification would help solve the agency’s financial troubles as well as cover up its infamous past. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) that provides aid to developing countries supported the FIO’s certification process by funding SCC Natura (formerly Swedforest International AB), a Swedish forestry consultant company, to develop a business management plan.
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12 July 2001It is common for people living far away from the forests to perceive deforestation as an exclusively environmental problem. However, for people whose livelihoods depend directly on them, forest loss is more a social than an environmental tragedy. And what is seldom perceived is that women suffer the consequences more than men. The following extracts from a case study on community forest management in India can be useful to begin to understand the issue: "Deforestation affects women much more than men, and the poorer they are the worse it is for them. Although in traditional forest communities, particularly tribal ones, there has often been a greater degree of equality between men and women than in mainstream Indian society, there still has been an unequal division of labour.
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12 July 2001It is well-known that the pulp and paper industry in Indonesia – and in the world – is environmentally and socially destructive. One of the most important companies in pulp and paper production is the Asia Pulp & Paper Company, ranking tenth in the world. One of its branches is Indah Kiat Pulp & Paper, which has a pulp and paper mill located in Perawang to the south of Sumatra.
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12 July 2001Since the beginning of May, the Champerico community has been denouncing contamination of wetlands, the logging of mangroves (activity prohibited by the Environmental Law), closing of access to public wetlands, acts of repression against fishermen (about 70% of the local population’s diet is fish) and death of fish caused by the operations of Camarones del Sur, S.A. (Camarsa). The indifference of the Guatemalan authorities towards serious infringement of the law by Camarsa, has triggered off various demonstrations, resulting in the death of a young man, Moytin Castellanos, as we had reported in WRM bulletin 46, in addition to various other people being injured.
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12 July 2001An alliance of Honduran peasants is asking the Government to halt the construction of a hydroelectric dam being built by the Energisa company in the area of Gualaco, Olancho, some 240 kilometres to the north-east of Tegucigalpa. The inhabitants affected by the project consider that it is causing damage to the environment and that the construction of the dam will prevent water being supplied to thousands of inhabitants, in addition to the fact that they may be obliged to leave their lands.
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12 July 2001No one can doubt that the world is becoming increasingly mad. The Uruguayan forestry plan was prepared by the Japanese, the Thai plan by Finns and now, the “Strategic Forestry Plan for Mexico 2025” will also be prepared by Finns.
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12 July 2001Large-scale eucalyptus plantations in the State of Espirito Santo --and their related pulp production activities-- have generated opposition since the very beginning. They were first opposed by the people more directly affected by them: the Tupinikim and Guaraní indigenous peoples, Afrobrazilian communities (quilombos) and local farmers, whose lands were appropriated to give way to the plantations. They were later joined by supportive NGOs, whose research findings on the social and environmental impacts led them to initiate campaigns to halt the further spread of plantations and to join forces with local peoples, environmental NGOs and academics to achieve that aim.
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12 July 2001A few days ago, serious events took place in the city of Temuco, ending in over 125 community members in jail, many injured and serious destruction. These incidents are the result of a long chain of encroachments that the Mapuche people have suffered throughout the whole of the twentieth century and that have not been recognised either publicly or fundamentally by the State, which continues to act in favour of forestry companies, providing them with all kinds of support, among which, placing the police force at the companies’ service.
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12 July 2001Eucalyptus Pacifico S.A. - EUCAPACIFIC is a new company set up at the end of 2000 to carry out a major eucalyptus plantation project on the Ecuadorian coast, in the Province of Esmeraldas, specifically in the Tonchigüe and Sua sector. This company, composed of transnational capital, has received approval by the Ministry of the Environment to carry out large scale plantations.
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12 July 2001"People in the Rainforest of Ecuador" is an exhibition currently running in Frankfurt's municipal botanical garden, the Palmengarten. The exhibition describes some of the vast knowledge indigenous people have of plants and ecosystems in the rainforest. The posters advertising the exhibition are sponsored by Aventis CropScience and feature the company's name and logo. As a piece of public relations it is brilliant. Aventis CropScience hopes to gain from having its name associated with indigenous expertise.
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12 July 2001Papua New Guinea's (PNG) rainforests are of global significance, comprising one of the last major tropical rainforest wildernesses in the World. Within a mere 1% of the world's land mass, it is estimated that PNG contains 5-8% of global biodiversity and that seventy five percent of this valuable forest is still standing. However, these forests are once again under threat. A number of regulations put in place during 1996-97 seemed to show the government's will to control the activities of the so-called “robber barons” --name given to the timber industrials. This situation didn't last long. During the following two years, strong lobbying of the industry --linked to the country's economic crisis-- led the government to initiate a process of reviving the timber industry.
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12 June 2001Some corporations are trying to adapt to a more environmentally-conscious public opinion. Others are still unwilling to acknowledge that they cannot continue destroying the environment with impunity. The latter are not necessarily the most dangerous, but they can certainly be the most virulent. The situation being currently faced by a WRM founder organization --the Rainforest Action Network (RAN)-- constitutes an example of such virulence.
THE CARBON SHOP FILES
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12 July 2001The World Rainforest Movement widely distributed before the meeting of the Conference of the Parties an appeal which was endorsed by more than 180 people and organizations during the first week after being issued, which among other things states that: "To avoid the climate tragedy, it is essential that a total change of direction should take place --an ecological U-turn. It is clear to us that most governments --North and South-- do not appear to be willing to take decisive action. However, a reversal of the US positions is key at this time. The World Rainforest Movement urges in the strongest terms possible for organised civil society in all the countries of the world:
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12 July 2001The Third International Forum of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on Climate Change held on July 14-15 in Bonn produced a declaration (available in full at http://www.wrm.org.uy/actors/CCC/IPBonn.html). The following is a selection of quotes from the declaration: "The discussions under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol have totally excluded the indigenous peoples to the extent that neither recognizes the right of indigenous peoples to full and effective participation and to contribute to discussions and debates. This contrasts with other international processes which assure our participation and contribution within discussions.
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12 July 2001This statement, endorsed by a large number of mainly international organizations, was released during the UN climate summit in Bonn (July 16-27) and warned "against a further weakening and distortion of the Kyoto Protocol, as governments try to accommodate the irresponsible position of the US (and a growing number of other countries)." The statement begins by stating that "current attempts to entice the US government to recommit to the Kyoto Protocol are likely to further accelerate the corruption of the Treaty. To save the Kyoto Protocol, talks should urgently shift focus from the current market mania, to discussing effective and fair solutions to climate change, beginning with domestic reductions of greenhouse gas emissions by the industrialised countries."
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12 July 2001Global debates about the role of forests and plantations in climate negotiations have paid little attention to the views of the 300 million or so forest people who inhabit them. Historically marginalised and denied recognition of their rights, forest peoples are demanding that their voices be heard and that they be respected as the rightful owners of their forests. While scientists are still unsure whether or not forests and plantations do or do not act as long-term reservoirs or sinks, politicians are already arguing about whether forests should or should not be treated as commodities in the global carbon trade.