Bulletin Issue 52 – November 2001

The issue of forests is being addressed by three major international processes: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) and the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Until recently, the three processes appeared to be moving in different and not too positive directions, but there are now some signs that the situation might be improving.

Located in the heart of the African continent, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s 2.3 million square kilometres territory covers most of the Congo River basin and has a narrow outlet into the Atlantic. The center and northern regions are covered with rainforests (1.1 million square kilometres in 1993) which, although sparsely populated, are the major livelihood for many of the country’s 48 million people who depend on the forests for non-timber forest products such as food, building materials and medicines. Though a country rich in natural resources, landlessness, competition for land and a long history of conflict have led a great proportion of its population to poverty, hunger, chronic malnutrition and indebtedness.

With a total area of 268,000 square kilometres, 80% of which are forests and many of them primary rainforests, Gabon is Africa’s second largest timber producer. Okoumé and, to a lesser extent, Ozigo wood species represent the bulk of Gabon’s production accounting for up to 80% of the country’s total timber production. Mostly based on natural resource extraction --including timber-- for export markets, Gabon’s economy has been highly vulnerable to external factors like the Asian economic crisis, which drove it to a financial crisis in 1998, higher unemployment and increased poverty and indebtedness.

During the meeting of the Subsidiary Body (SBSTTA) of the Convention of Biological Diversity held in Montreal, Canada from November 12 to 16, NGOs raised the issue of the contradiction between the Kenyan Government's commitments and actions regarding forest biodiversity conservation.

Norsk Hydro, a Norwegian corporation with investments in light metals, oil, petrochemicals and agriculture, along with Canadian transnational Alcan and India's Hindalco plans to mine bauxite on sacred tribal lands in Eastern Indian state of Orissa. The project would also process one million tonnes a year of bauxite through a joint venture with the company Utkal Alumina Industries Ltd (UAIL).

On September 15, more than 500 people from several neighbouring communities set fire to logging equipment owned by the timber company Argo Nusa, a subsidiary of the timber conglomerate Jayanti Group, owned by Bob Hasan, one of Soeharto’s cronies currently facing corruption charges.

The development of the oil palm industry in Indonesia is associated with murder, human rights violations, destruction of local communities and local cultures, and forest loss. Many local communities and NGOs have been struggling against this destructive industrial model for years, both at the local and at the international level. This struggle has recently resulted in a very important success which needs to be shared with all those involved in similar struggles.

Few large-scale industrial tree plantations have so far successfully been developed in Laos. However, companies and aid agencies are keen to promote them through changing Lao forest policy and through subsidies. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is leading the push for plantations in Laos, particularly through its US$11.2 million "Industrial Tree Plantation Project" (see WRM Bulletin 43). In 1999, the ADB funded a study carried out by Fortech, an Australian forestry consulting firm. The study is entitled "Current Constraints Affecting State and Private Investments in Industrial Tree Plantations in the Lao PDR".

Community map making has been an increasingly important tool for the indigenous communities in Sarawak. For people struggling to prove their land rights, the making of a map has been a necessary step in getting the boundaries of their lands recognised. In Sarawak, numerous NGOs have assisted communities in making maps of their village boundaries, which have then been used as evidence in court cases, as a resource management tool, and for many other purposes. Earlier this year, the community mapping work and land rights case won by a community called Rumah Nor was a huge success for the recognition of Native Customary Rights lands, and maps made by NGOs and the people of Rumah Nor were vital evidence in that victory.

Christopher Gibbs of the World Bank office in Hanoi, requested that WRM publish his response to article on Vietnam in WRM Bulletin 51. Mr Gibbs' letter is reproduced in full below, followed by Chris Lang's reply. November 16, 2001 Dear WRM, In WRM Bulletin #51, you published an article Vietnam: Shrimps, Mangroves and the World Bank by Chris Lang. This article was written and published without consulting the World Bank and, disappointingly, is inaccurate and makes a number of wrong assertions. In the interests of accuracy and your readers I would request that you publish on your website this response. 1. The World Bank's position on aquaculture in Vietnam

Some years ago, geologists from the Aluminium Company of America (ALCOA) found that important bauxite deposits were present in the subsoil of the El General Valley in Costa Rica. In 1970, the country’s Legislative Assembly passed law No. 4562, relative to an industrial contract whereby ALCOA has (or had, we still do not know), the right to exploit, for 25 years and with a possible 15 year extension, a volume of up to 120 million tons of bauxite and the obligation to install an aluminium refinery in the same Canton.

Digna Ochoa, the lawyer defending Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera recently liberated (see article in this section), untiring defender of peasant rights, has been murdered. At 37, she had spent over 10 years defending the rights of the communities from an unjust system privatising local forest resources in favour of major national and foreign companies. Her murder is a symbol, both of the dignity of the Mexican people, and of the unworthiness of those holding power.

It is with great pleasure that we received news on Thursday 8 November that a few hours previously, Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, the environmentalist peasants, unjustly imprisoned in Guerrero since May 1999, had been liberated. President Fox has not recognised their innocence, but under the pressure of the unanimous claim of Mexican and international society, he has pardoned them for humanitarian reasons.

In February last year, “Río Foyel S.A.” a company set up in March 1999 and recent owner of a 7,800 hectare plot located in the zone of El Foyel, in the southern province of Rio Negro, submitted a project for the logging of four thousand hectares of ñire native forest and then reforestation of the zone with exotic Oregon and Radiata pine and the “sustainable” management of over 1,800 hectares of native species (see WRM Bulletin 38, September 2000). The ñire is a native species, essential in the conservation of the biodiversity of the Cordillera forests, even the most degraded ones, and the plot in question borders with the Nahuel Huapi National Park, near the tourist city of Bariloche.

What has recently happened in the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo is a great motivation for people struggling throughout the world to halt the further spread of monoculture tree plantations. The news is that the State Parliament finally passed a law --after lifting the Governor's veto by 20 votes in 25-- which bans eucalyptus plantations in the state until an agroecological mapping --which will determine where eucalyptus can and cannot be planted-- is carried out. To our knowledge, this is the first case where a law is passed to stop this type of damaging plantations and therefore sets an extremely important precedent on the matter, which can be used by people being impacted by plantations in other countries.

For some time now we have been addressing the issue of oil palm plantations. But it was in our June 2001 special bulletin --entirely devoted to the subject-- and in the book "The Bitter Fruit of Oil Palm: dispossession and deforestation", that we entered more specifically into the derivations that this large-scale monoculture has on the situation of the workers. Thus, continuing along these lines, it is now the turn of the workers from the trade union of the Empresa de Plantaciones Unipalma de los Llanos S.A., to talk. This company has oil palm plantations in the regions of the Meta and Cundinamarca llanos, in Colombia.

Throughout the world, tree plantations and the installation of pulp mills are promoted by governments using, among others, the argument that these activities generate employment. However the true situation shows how false this argument is.

The International Tropical Timber Organization has dedicated an entire issue of its Newsletter (Vol. 11 No 3, 2001) to tree plantations. Unfortunately, the ITTO has chosen to publicize their allegedly positive impacts, while basically ignoring the numerous struggles against them resulting from the broad range of negative social and environmental impacts they entail. The opening paragraph of the first article sets the scenario: "The way some people talk, tree plantations are the answer to more than a few global problems. They reduce deforestation, restore degraded land, fight climate change, improve local livelihoods, return good profits, create employment and bolster national economies."

The 7th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Climate Change was held in Morocco from October 29 to November 9, 2001. On October 31, forest activists from the Global Forest Coalition and announced in a side event three nominations for the "Treetanic Award". The "Treetanic Award" is handed over during the climate negotiations to the companies implementing the worst carbon sink projects, such as the monoculture tree plantations which are currently being implemented to avoid reduction of CO2 emissions.

Representatives of the Indigenous Peoples present at the 7th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held in Morocco in November this year, issued a declaration demanding recognition of their rights and warning on the danger of the so-called “carbon sinks.” The following paragraphs are part of this declaration, available in Spanish on our web page (http://www.wrm.org.uy/actores/CCC/IPMarrakesh.html).